The Dark Room tells the stories of three ordinary Germans: Helmut, a young photographer in Berlin in the 1930s who uses his craft to express his patriotic fervour; Lore, a twelve-year-old girl who in 1945 guides her young siblings across a devastated Germany after her Nazi parents are seized by the Allies; and, fifty years later, Micha, a young teacher obsessed with what his loving grandfather did in the war, struggling to deal with the past of his family and his country. (20020220)
The Dark Room
and over 1.5 million other books are available for Amazon Kindle . Learn more
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||
Did you know you can trade in your old books for an Amazon.co.uk Gift Card to spend on the things you want? Visit the Books Trade-In Store for more details. Learn more. |
Book Description
Frequently Bought Together
Product details
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
More About the Author
Discover books, learn about writers, and more.
Product Description
Amazon Review
The Dark Room is a careful study of three Germans affected by the Second World War: Helmut the young photographer with the deformed arm; Lore the 12-year-old who manages to get her refugee siblings to Hamburg in 1945; and Micha the young teacher who pursues the truth about his grandfather's war years 50 years later. Micha is the most instructive in getting to the core of this book:
I think they should read about the people who did it, too. The real, everyday people, you know. Not just Hitler and Eichmann and whoever. All the underlings, I mean. The students should learn about their lives, the ones who really did the killing.Seiffert writes about the "real, everyday people", about the ones who didn't actually "do it". She writes chronologically, from Helmut's birth in 1921 to Micha living in Germany in 1997, and widens the time-frame with each story.
Helmut is unable to join up because of his weak arm--his parents become ashamed of him in Nazi Germany. Yet by taking part in the last-ditch stand against the Russian invasion of Berlin in 1945 he is at last happy. His story, represented through his tiny photographer's lens, is indicative of his own narrow vision. Seiffert widens her view with Lore, and her encounter with Thomas, a young man who has blue-smudged numbers up his arm and (false) documents saying he is Jewish. As a well-off 12-year-old, whose father was in the Nazi Party, Lore too is at first oblivious to the effects of the war on others. She tries to believe that the pictures the Allies pin up of the Jews in the camps--whether alive or dead--are American actors. Micha's story, raking over the past and with the advantage of hindsight, well-documented history and the public German admission of guilt, feels the most raw and truthful. Seiffert writes delicately and plainly, making clear that it is not just the Jewish or Nazi experience of the Second World War which is valid, but that a whole country was involved, and is still affected by it. The Dark Room reminds us again that every person's experience is unique, and every person's heritage (whether German, Byelorussian, American or Jewish, Christian or atheist) will always be unique to them. --Olivia Dickinson --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Review
"A startlingly powerful debut... Not to be missed" (Daily Mail 20020530)
"Ambitious and powerful... Seiffert writes lean, clean prose. Deftly, she hangs large ideas on the vivid private experiences of her principal characters.... Poignant - and ultimately optimistic... Engrossing" (New York Times 20020530)
"What a bold book... Compelling... Challenging and substantial" (Time Out )
"Guilt, shame, responsibility, new beginnings, the individual in history - these are Seiffert's subjects, conveyed in a style of deceptive simplicity... Provocative and accomplished" (The Times )
"Explores the experience of "ordinary" Germans...the descendants of Nazis and Nazi sympathizers...and poses questions about the country's psychological and political inheritance with rare insight and humanity" (New Yorker 20020530)
"Ambitious and powerful... Seiffert writes lean, clean prose. Deftly, she hangs large ideas on the vivid private experiences of her principal characters.... Poignant - and ultimately optimistic... Engrossing" (New York Times 20020530)
"What a bold book... Compelling... Challenging and substantial" (Time Out )
"Guilt, shame, responsibility, new beginnings, the individual in history - these are Seiffert's subjects, conveyed in a style of deceptive simplicity... Provocative and accomplished" (The Times )
"Explores the experience of "ordinary" Germans...the descendants of Nazis and Nazi sympathizers...and poses questions about the country's psychological and political inheritance with rare insight and humanity" (New Yorker 20020530)
Inside This Book
(Learn More)
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
22 of 22 people found the following review helpful
By A. Peel
Format:Paperback
'The Dark Room' is a beautiful debut. It is captivating, lucid and thought-provoking, without being remotely pretentious. It is a real pleasure to read, whilst at the same time raising disturbing yet fundamental questions regarding national and individual responsibility for World War II.
This is a collection of three fictional stories of young people's experiences of the War and its aftermath. The first two portray children who seem far too young and innocent to be responsible for war-time events, and yet who were/are forced to fight for their lives, for survival, whilst also trying to comprend the role of their parents, and those they love, in all the atrocities.
