A review by lory_enterenchanted
The Café with No Name by Robert Seethaler

emotional funny hopeful lighthearted reflective

3.0

A pleasant read, but I didn't become as invested in the characters as I expected from other reviews. I wondered sometimes about the translator's choices -- there were some odd words sprinkled in, but perhaps that was a reflection of odd words used in the German. I also found it strange that the vanished, murdered Jews of Vienna were never once mentioned. (In 1938 there were over 200,000, in 1951 9000, today even fewer). One time only there is a flippant comment that half the people in Vienna are Nazis. But otherwise, the war that is sometimes mentioned as being in the recent past is in no way connected with the Holocaust. Maybe this was an intentional comment on people's wish to forget an uncomfortable past? I just found it strange, as characters in the book would surely have known many Jews -- including café owners.