Jeff Lynch is a retired Australian art teacher, film and beer buff whose inquiring mind, thirst and wanderlust led him on a quest for the legendary Berggeist, the German mountain spirit of the wilderness. These 44 letters to his young grandson Angus are whimsical word paintings of his travels through Europe and the United Kingdom. In sunshine, fog and passing fancy, he battles with the dregs of depression, his love of family and nature, the paradox of art and the artist and the tragedy of political persecution while his amorous and humorous encounters reveal his own inner Berggeist.
In the early summer of 2010, the author travelled to Vienna on a shiny new Qatar jet. He had been reading Hermann Hesse’s novel ‘Steppenwolf’ before he left. He had also delved into Ludwig Beethoven’s artistic times and struggles in Vienna and both of these matters influenced his ‘Berggeist Letters Vol Two’.After visiting several mountain towns in Austria and parts of the Wachau Region along the Danube, he travels to Graz in the south and through the Tyrol by train to Innsbruck. He is aiming at first, for a small town in Germany called Memmigen. Here he hopes to find information concerning an artist called Josef Madlener.
He writes of the life and times of the immortal Huckleberry Finn, the ice caves outside of Salzberg, not to mention the Berggeist who seems to have been prepared to hike many mountain miles to see him at an inn in the Linzergasse in Salzberg. And Mozart is once again much on Jeff Lynch’s mind at this time until at last he comes to a hotel called The Hotel Odeon. After visiting several mountain towns in Austria and parts of the Wachau Region along the Danube, he travels to Graz in the south and through the Tyrol by train to Innsbruck. He is aiming at first for a small town in Germany called Memmigen. Here he hopes to find information concerning an artist called Josef Madlener.
Josef has been responsible for several startling images of Berggeists. He then visits Augsburg, and then the busy Danube tourist cities of Regensburg, Straubing, Passau, and then finally Salzburg.
He writes of the life and times of the immortal Hucklebury Finn, the ice caves outside of Salzburg, not to mention the Berggeist who seems to have been prepared to hike many mountain miles to see him at an inn in Salzburg. And Mozart is once again much on Jeff Lynch’s mind by this time.
The Berggeist suggests that he continues on towards Frieburg to the north but warns him that he should think about returning to Vienna. It seems that a woman is waiting for him in that city. And so it proves to be when he comes to the Hotel Odeon. He writes of art, old age, history, music and of philosophy and terror. He walks the Danube awhile and the love of all things mountainous and Germanic are all in this very poetic book of letters written to his grandson Angus.
