Romance

Love and romance form the backbone of Seethaler's theorizing about human nature despite the novel's more overt interests in the political landscape of Austria in the 1930s. These musings primarily take shape around the relationship between Franz and Anezka, but they have resonances in other relationships that fill the background of the novel. Ultimately, Seethaler seeks to celebrate love as an integral part of the human experience, one that ought to be fulfilled both in defiance of the heartache around it and in spite of the heartache it causes.

Crucially, Franz's infatuation with Anezka is never presented by Seethaler as one that seems likely to bear fruit. Though Franz couches his limited interactions with Anezka in exultation and optimism, her behavior to the reader is evidently shifty; she and her friends giggle at Franz when she first meets him, she disappears before the night is over...