Reading by Gernot Berger, Münster "The border crosser - experiences of a hearing impaired person"

Review by Peter Hölterhoff

Walter has several hearing impairments in the book. His hearing is impaired on the right and he wears a hearing aid, on the left he is deaf and has a CI, and he is also plagued by tinnitus. To top it all off, he also suffers from hearing sensitivity.
He would like to realise his long-held dream of travelling through France with his wife Susanne. He takes private lessons with the frivolously beguiling Nadine to improve his poor to non-existent knowledge of French.
Not only does Nadine get him into embarrassing situations, but his hearing loss also leads to unpredictable events.
Gernot Beger takes us with the protagonist Walter into the emotional world of the hearing impaired. He vividly shows us the problems of CI and hearing aid users.
The reluctance to participate in conversations, poor understanding in background noise, over-loud hearing in certain situations and noises, the enormous amount of energy that has to be expended in order to listen with concentration and the associated exhaustion and much more is conveyed to the reader sensitively and with a twinkle in his eye. An eloquent and humorous tone accompanies us on Walter's everyday adventures. I liked the narrative, which is well and fluently told and a pleasure to read, although I felt that the study of collective intelligence considered in the story was too lengthily explained.
The fact that Gernot Berger can describe the difficulties, hardships and fears associated with hearing loss so aptly is surely also due to the fact that he himself wears a hearing aid and a CI. He writes in the appendix that some of the little episodes about poor hearing and the associated problems and misunderstandings stem from actual experiences. However, he does not tell us whether he actually shredded his CI while mowing the lawn.
Gernot Beger, born in 1950, grew up in Neuss on the Rhine, is married and has a son. He studied economics in Duisburg and worked as a bank director in the corporate finance department of a specialist bank in Düsseldorf until 2011. He now lives in Münster and devotes himself to writing.

The event is free of charge.

Organiser: Self-help group for the hearing impaired in the Borken district

http://www.selbsthilfegruppe-schwerhoerige.de