Robert, Andreas and déjà vu

 

On my way back from Canada, flying far above the endless acres of wilderness, something drew me to the film Train Dreams on the in-flight entertainment. A good choice, I think. It reminded me of the life my grandparents must have had when they emigrated to Canada in the 1930s and built up what my cousin referred to as a homestead.

But it also, strangely, reminded me somehow of home in Germany and how that all came about. Meeting my husband in an Austrian mountain hut. Gradually, it dawned on me. Train Dreams is the American cousin of A Whole Life (Ein ganzes Leben) by Robert Seethaler. 

Both are the story of one simple man’s life, with identical plot points (orphan beginnings, dangerous outdoor work, brief happiness with wife and child until disaster strikes, coming to terms - or not - with old age and the world’s progress). The overall themes of the beauty and dignity of solitude, the interaction of man and landscape are common to both. The time and feel of the settings are similar, even though the actual places are far apart.

Although Seethaler’s work came first for me (the book was published in 2015, the film followed in 2023) Denis Johnson’s novella first appeared in 2002 and was republished in a different form in 2011. So if anyone can be accused of copy-catting, it’s Seethaler and not Johnson. 

But I’m prepared to give Seethaler the benefit of the doubt. We got this frequently when I worked at the ad agency. Similar ideas would pop up all the time. Call it spirit of the age or maybe synchronicity - coincidences that seem menaingful but with no apparent causal connection. 

Madame Bovary, Anna Karenina and Effi Briest are all the same story. And, in the same way that 19th century readers had an appetite for extra-marital affairs and their consequences, perhaps 21st century readers and viewers need stories about the simple life, about our place in nature and the satisfaction of solitude. 

To me, it’s less copy-catting and more about tuning in to our collective humanity and what’s missing from our lives.