4 h 43 minAudiobook8 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at costPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
What weighs more: the life a man lives, or the one he almost lives?
In Bernhard Kellermann’s Schwedenklee’s Experience, one man’s fate brings fortune and regret into focus. Schwedenklee stands at the centre of a novel about what a person gains, what he loses, and what might have been. The pull lies in character: how a man looks back at his own past.
Fortune here invites more than one reading: money and success, but also luck and the force of chance. As Schwedenklee considers his life, the novel asks you to notice moments when his view of it shifts. What does a life look like when seen through regret?
What you’ll discover
- One man’s fate Follow Schwedenklee through a story that places personal experience at its heart.
- The meanings of fortune Consider money, success, and luck as different ways to understand what shapes a life.
- The weight of regret Explore the distance between what a person gains and what he feels he loses.
- A changing view Notice the moments when Schwedenklee seems to see his own past differently.
- The life almost lived Sit with the question of what might have been, rather than rushing past it.
Who will love it
Readers who enjoy a gentle comic novel with a touch of ghost story, a close study of one man's vanity and tenderness, and old Berlin cafés, cards and billiards, with the Baltic coast for contrast.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- A lucky man in a comfortable world
- A black-edged letter breaks the routine
- Ellen in Paris and Blank at the door
- A rival, a fever and a summons
- A new life at Siebenbirken
- What the story is about and how it is told
Who’s who
- Philipp SchwedenkleeA wealthy, vain and kindly Berlin architect of forty-five who has drifted through life on luck and now wants one real chance at happiness.
- Edgar BlankA once-famous opera singer ruined by illness, dramatic and proud, who writes to Schwedenklee about his dead wife and has one last request.
- Ellen FroehlichA charming young woman Schwedenklee knew in Paris and let slip away, whom he remembers twenty years later with shame and longing.
- Ellen BlankBlank's young daughter, shy and grieving, who loves animals and the stage and wants to shape a life of her own.
- Nelly WiedehopfA stylish bookkeeper with a tower of hair and a fine voice who invents stories and expects Schwedenklee to pay for her ambitions.
- AugustaSchwedenklee's excellent cook, prone to tears and sulks, who sees more of her master's heart than he supposes.
- Richard PohlA cheerful young singer and old family friend who arrives at Siebenbirken full of noise, games and plans for Ellen.
Formats and delivery
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- Large-print eBook
- The same book in bigger, clearer type, from the first page.
- Audiobook
- 4 h 43 min, complete, read by Lucas Linden.
- 15-minute summary
- The key ideas in about 8 minutes, to read or to hear.
- Paperback
- 6 × 9 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Hardcover
- 6 × 9 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Large print paperback
- 8.5 × 11 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Large print hardcover
- 8.5 × 11 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
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La experiencia de Schwedenklee
A well-fed Berlin bachelor gets letters from a stranger about a dead woman he cannot remember loving.
Medium level2–5 hours to read25 languages
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In short
It follows Philipp Schwedenklee, a wealthy Berlin architect of forty-five who has never had to struggle for anything. His money came from his father, a bricklayer turned builder.
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
A lucky man in a comfortable world
The novel opens by asking why some people seem pursued by luck. The answer it gives is Philipp Schwedenklee, an architect who owns a fine house in the old West End of Berlin, building plots on the Kurfürstendamm and an estate in Mecklenburg. His fortune came from his father, who began as a mason at fifteen and ended as a rich contractor. The son has his father's gift for houses and his mother's iron stomach.
Schwedenklee's career starts well. He wins a competition for a small museum, designs a villa for his father, and returns from Italy and Paris elegant and expert at billiards. A grand building he makes on the Kurfürstendamm nearly ruins him, but the new cinema trade saves him by turning it into a movie theater. Then he withdraws to his ground floor apartment to write a book on rebuilding Berlin around its rivers.
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What is Schwedenklee's Experience about?
It follows Philipp Schwedenklee, a rich and comfortable Berlin architect whose routine is disturbed by letters from a stranger about a woman he loved long ago. The story moves from Berlin cafés to a country estate by the Baltic Sea.
Who is Ellen in Schwedenklee's Experience?
There are two. Ellen Froehlich was a young woman Schwedenklee knew in Paris and later died as Blank's wife. Ellen Blank is their daughter.
Who is Edgar Blank in the novel?
Blank is a former court opera singer who once knew Schwedenklee only in passing. He writes the letters, brings a faded photograph, and becomes a strange, dramatic friend whose illness and poverty move the story forward.
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