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3.62 AVERAGE
3.62 AVERAGE
dark
emotional
mysterious
sad
medium-paced
dark
emotional
informative
mysterious
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Death of parent, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, War
Minor: Suicide, Car accident
i read this in dutch, but it’s nowhere on goodreads so lol here we are
okay prepare yourself...
this book was; very boring and awkwardly written, it was harsh and abrupt to the point where i wanted to slam the book into the wall and the diction was amazingly confusing and obscure which led to me being distanced from the book in a way that made me want to tear the pages out
so first of all, well done mulisch for making me dislike a book that’s not even 200 pages long and where in the end nothing whatsoever happened except for the fact that i came to hate all the characters and want to cry
am i being a bit harsh and irrational?
-probably
do i have the knowledge and experience to review a book that is somehow accepted and soaked up in the dutch society as a ‘omg-this-book-is-something-every-student-has-to-read’ kind of book????
-ahahahahaha probably not
will any of those things withhold me from writing and posting this review and/or writing a statement for my test about this book???
-NOPE
disclaimer: there areeeee good things about this book (even tho they’re unsaid) that’s why i gave it 2 stars and not just 1, i’m just not in the mood to write about the things that were ‘okayish’ i’ll do that in the test my teacher has in store for me
*micdrop*
(spoiler, my teachers got MAD at me for writing this review, lol)
okay prepare yourself...
this book was; very boring and awkwardly written, it was harsh and abrupt to the point where i wanted to slam the book into the wall and the diction was amazingly confusing and obscure which led to me being distanced from the book in a way that made me want to tear the pages out
so first of all, well done mulisch for making me dislike a book that’s not even 200 pages long and where in the end nothing whatsoever happened except for the fact that i came to hate all the characters and want to cry
am i being a bit harsh and irrational?
-probably
do i have the knowledge and experience to review a book that is somehow accepted and soaked up in the dutch society as a ‘omg-this-book-is-something-every-student-has-to-read’ kind of book????
-ahahahahaha probably not
will any of those things withhold me from writing and posting this review and/or writing a statement for my test about this book???
-NOPE
disclaimer: there areeeee good things about this book (even tho they’re unsaid) that’s why i gave it 2 stars and not just 1, i’m just not in the mood to write about the things that were ‘okayish’ i’ll do that in the test my teacher has in store for me
*micdrop*
(spoiler, my teachers got MAD at me for writing this review, lol)
dark
emotional
reflective
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
informative
mysterious
reflective
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
At first, I was very confused as to where this whole story was going. In the end, it left me with a sense of morality (or immorality for that matter) and a very pleasant closure.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Gun violence, Violence, Blood, Kidnapping, Death of parent, Murder, War, Injury/Injury detail
In the last days of the second world war Anton Steenwijk his parents and his older brother are enjoying normal family life. They hear a shot and see that a man has been shot outside the small group of houses in which they live. the body is then moved to outside their house. The body is that of a known collaborator with the Nazi's a brutal man , but when the Germans arrive on the scene their reaction is severe and the events that unfold leave Anton eventually in the care of his Uncle and aunt in Amsterdam. The book then visits Anton again through 5 subsequent stages in his life up to 1981. Within those chapters he confronts the events of that night and how they have haunted him and those other individuals whose lives it touched. These include the son of the collaborator , one of the resistance fighters who fired the shot, and finally the daughter of the family outside of whose hose the body originally fell.
This is a book that read in one breath like a thriller but ultimately is a very profound contemplation on the cruelty of men in war, and the fact that a single event can have effects that ripple throughout an individuals adult life. The conversations that Anton has with the various characters are very well done leaving the reader unclear as to their sympathies and Anton's life is sympathetically drawn as we grow old with him as his past impacts on his own relationships. The finale knocked me sideways with something I didn't expect and it completely pulled away all my thoughts about the original incident.
An excellent book .
This is a book that read in one breath like a thriller but ultimately is a very profound contemplation on the cruelty of men in war, and the fact that a single event can have effects that ripple throughout an individuals adult life. The conversations that Anton has with the various characters are very well done leaving the reader unclear as to their sympathies and Anton's life is sympathetically drawn as we grow old with him as his past impacts on his own relationships. The finale knocked me sideways with something I didn't expect and it completely pulled away all my thoughts about the original incident.
An excellent book .
challenging
emotional
informative
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
adventurous
dark
emotional
inspiring
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
emotional
mysterious
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
What I liked most about this book was how it showed the poignant banality of the central, tragic event. Anton loses his entire family because his neighbours move the felled body of a Nazi collaborator in front of his house, and his loss haunts him for the rest of his life through chance encounters and lasting trauma, but the two reasons (one absurd, one irrefutably simple) for his neighbours' actions are simply what they are. With that final revelation of their motives, Mulisch drives home his point: that conflict creates conditions where the human cost is inevitable, even without concepts of 'good' and 'evil' coming into the question.