The assault harry mulisch ebook

These insights are closely coupled with critical periods in the history of Anton Steenwijk is 13 years old, when the German occupants murder his entire family in retribution for the killing of a Dutch collaborator in front of their house.

These insights are closely coupled with critical periods in the history of the post war Netherlands, the aftermath of the Indonesian independence war and the Budapest upraising, the Provo movement and the peace movement. In the foreground Anton lives a happy and successful life, gets married, has two children. It feels, however, as if he played a drama on a stage. Mulisch gives us the explanation. While normal people live with their faces directed towards the future and leave the unchangeable past behind, people like Anton cannot take off their view from the past, which his still blurred and open to change, changes which deeply effect their present and future.

A friend told me on Goodreads that this novel is a compulsory lecture in Dutch schools. I wished it would be read more also here in Germany, where the Shoah of the Jewish people sometimes overshadows the struggles and suffering of the people in the occupied countries.

This would help to deepen the friendship and understanding of the nations. Apr 27, Gumble's Yard - Golden Reviewer rated it really liked it. Just before the end of WW2 in Haarlem, a Dutch police chief and Nazi collaborator is assassinated by the Resistance outside a set of four houses including the house of Anton, his brother Peter and their parents.

I liked the description of how we talk of "facing the future" but really we only can know the past and how for Anton in particular unlike events coming out of the future to the present and then becoming past, events instead came out of his past, affected his present and led to an unknown future.

This book is short and simple, but really well written and thought provoking. About memory and past events and how they influence things — how it is impossible to understand and judge others actions as well as knowing their consequences. All written with a heavy emphasis on world war two in an occupied country. Jul 13, Holly rated it it was amazing Shelves: reads , some-recent-favorites , re-read.

Re-read for the first time since , when I'd first discovered this Dutch novel. I've just been reading Caroline Moorhead's books about the Nazi occupation of France and the French Resistance and felt suddenly drawn to augment that reading with another resistance story.

For this, too, is a story of resistance, albeit in occupied Holland, though one cannot know that by reading a brief description of the plot, and to explain further would reveal too much about the story, which contains a myster Re-read for the first time since , when I'd first discovered this Dutch novel. For this, too, is a story of resistance, albeit in occupied Holland, though one cannot know that by reading a brief description of the plot, and to explain further would reveal too much about the story, which contains a mystery element that is only explained on the final page.

I again found this beautifully written, haunting, and a gripping page-turner. I finished in tears just like that first time, too. View all 4 comments. Dec 01, JimZ rated it it was amazing. It has special meaning to me because I read it on one of my very few trips abroad View 1 comment.

Probably the cover alone would have done the trick, genius cover. But actually I've read Siegfried by the author before and found it very interesting. Much like that book , The Assault also takes place during WWII or, technically, the main event of the story does, and the it takes decades to get to the bottom of it.

Mulisch's life had been profoundly affected by WWII, which has informs his writing to a great degree. This novel according to The New York Times has made his reputation at home and a Probably the cover alone would have done the trick, genius cover.

This novel according to The New York Times has made his reputation at home and abroad and was also adapted into an Academy Award winning movie. It's a powerful psychological story, and even something of a mystery, that works exceptionally well in spite of, or most likely due, to its succinctness and, of course, cleverness as the plot unfolds, taking many years for the murder of a Dutch collaborator to become finally completely explained and understood. Great book. Apr 16, Andrea rated it really liked it Shelves: in-translation.

A beautiful book of darkness and light, a book of how war marks a child and the rest of his life is spent coming to some kind of grips with the trauma and loss. Not in big bursts and frenzies most common in literature, but an acceptance through a quiet progression of incidents, a subdued awakening of memory, numbered tears and new life and threads that almost all come together but not quite.

I knew I would love it when I read this: Occasionally in the late twilight when his mother forgot to call A beautiful book of darkness and light, a book of how war marks a child and the rest of his life is spent coming to some kind of grips with the trauma and loss. I knew I would love it when I read this: Occasionally in the late twilight when his mother forgot to call him in, a fragrant stillness would rise and fill him with expectations -- of what he didn't know.

Something to do with later, when he'd be grown up--things that would happen then. Something to do with the motionless earth, the leaves, two sparrows that suddenly twittered and scratched about. Life someday would be like those evenings when he had been forgotten, mysterious and endless.

