Brave Horse: The Story of Janus

A 40-something year old man has been living a relatively pointless existence consisting of teaching classes that no one cares about, watching trashy movies, and having meaningless affairs with various women. One day he develops some medical problems, worries that he might be dying of cancer, and fears that his life will come to an end without ever having meant anything. He drops everything in his current life and returns to his hometown to seek out a lost love from childhood (with another freshly acquired woman in tow). By the end of the book, it is not clear if he has really grown at all, but at least maybe he can get a new start. I found the book to be kind of depressing, especially the sad outcome of his eventual meeting with his lost love. We can probably all sympathize (at least in general) with his regrets about what might have been, but aside from that I didn't really identify with the protagonist that much and just wanted to yell at him to grow up. I read this book in the original (I have been reading a pile of random German books for language practice). Its simple and terse prose style made it pretty easy reading.