The cinematic highlight of the year for me occurred last Saturday evening, when I finally got around to watching The Lives of Others (Das Leben der Anderen), Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck’s superb portrayal of a Stasi agent who, for reasons that are never really made wholly clear, risks everything to save some people from a system which he had hitherto ruthlessly served. When (spoiler alert) at the end of the film Gerd Wiesler (Ulrich Mühe, whose remarkable performance is glazed with the added poignancy stemming the actor’s recent death) opens a copy of Georg Dreyman’s Sonata for a Good Man and reads “To HGW XX/7, with gratitude,” my eyesight went sort of funny, momentarily doubling the image of this Good Man telling the bookshop assistant, “Es ist für mich”–“It's for me.”

Those who have seen the picture will know what I mean.

I’ll share my views of Anne Enright’s Booker-prizewinning The Gathering later this week