3. The Assault
The Assault

The Assault

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, world-war-ii, historical-fic, 20th-century, dutch, historical-fiction, 2018, books-already-own, nazi, audiobook, 2016-reads, in-translation, other-fiction, fascist-in-fiction, dutch, world-war-2, real-war-fiction, 4-stars, books-i-own, Fiction, Historical, European Literature, Classics, Literature, Academic, War, Novels

It is the winter of 1945, the last dark days of World War II in occupied Holland. A Nazi collaborator, infamous for his cruelty, is assassinated as he rides home on his bicycle. The Germans retaliate by burning down the home of an innocent family; only twelve-year-old Anton survives.

Based on actual events, The Assault traces the complex repercussions of this horrific incident on Anton’s life. Determined to forget, he opts for a carefully normal existence: a prudent marriage, a successful career, and colorless passivity. But the past keeps breaking through, in relentless memories and in chance encounters with others who were involved in the assassination and its aftermath, until Anton finally learns what really happened that night in 1945—and why.
--penguinrandomhouse.com

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Title : The Assault
Edition Language : English
ISBN : 9780394744209
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    The Assault Reviews

  • Jim Fonseca

    This book, translated from the Dutch, starts with an incident in 1945 during the German occupation of the Netherlands. A Dutch police official, known for his cruelty and collaboration with the Germans...

  • Jenna

    I typically avoid historical fiction having anything to do with WWII (and that seems to be about the only HF written nowadays!) because they're usually too sentimental for my tastes, intent on maximiz...

  • [P]

    There’s a popular argument for the existence of God, which is that the world, as we see and experience it, is complexly ordered, and so someone must be responsible for this order. Which is nice and ...

  • Jan-Maat

    This novel is constructed very simply.It concerns an incident that occurs near Haarlem, in The Netherlands, during the Hunger Winter towards the end of WWII. The main character Anton Steenwyck, is a b...

  • Stephen P

    There is an immediacy that is heart rending as the Germans enter their home. Time in the present is excruciatingly fearful told through Mulisch’s pressurized details.Rationed war time goods disappea...

  • James Henderson

    Harry Mulisch was born in Haarlem, Netherlands and lived in Amsterdam from 1958 until his death in 2010. His father was from Austria-Hungary and emigrated to the Netherlands after the First World War....

  • Agnieszka

    I loved the way Harry Mulisch set the first scene in the novel. Almost nothing seemed to herald what would happen next. Family gathered at the table, father reading treatise of Jewish philosopher Spin...

  • mayy

    "A man who has never been hungry may possess a more refined palate, but he has no idea what it means to eat."I was required to read this for my literature class, and when I was reading the synopsis on...

  • Evan

    All of us, I think, even if we don't have a deeply profound sense of the bittersweetness of life, carry something inside us that haunts us, and we carry those things and react to their presence accord...

  • Gumble's Yard

    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 the...