| Authors: |
Schlink, Bernhard.
Janeway, Carol Brown.
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| Material type: |
Book |
| Subject: |
Guilt -- Fiction.
Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) -- Fiction.
Germans -- Psychology -- Fiction.
Psychological fiction.
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| Language: |
English |
| Publisher: |
New York : Vintage Books, 2008, c1997. |
| Description: |
218 p. ; 18 cm. |
| ISBN: |
9780307473462 0307473465 |
| Notes: |
Film tie-in. |
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This translation originally published: London: Phoenix House, 1997. |
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Translated from the German. |
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| Rating: |
4 out of 5: They liked it |
| Community reviews |
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Moves swiftly from a powerful portrayal of adolescence in postwar Berlin by Andrew Fitch |
| Moves swiftly from a powerful portrayal of adolescence in postwar Berlin - it could be any youth in any urban environment - into his sexual involvement with Hanna. The revelation of her past comes with shattering force. It left me pondering: the mindless (politically correct) demonisation of war criminals by the jury and the public, and of Hanna as a scapegoat for the majority, is on a par with the tacit complicity of the German people in the crimes of the Holocaust itself. There is no moral weight in the judge's inane professionalism, no depth to the seminar group's observations, and when confronted by the self-justifications of a possible perpetrator of genocide, Michael himself has no answer. How are we to judge Hanna? As the sadistic camp guard of stereotype and dreams, who at a whim sends the weak to their deaths; or, most disturbingly, just an ordinary person like you and I, caught up in impossible circumstances and confused motives, and lacking the will to defend herself effectively, needing to be understood. |
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