In the second tale, Lore progressively realises that love and innocence do not go hand in hand. She is ultimately obliged to link the imprisonment of her own parents to the guilt of the Nazis. Trust, love and understanding take on a whole new dimension for her, and for us as readers.
Micha, the protagonist of the final story, did not live through World War II. The luxury of a generation gap enables him to actively pursue his obsessive interest in his grand-father's past without pain, until he, like Lore, has to face the music. He has to understand that the grandpa he loved was not perfect. He could easily hate a stranger, but with those dear to us, that hatred and disgust is mixed so strongly with love that we are forced to reassess our emotions and our judgements of others.
This book is one more tribute to the open-mindedness of the German nation. From the outside, at least, the Germans seem to have tried their utmost to take responsibility for the evils they committed in World War II. They aimed to face mistakes and to learn from them. We have not all been so brave and so painfully honest, and the writing of Rachel Seiffert reflects what Germany has learnt in the most positive, yet deceptively simple, way we could hope for.
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful
By I. D. Miller
Format:Paperback
I finished reading this book last night after only a couple of sittings and was almost in a rush to write a review this morning. The story is as dark as the title. Yet it kept me as engrossed as any best selling thriller, without demeaning the importance of what the book is about.
The character of Micha in particular I found most absorbing. His insistence on finding out about the possible guilt of his Grandfather, at the expense of the feelings of his family and impact on his pregnant partner, was a combination of frustrating and commendable. The view that the entire nation was guilty, and in many ways we are still guilty, rang true.
A marvellous read.
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
By A Customer
Format:Paperback
When a friend recommended this book to me she said it was a page-turner but not enjoyable. I must say I found this to be an accurate assessment of a beautifully written but ultimately disturbing book about Nazi Germany. It has a deceptively simple style and its starkness is wholly appropriate to the subject material. The book is in three distinct parts. The middle section is a harrowing read which I found profoundly moving. The vivid images haunted me long after I had finished this book and I commend it to anyone interested in the ravages of war from ‘the other side’. Pain, degradation, misery, shame, outrage, cruelty, moral blindness, courage – all these are universal. And universal is the endurance of the human spirit with its capacity for transcending all adversity.
Would you like to see more reviews about this item?
›
Go to Amazon.com to see all 33 reviews
4.5 out of 5 stars
Were these reviews helpful?
Let us know
Most Recent Customer Reviews
3.0 out of 5 stars
Book of the film
The central story of the three in this book was filmed in 2012 as the German language film Lore. The film received good reviews, but is very much an art house film: lots of... Read more
Published 5 days ago by Donald A. Mcintyre
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellen bok
This is a wonderful book, it is evocative, original, shocking and compelling as is the recent film Lore, based on the second section of this book/
Published 1 month ago by ms m mcfadyean
3.0 out of 5 stars
A Mxed Bag
As pointed out by previous reviewers, the volume in question is a collection of three novellas. The first one is around a character called Helmut; it uses striking language and... Read more
Published 1 month ago by Franz Skeptiker
5.0 out of 5 stars
The war from another perspective
This traces the experiences of two families during the war and one after. There is always the undercurrent of fear and the shame felt by many over what happened to many of the... Read more
Published 1 month ago by Ann Tookey
5.0 out of 5 stars
Good, interesting read
This book is well written. The book is made up of three stories. Two set during the second world war and the final story is more present time. Read more
Published 2 months ago by Janie Oblomov
5.0 out of 5 stars
A thoughtful & powerful novel
I've owned this book since either 2002 or 2003, and tried to read it twice, never managing to read more than about 15 pages. Read more
Published 14 months ago by Ben Kane
4.0 out of 5 stars
Poignant stories and beautifully written, but something was missing
I wasn't convinced about the balance between the stories. The first was a short story, the second was much longer and the third was virtually a novel in it's own right. Read more
Published on 31 May 2009 by Janie U
2.0 out of 5 stars
Quite boring style of writing
I am currently reading this book and it is quite a bore. The style of writing is so mundane. I will plod on til the end.
Published on 19 Sep 2008 by James Twain
3.0 out of 5 stars
Incomplete, disappointing
In my opinion `The Dark Room' was incomplete and disappointing because it was written as three separate stories. Read more
Published on 21 Aug 2008 by LindyLouMac
4.0 out of 5 stars
A Dark Time
This is an unusual and unsettling book. Its subject is civilian experience during the second world war - so far, so ordinary. Read more
Published on 2 Dec 2007 by Leyla Sanai
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
|
|
Look for similar items by category
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
|
