Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #204983 in Books
• Published on: 2002-03-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 192 pages

Synopsis
The execution of a collaborator and Nazi retaliation on the family of twelve-year-old Anton Steenwijk have lasting repercussions in Anton's life as he learns, through chance encounters, the truth of one harrowing night.

Customer Reviews

Haunted and haunting
In a Haarlem street the Dutch Resistance kills an active collaborator. In retaliation the Germans have destroyed a house in that street in which live ten-year-oldAnton Steenwijk with his parents and elder brother. Anton survives, but his parents and brother are killed. As Anton grows up, he wants to suppress all memories of that time, and it is not a coincidence that he chooses to become an anaesthetist. But of course the trauma is buried within him, and affects his mental life in many ways, some that are inexplicable to him. But the members of the resistance who had carried out the assassination are haunted also, by their knowledge that their deed had led to uninvolved people being shot. All these states of mind are explored in this story, as much that lay concealed emerges over the 36 years after the event. The reader is engaged as taut knots are loosened and unwound.

During all this time the world moves on and new political issues arise - Vietnam; the anti-nuclear movement. Do they leave the old issues behind or are they connected with them?

This short book's limpid prose is very precise, profound and rich in unobtrusive symbolism. It is all very compelling

The Assault by Harry Mulisch
Anyone who has ever had to face something in their life that has shaped the way in which their life has progressed will find the pyschology of this book fascinating. It deals with good and evil, love and hate, meaning and misunderstanding and the relentess connectedness of events that influences us all. Anton, the main character at first buries, but then realises that he is haunted by the tragic events that befall his family. Even though it takes his whole life to discover the truth of what had happened to them, this is nothing more than a series of coincidences. The effect of the defining events at the beginning of the book on the lives of everyone involved and the motives behind their individual judgements leaves you questioning the certainity of your own moral code and the nature of truth.

Wonderful
This book is an excellent, stimulating read - I highly recommend it.