Summary of The Simple LifeÂ
“The Simple Life” by Ernst Wiechert tells the story of Thomas von Orla, a German navy veteran of the First World War, who turns his back on civilisation and chooses to live a modest but honest life as a fisherman in the Masurian Lake District in East-Prussia (present-day Poland).
Reasons to read The Simple LifeÂ
“The Simple Life” is an anti-war novel and a homage to the beautiful nature of Masuria. The novel is a quest for inner peace and the meaning of life through an escape from the modern world. Ernst Wiechert was one of the most widely read German novelists of the 1930s and a strong opponent of Nazism. He was imprisoned in Buchenwald camp and published his memories of the camp in 1946 as “The Forest of the Dead” (“Der Totenwald”). After protests at home and abroad, he was released and placed under strict observation by the Nazis. His novel “The Simple Life” was a way to cope with his suffering and became a bestseller in Germany, even during the war, despite negative statements by Nazi censors. The novel was a consolation and a guiding light to many Germans during the Second World War and thereafter.
Setting: Masurian Lake District (Poland)
Novel set in Poland: Masurian Lake District, former East-Prussia (Wiechert grew up in Piersławek)
Original title: Das einfache Leben
Year of publication: 1939
Nr of pages: 352
