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The Assault
 
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The Assault (Paperback)

by Harry Mulisch (Author)
4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
RRP: £9.50
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The Assault + Death in Rome + The Heat of the Day (Vintage classics)
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Product details

  • Paperback: 192 pages
  • Publisher: Pantheon Books Inc; American ed edition (1 Mar 2002)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0394744209
  • ISBN-13: 978-0394744209
  • Product Dimensions: 20.1 x 13 x 1.5 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 96,452 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

    Popular in this category:

    #78 in  Books > Fiction > World > German

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Product Description

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.

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74% buy the item featured on this page:
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Customer Reviews

7 Reviews
5 star:
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4 star:
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Average Customer Review
4.6 out of 5 stars (7 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars The Assault by Harry Mulisch, 13 Mar 2004
By IAN CATCHPOLE (United Kingdom) - See all my reviews
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.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Haunted and haunting, 23 Jul 2005
By Ralph Blumenau (London United Kingdom) - See all my reviews
(TOP 100 REVIEWER)   
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

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19 of 23 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars A Masterwork, 31 May 2003
By Peter Reeve (Thousand Oaks, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)      
When my work took me to Holland for a few months, I asked people there what Dutch novels they would recommend. They all said "The Assault". It would certainly be an exageration to say that Holland has no literature, but not much of an exageration. It is renowned for its great painters and architects, not its writers. But in "The Assault" at least, they have produced an indisputable masterpiece. If you read just one Dutch novel, this has to be it.

An exquisitely poignant evocation of life in German-occupied Holland in World War II, it invites the reader to make moral judgements and then systematically undermines those judgements. It is a restrained, undemonstrative, beautifully written work that unfolds gradually and in a most unexpected way. Highly recommended.

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Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful
This book is an excellent, stimulating read - I highly recommend it.
Published on 11 Jan 2004 by nutsie81

4.0 out of 5 stars Great story, moving, interesting and beautifully written
At almost the end of the war a tyrannical local Dutch police chief is assassinated outside the house of an innocent family. Read more
Published on 12 Nov 2001

4.0 out of 5 stars To be read
I've read this book in Dutch and I have to admit that it really kept me busy for a while afterwards. Read more
Published on 13 Oct 2000

5.0 out of 5 stars You will never forget *The Assault*
This is a wonderful and moving book. Without any sensationalism or sentimentality, Harry Mulisch's story sucks you in. When it finally spits you out again you will be changed.
Published on 8 Sep 1998

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