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A review by ladulcinella
De tweeling by Tessa de Loo
3.0
The book is enjoyable and historically correct(in general). It is not great literature though...
It tells a nice story, with interesting characters and asks a few pertinent questions.
The story of twins who got seperated as young children and who meet at an older age gives an interesting starting point. One of the twins stayed in Germany and lived there during the war, finding herself at the losing side afterwards. The other twin was raised in the Netherlands and helped with hiding jews, still hating Germans.
The central elements in the novel are:
a)is a character formed by education or birth (nurture /nature debate). To answer this question twins are interesting study objects
b) what was the life of normal women like during WWII, both in Germany as in the Netherlands.
Attention is given to the suffering, also of the Germans.
What annoyed me was the superiority the Dutch twin sometimes let slip through, as she was on the good side. (as a personal remark: the way she describes the superiority of the dutch family is based on an underlying false premise as very few jews in the netherlands survived the war. )
c) Is there something like ‘collective guilt’?
It is a good read, esp. interesting for fans of historical fiction or for those who want to know more about WWII without tons of battles and blood.
It tells a nice story, with interesting characters and asks a few pertinent questions.
The story of twins who got seperated as young children and who meet at an older age gives an interesting starting point. One of the twins stayed in Germany and lived there during the war, finding herself at the losing side afterwards. The other twin was raised in the Netherlands and helped with hiding jews, still hating Germans.
The central elements in the novel are:
a)is a character formed by education or birth (nurture /nature debate). To answer this question twins are interesting study objects
b) what was the life of normal women like during WWII, both in Germany as in the Netherlands.
Attention is given to the suffering, also of the Germans.
What annoyed me was the superiority the Dutch twin sometimes let slip through, as she was on the good side. (as a personal remark: the way she describes the superiority of the dutch family is based on an underlying false premise as very few jews in the netherlands survived the war. )
c) Is there something like ‘collective guilt’?
It is a good read, esp. interesting for fans of historical fiction or for those who want to know more about WWII without tons of battles and blood.