The Simple Life

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In 1916, Captain Thomas von Orla fights against the British Royal Navy in the Battle of Jutland. Two years later, a mutiny erupts aboard his ship, and rather than firing on a sailor who lowers the flag, Thomas allows himself to be thrown overboard. He survives, rescued by his chief petty officer, Friedrich Wilhelm Bildermann. Five years after the war, Thomas struggles to process his experiences. A pivotal moment leads him to the realization of Psalm 90, prompting him to leave his family and city for East Prussia. There, he seeks meaning through work and encounters a seemingly intact Prussian world of the Weimar Republic. He forms significant relationships with General von Platen, his granddaughter Marianne, Forester Gruber, and Count Natango Pernein, a reclusive intellectual. The General becomes his patron, granting him freedom on Fisher Island, where Thomas writes two books on morality in war. These works face resistance from readers unwilling to accept Germany as a war loser. After Count Natango's death, Thomas inherits his estate, including a castle with a library and laboratory, where he begins to research and read, concluding that "the seen is greater than the thought."