Jan 29, Seth Golbey rated it really liked it Shelves: , other-fiction. Whenever he thought about time, which he did once in a while, he did not conceive of events as coming out of the future to move through the present into the past. Instead, they developed out of the past in the present on their way to an unknown future. Young people are often puzzled by The Assault; the young do not face toward the past. By the end of the book, he is older than his father lived to be.

The reader is present for brief episodes through Anton's life, each of which reveals to him a little more about the circumstances of the atrocity, the expanding ripples of cause and effect, and the convoluted nature of guilt and innocence. In the final pages, Anton stands with his beloved son, named after his murdered brother, in the midst of a peace demonstration in a Cold War Europe, his questions answered at last.

At the edge of the demonstration, "a group of boys about sixteen years old came out of a side street. All had shaved heads, black leather jackets, black pants, and black boots with metal heels. Everything is forgotten in the end. The shouting dies down, the waves subside, and all is silent once more. Although I am not a fan of war books, I so much enjoyed this story.

It kept me entertained and captivated until the last page to find out why certain things happened. Great story, well written and fits well in Dutch war history.

Jul 28, AC Thanks all those who have refollowed! Fabulous book. Intelligent, well-crafted, gripping story, beautifully translated. Sep 16, Randy Attwood rated it it was amazing.

I don't like to review books because I don't do it well. I don't do it well because I don't like to summarize plots or stories and I don't like to put myself in a position to criticize or castigate. And I hate the one- to five-star system. I read because books create feelings inside me that resonate with me. And they cover so many so-called genres. I love action books. I love books that take me out of myself. I love books that take me into myself. I've just finished Harry Mulisch's The Assault.

Le I don't like to review books because I don't do it well. Let me be clear: I would never dream of comparing myself to Holland's great writer who died in at age His work is written in five episodes: , , , , One More Victim is written in three: , , I don't know how long it took Mulisch to write The Assault.

It took me 30 years to write One More Victim. That's 2. I say no work, but I was living and incorporating what I had experience and learned and from time to time going back to revisit One More Victim and move it forward.

But at least I can surmise that Mulisch and I had some overlap of work time on our fiction pieces. Had I read his work first, I would have said it influenced mine. On an obvious level, there is the common theme that the number of victims continue to mount long after a war has ended. Something I can't describe is going on at a deeper level. Resistance fighters shoot a Nazi collaborator.

The owners of the house where his body is left drag him to the front of another house fearing the Nazis will destroy the house in front of which he is found. Irrational Nazi retribution does destroy that house.

The young boy of the parents who are killed survives and "The Assault" is the tale of his life. One More Victim starts in in the middle of America.

A series of events involving a fifth-grade boy and girl finding discarded Nazi war medals in a trash can lead the father of the girl to confront a former Auschwitz guard. The rest of the novella is the tale of the boy's life. Jan 14, Darryl rated it it was amazing. This brilliant novel opens in the Dutch city of Haarlem in early , during the Hongerwinter , the famine that afflicted millions of residents of the German-occupied western portion of the Netherlands due to a blockage of food and fuel by the Nazis.

Anton Steenwijk, a 12 year old boy, and his parents and older brother were spending a quiet evening at home, huddled around a lantern to keep warm and trying to keep hunger out of their minds.

Their peace was broken by the sound of nearby gunshots, This brilliant novel opens in the Dutch city of Haarlem in early , during the Hongerwinter , the famine that afflicted millions of residents of the German-occupied western portion of the Netherlands due to a blockage of food and fuel by the Nazis. Their peace was broken by the sound of nearby gunshots, and when they looked outside they noticed the body of a man lying in front of their next door neighbors' house.

Those neighbors then moved the body to the front of the Steenwijk's house, and they saw that the dead man was the local Inspector of Police, a notorious collaborator who was reviled and feared for his cruelty towards his fellow citizens. The family panicked, and after German soldiers arrive the Steenwijks are falsely accused of the murder. Anton is separated from the rest of his family, taken briefly to a local prison for the night, and later he learns of their fate.

Anton is sent to live with his well to do uncle and aunt in Amsterdam, where he studies and establishes himself in a notable profession. He is haunted by the events of that fateful evening, and although his future is a bright one with a beautiful young wife and child his view is to the past, as he desires to learn what happened to his parents and brother, and to find out more about the events that led up to the Inspector's shooting.

