Very Good

Autor(en)

Wolfgang Treitler

Abstrakt

Wolfgang Treitler’s debut English novel, Very Good, is a grim portrait of a life weighed down by the lingering effects of physical and sexual violence in childhood. When Wolfgang Sattler receives an email from a name he had not seen for forty years—but one he had never forgotten—he is forced to revisit a part of his childhood he was happy to forget. In the early 1970s, Wolfgang is dropped off at a well-thought-of boarding school by his parents. He suffers bullies, unappetizing food, strict rules, and failing grades, but his true torment comes in the form of an assistant educator from Belgium named Louis Pigasse. Mr. Pigasse, who is entrusted with the responsibilities to look after the young children not only in education but in discipline and order, begins to target Wolfgang, who receives several physical punishments that the young child knew was unmerited. However, when he informs his parents of one particularly vicious beating, and after his father complains to the head educator, Pigasse threatens Wolfgang with expulsion should he ever report anything else to his parents, x all the while insisting that he did not beat the young child, that he was only guiding him to the right path. Physical violence then leads to sexual abuse when Pigasse gets Wolfgang alone one night. The young child is devastated and humiliated. He grows distant from his classmates and looks to avoid Pigasse and the school in general. Wolfgang however begins to be less afraid and more angry at Pigasse and what had happened as years pass and he grows taller and stronger. He is however unable to fully put his ghost to rest before Pigasse leaves his teaching post at the boarding school. Now a middle-aged man, Wolfgang realizes he needs to confront his now-seventy-year- old tormentor and finally achieve the peace his schoolboy self was deprived of.

Organisation(en)

Institut für Systematische Theologie und Ethik

Anzahl der Seiten

202

Publikationsdatum

2023

ÖFOS 2012

603206 Fundamentaltheologie, 501009 Kinder- und Jugendpsychologie, 602008 Anglistik, 603103 Ethik

Schlagwörter

ASJC Scopus Sachgebiete

Psychology(all), Social Sciences(all)

Sustainable Development Goals

SDG 16 – Frieden, Gerechtigkeit und starke Institutionen

Link zum Portal

https://ucris.univie.ac.at/portal/de/publications/very-good(27038366-00c3-4291-ae72-bf542153c066).html