Bernhard Schlink is finest recognized for his 1995 novel The Reader, which has develop into a basic of Holocaust literature. It tells the story of a 15-year-old boy, dwelling in postwar Germany, who falls right into a passionate love affair with an older girl. Later he discovers that his former lover was a guard in a Nazi focus camp.
Since then, Schlink has revealed two brief story collections and a sequence of novels: some literary fiction and a few crime. Like The Reader, most of those books discover the difficulties of making an attempt to put the previous to relaxation. This new novel returns once more to themes of reminiscence, trauma and the impossibility of reconciliation. Nonetheless, this time his topic is German reunification and the legacy of the German Democratic Republic.
The story begins when Kaspar, an aged bookseller dwelling in trendy Berlin, finds his spouse, Birgit, useless within the bathtub. Her demise isn’t suicide, however Kaspar is conscious of the half that alcohol performed in her demise – and her life. Stuffed by a “weary anger”, he acknowledges the truth that Birgit was at all times an individual of concealment, warning, reserve. Looking out by means of her emails and notebooks, he’s taken again into their shared previous.
Remembering how he arrived in Berlin as a younger man in 1964, he recollects his starvation to see the “entire Germany” and “to seek out not variations however issues in widespread”. When he crossed to the East for a day, he was thought of “a category enemy”, however nonetheless he met Birgit and fell in love. Collectively they shaped a plan for her to cross the border into West Berlin. Their plan succeeded however, like Orpheus, Kaspar knew that he mustn’t ever look again.
Now he begins to know his spouse as a lady eternally in flight. He additionally discovers that she left a child behind in East Berlin. Birgit was at all times haunted by the lack of this child, however her notebooks reveal her bitter admission that she was “not an individual able to looking out, not of discovering, not of writing”. Kaspar decides that he should now attempt to undertake the search that Birgit couldn’t try.
His quest takes him to a rural neo-Nazi settlement within the former East Germany and a stepgranddaughter, Sigrun, who’s an enthusiastic adherent of far-right ideologies. As Kaspar makes an attempt to “save” Sigrun, he’s compelled to confront his personal prejudices, plus the tragedies, contradictions and complexities of German reunification. In that course of, many had been winners. However what has develop into of the losers?
Birgit and others like her struggled with the have to be endlessly grateful for all that West Germany was giving them. She by no means mourned the GDR itself, however she actually yearned for that thrilling and idealistic time when East Germans passionately wished to be a part of “the brand new, good period” and create “a brand new nation for brand new folks”. Quickly not solely the dream however the nation itself was gone. “Those that left can by no means return; our exile by no means ends.”
As a author who has revealed crime fiction, Schlink is aware of learn how to inform a gripping yarn, and this novel actually succeeds on the degree of narrative. The occasions portrayed are satisfyingly stunning and he convincingly illuminates the turbulent historical past of his nation, plus the best way a tiny minority cling to the concepts of nationwide socialism. He’s additionally admirably keen to go away questions unresolved, characters unhealed.
Nonetheless, the nice success of The Reader arose from the truth that, whereas telling a robust story, it was additionally lyrical, vivid and atmospheric. Regrettably, in The Granddaughter an extra of plot submerges place and character. The dialogue is usually contrived, the language lower than recent. Key scenes really feel rushed and underdeveloped. The character of Sigrun is intriguing however not at all times credible.
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However, it is a rewarding and splendidly readable novel. It’s refreshing that even the far-right characters should not wholly with out redeeming options. Schlink stays a perceptive chronicler of contemporary Germany.
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