He eventually meets key people who were involved with or were observers of the episode, and those encounters, along with fragments of his memory that he is able to uncover, permit him to piece together the full story of that night in Haarlem. The Assault is a powerful and unforgettable novel about memory, responsibiiity, and one's past history and how it affects, and sometimes mars, the future, which is relevant not only to survivors of war and personal strife, but to anyone who has experienced a difficult or eventful past life.

Harry Mulisch is considered to be one of the Great Three Dutch postwar writers, along with Willem Frederik Hermans and Gerard Reve, and this outstanding novel makes it easy to see why this is the case. Dec 09, Casey Myshkin Buell rated it it was amazing. In postwar literature the horrors of Naziism tend to be painted in broad strokes. Writers like Gunter Grass and Heinrich Boll have created masterpieces in which they explore the larger implications and impact of National Socialism.

In The Assault Harry Mulisch narrows it all down to a finer point; the impact of one event on the life of one man. The events that quickly follow In postwar literature the horrors of Naziism tend to be painted in broad strokes. The events that quickly follow will shape the rest of Anton's life.

In this short novel we follow Anton through all the rage, grief, and confusion he feels as he tries to move on. As Anton, and we, slowly learn more about that night we find our initial assumptions being challenged. The Assault is one of the finest pieces of postwar literature you'll ever read.

Sep 15, Michael rated it really liked it. Things are not always as they seem, and each person's perceptions of reality are limited by circumstances. In this masterful and intriguing novel, the protagonist's perception of a traumatic event is altered over time by accidental encounters with other witnesses to the same event. The reader also learns how the event and individual perceptions thereof shape the destinies of those involved. The work poses a moral question, both to the characters and to the reader, which has far-reaching implicat Things are not always as they seem, and each person's perceptions of reality are limited by circumstances.

The work poses a moral question, both to the characters and to the reader, which has far-reaching implications and has the power to engage the mind long after one finishes this richly rewarding masterpiece of the storyteller's art. Beautiful novel and typical for Mulisch, he once again is showing off his knowledge he was a great writer, but a very idle man.

It's an interesting story, but the characters are not fully developed, though. The central theme is about the divide between the truth and being right, and, of course, that is extremely relevant in a war setting! This was a bit better than I expected, but I still didn't like it. At all. This year we would be celebrating the 68th anniversary of the defeat of Nazi Germany and its Axis allies during the Second World War.

In this war the former Soviet Union, under the leadership of the Joseph Stalin, overcame great odds and delivered deathblows against the forces of fascism.

While the Red Army pushed back the Blitzkrieg and caused a shift in the tides of war, patriotic forces in the occupied countries heroically took up armed resistance against the Nazi invaders. However, the role This year we would be celebrating the 68th anniversary of the defeat of Nazi Germany and its Axis allies during the Second World War.

However, the role of the former Soviet Union and the communist-led Patriotic Front in defeating the Nazis have since been deliberately denigrated in a flurry of anti-communist black propaganda that came with the eruption of the Cold War.

Narrating the story of Anton during and after the Second World War, The Assault is a superbly written novel about the effects of war on an individual. In terms of form, the novel starts with a prologue depicting the assault and the ensuing massacre. I particularly like the way Mulisch comes up with metaphors that stand in for the events depicted in the narrative: "The motorboats were different. Pitching, their prows would tear the water into a V shape that spread until it reached both sides of the canal.

There the water would suddenly begin to lap up and down, even though the boat was already far away. Then the waves bounced back and formed an inverted V, which interfered with the original V, reached the opposite shore transformed, and bounced back again — until all across the water a complicated braiding of ripples developed which went on changing for several minutes, then finally smoothed out.

Who is to blame for the death of his family? Which side was accountable for the brutal massacre? The Nazis are, of course, the direct culprits. But are the partisans, as the Nazis insinuate, also to blame for provoking retribution from the occupying forces? Whoever did it, did it, not anyone else. But the ripples cannot be simply shrugged away.

He put a garden hose up your ass and let it run till you vomited your own shit. He killed God knows how many people, and sent many more to their death in Germany and Poland. Very well. So he had to be gotten rid off. Ploeg by us, your family by the Germans. The Fascist gentlemen were rather consistent as far as that goes.

We had chosen that spot because it was the most secluded and the easiest to get away from. Was guilt innocent, and innocence guilty? The three Jews… Six million of them had been killed… But by being in danger, those three people had unknowingly saved themselves and the lives of two others, and instead of them, his own father and mother and Peter had died.

In more recent years, the brazen lie equating communists with the Nazis is being promoted by the ruling classes in order to bolster their claims that there is no alternative to the world capitalist system. One particular instance of such enforced historical amnesia is the sad trend of some among the younger generations swallowing the empty propaganda that the Martial Law era brought about economic development and a strong republic. Never mind that the wealth of the country was monopolized by Marcos cronies, foreign banks, and multinational corporations while whoever opposed such a regime was either salvaged, imprisoned, tortured, or disappeared.

Names of many children born in the s and s, at the height of the struggle against the Marcos dictatorship, carried initials like AS armed struggle or were variations of Karl Marx, Lenin, and Mao. An interesting tidbit from The Assault shows that things are not much different in other parts of the world: "During the war, Fascists often called their sons Anton or Adolf, sometimes even Anton Adolf, and proudly sent birth announcements decorated with Germanic runes, or with the emblem of the Dutch Nazi Party, a wolf trap.

If so, it was a sure sign that their parents had been collaborators…" Feb 12, Mark rated it really liked it. After a A Nazi collaborator, is gunned down, while riding home on his bicycle, setting off repercussions, that resonate, with all the people involved, guilty and innocent, through the rest of their haunted lives.

An excellent look at the ravages of war. May 28, Josephine biblioseph rated it it was amazing. Once again, this novel's magic lies in the author's handling of the narrator. Published in , I have no idea why we didn't read this after reading all those heavy holocaust novels, perhaps because in this novel, there is no easy discussion in the classrooms. But because of the large room of thought this novel creates, I feel it is all the more important. Perhaps you know how deeply personal The Assault was for me as Once again, this novel's magic lies in the author's handling of the narrator.

Perhaps you know how deeply personal The Assault was for me as it dealt with things that German children must cope with on their own, guilt, the past, ignorance, excuses, avoidance, et cetera. I'd never inspected my coping methods as acutely as when confronted in spectacular luminosity the way in which Anton avoids the past his entire life. But like the Greeks, he is always facing it. The Assault reminded me of Kazuo Ishiguro's Remains of the Day its quiet narrator who reflects on events typical of the second world war, but there the similarities end.

Had this been eligible, The Assault would have won the Booker prize, but what are awards anyway? Where Remains had been affable in it's avoidance, there is no pretension about what Mulisch and Anton conspire to do. Anton refuses to remember, forced down 'memory-lane' while it is his subconscious that lures him into not turning away the unwanted guest, yearning to be fulfilled.

A reader might be tempted to pity Anton from the blurb, as one freely did after reading Remains, but pity or hate the butler, Mulisch does not bring us through these moments, titled 'episodes', to make us feel sorry. Mulisch, in actuality, feels sorry for us, the readers.

But he does not pose questions of morality to us with apology. These are things we all must face in our lives, unless we are like that aloof butler traveling the countryside. The heart races as the events in Anton's life come to a head, but we do not pity him, not because he is unsympathetic and 'merely' the child of fate, but because Mulisch has written a concise novel that does not have room for misplaced tears.

We mourn the lost child, the one whom Anton has forgotten, who died along with the rest of his family. Perhaps because Anton has been indifferent for so long, that when he finally concludes this history and looks to other memories, we only feel immense satisfaction. I am letting myself imagine, now that the book is shut, that Anton has begun to come to his own conclusions about the many questions that Harry Mulisch poses, as I must now attempt to do. But further, that Anton changes his life, going home and finally climbs up into the cockpit, and finally opens up to the person that he once was.

While I will not answer any of the questions posed within, dealing with our history, the morality of causalities, the innocence of the guilty, I am curious about your own thoughts. The tome is not very long, and it is a fabulous piece of literature, important for many reasons, and I encourage you to read it, if not immediately buy it. Once you have, come back and let me know your thoughts.

I gladly welcome discussion in the comments. Random House. You can read more of my shenanigans at auroralector. Jul 11, Mark rated it liked it Shelves: real-war-fiction. I liked this book a whole lot more than All Quiet on the Western Front. I understand they are two different war novels covering two different wars , one the story of a soldier, the other a victim of the war, but both are addressing the effect of war on, for lack of a better term, the human soul.

I read these books so close together that it's hard for me to not draw comparisons between them, and that's what I'll do for this review. First, the protagonist. I found Anton to be far more likable and far more consistent than Paul. Anton was not constantly consumed by what had happened but was also not entirely detached from it. He lived his life and found happiness in it. He took the good with the bad.

He understood how others could not understand what had happened to him because he didn't fully understand himself. He could empathize with the other players in his life story, he was not all consumed about himself.

Compare this to Paul who could not find any comfort in family or friends or life. He thought only of himself and how others actions affected him really, this is true - even the man he kills in the trenches he thinks more about the mans noises affecting his calm, his conscience over killing the man and trying to appease the man's spirit by paying money to his family.

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Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. Kindle Book Release date: August 24, Availability can change throughout the month based on the library's budget.

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Learn more here. You've reached the maximum number of titles you can currently recommend for purchase. Your session has expired. Please sign in again so you can continue to borrow titles and access your Loans, Wish list, and Holds pages. If you're still having trouble, follow these steps to sign in. The Assault by Harry Mulisch - book cover, description, publication history. Mulisch uses symbolism to allude to the past.

The 'four lines' drawn with the 'fork' could symbolize the four houses along the quay and the four members of Anton's immediate family.

The 'white tablecloth' could also symbolize his present untainted life being a layer covering his feared and dreaded past. Harry Mulisch is one of Holland's most important writers.

Born in in Haarlem to a Jewish mother whose family died in the concentration camps, and an Austrian father who was jailed after the war for collaborating with the Nazis, Mulisch felt a particularly charged connection with the Second World War, frequently the subject of his work.

The Assault - Kindle edition by Mulisch, Harry. Download it once and read it on your Kindle device, PC, phones or tablets. Use features like bookmarks, note taking and highlighting while reading The Assault. The Assault eBook online Read. Mulisch, Harry, The assault. Translation of: De aanslag. Netherlands—History—German occupation, —Fiction. M85A About memory and past events and how they influence things — how it is impossible to understand and judge others actions as well as knowing their consequences.

It is the first that is the most significant, describing the assault of the novel's title. Harry Mulisch - Wikipedia. His mother, Alice Schwarz, was Jewish. See all formats and editions Hide other formats and editions. The Assault is an historical fiction novel written by Dutch author Harry Mulisch.

First published in under the Dutch title De Aanslag, the novel was translated and published in English in and later translated into over a dozen languages. Mulisch was born in Haarlem, Netherlands, the same setting in which The Assault occurs.

The Assault by Harry Mulisch : Books Om niet te zeggen: Towards the middle of the novel, Mulisch introduces another important character, Cor Takes, who interacts with Anton as an adult. I say no work, but I was living and incorporating what I had experience and learned and from time to time going back to revisit One More Victim and move it Buy the The Assault ebook.

This acclaimed book by Harry Mulisch is available at eBookMall. The Assault. By Harry Mulisch. Fiction : Historical - General This is why we allow the book compilations in this website. It will very ease you to see guide the assault harry mulisch as you such as. The assault eBook, [WorldCat. Get this from a library! The assault. The Assault Literature Essay Samples. Especially in the first chapter after the "incident", set during the liberation of Amsterdam, Mulisch portrays Anton's experiences and condition as a trauma survivor.

By introducing one of the main conflicts in the novel, furthering the Posted on by admin. Sep 20, The Assault is the final selection of the Big Read group reads to be discussed. I first came across the Dutch author Harry Mulisch when a friend of mine recommended probably his most renowned book The Discovery of Heaven to me a few years ago.

A Nazi The Assault - Wikipedia. It covers 35 years in the life of the lone survivor of a night in Haarlem during World War II when the Nazi occupation forces, finding a Dutch collaborator murdered, retaliate by killing the family in front of whose home The Assault by Harry Mulisch: About Harry Mulisch. He is the author… More about Harry Mulisch. I was looking forward to this book because I knew of Mulisch's history and reputation.

The protagonist is unable to avoid confronting a traumatic night during World War Two, and finds himself unwittingly drawn back to that night, and confronting the complexity of moral issues that emerge from his discoveries.