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Die Heimkehr
Im Fragment eines Heftchenromans über die Heimkehr eines deutschen Soldaten aus Sibirien entdeckt Peter Debauer Details aus seiner eigenen Wirklichkeit. Die Suche nach dem Ende der Geschichte und nach deren Autor wird zur Irrfahrt durch die deutsche Vergangenheit und offenbart auch Peter Debauers Geheimnisse.
380 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2006
96 people are currently reading
1752 people want to read
About the author
Bernhard Schlink
79 books2,268 followersBernhard Schlink is a German lawyer, academic, and novelist. He is best known for his novel The Reader, which was first published in 1995 and became an international bestseller. He won the 2014 Park Kyong-ni Prize.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 307 reviews
July 6, 2021
Which Way Is Home?
The urban legend that we're never more than six feet away from a rat may be rubbish science but it is accurate politics in Schlink's novel. The message of Homecoming is that the political evil of fascism is perpetually lurking just out of sight, just under the floorboards as it were, masquerading as modern philosophy in even the most refined and educated society. Particularly, as it turns out, in the United States.
The narrative of Homecoming is of a German son's search for the details of his Swiss-German father's life, a life spent mysteriously involved with the Nazi occupation of the old Hapsburg province of Silesia. But the recurring central theme is the choice of what can be described as one's fundamental ethical presumptions about the world, one's duty.
Peter Debauer, the protagonist, is a symbol of the German post-WWII generation - wary of commitment, eager to 'get on', liberally-educated, unable to comprehend the motivations of their parent's generation on either a personal or national level. Peter's unfinished doctoral thesis in law is about the absolute requirement for justice regardless of practical consequences. Doing right is for him a matter of principle not effects.
The conventional stance on justice can be summarised as the Golden Rule: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. This is the traditional Judaeo-Christian principle which is arguably the core of European civilisation. It is so widely taught as philosophy and preached as religion that we might be tempted to take it for granted as defining the only defensible moral stance.
But Peter is confronted in his paternal search by a very different moral principle, the Iron Rule: Do not make others endure what you are unprepared to endure. A law of chivalry rather than love perhaps. At first glance the Iron Law seems to have some affinity with the Golden Rule. Both appear to restrict behaviour within similar ethical bounds. But this is not at all the case.
The Iron Rule was the central moral principle of fascist Germany. Among other things, it implies an acceptance of killing to the extent that one accepts the possibility of being killed. In other words, total commitment of one's life to the cause is the moral justification for any action taken in the name of the cause, including mass murder. In less inflammatory terms it can be interpreted as the willingness to endure the effects of evil in pursuit of the good.
Peter finds the Iron Law abhorrent but also discovers it to be the foundation of his father's position in legal philosophy, and his teaching at an American university. His father's arguments to justify this position are a combination of solipsistic analysis and the philosophical maxims of Carl Schmitt, the leading Nazi intellectual apologist of the 1930's. As a political rat, the father has substantial influence in New York City and Washington, DC; a combination of Werner Earhard and Warren Bennis.
Implicitly Peter recognises the uselessness of engaging in debate with his father. Both the Golden Rule and the Iron Rule are self-fulfilling prophecies. Following either will produce the conditions justifying the chosen behaviour. Both, it turns out, fit his initial thesis, that is, they are applied regardless of consequences. But the consequences are exactly contrary. Neither can be 'proven' by either logic or experience. So, Peter can only do one thing: walk away, even if it requires abandoning his own heritage.
This, of course, is not a resolution of the issue. Peter is aware of the continuing problem: "I did not like my father, and I did not like his theory: it freed him of all responsibility, the responsibility for what he had written and for what he had done. At the same time, I was fascinated by how he had made his way through life, getting involved in whatever came his way, then moving on, and in the end creating a theory to justify it all." Peter's ambivalence does not dissipate because of a single ethical decision; it is a permanent condition.
After all, the Iron Rule is manly, it gets results, it's simple, it moves the earth. It also eliminates the post-war "... fear of being on the side-lines..." So Peter feels comparatively inept under the Golden Rule, "unlike his father the successful adventurer and latterly legal scholar who could cope with anything." The Iron Rule sits waiting patiently for the right moment and the right vocabulary with which to re-exert itself. Therefore, there is real existential content to Peter's intellectual choice. Does he become a Telemachus fighting at the side of his father-hero Odysseus or does he reject the Iron Law permanently and let his mother and father work out their own problems? What does homecoming really mean?
The urban legend that we're never more than six feet away from a rat may be rubbish science but it is accurate politics in Schlink's novel. The message of Homecoming is that the political evil of fascism is perpetually lurking just out of sight, just under the floorboards as it were, masquerading as modern philosophy in even the most refined and educated society. Particularly, as it turns out, in the United States.
The narrative of Homecoming is of a German son's search for the details of his Swiss-German father's life, a life spent mysteriously involved with the Nazi occupation of the old Hapsburg province of Silesia. But the recurring central theme is the choice of what can be described as one's fundamental ethical presumptions about the world, one's duty.
Peter Debauer, the protagonist, is a symbol of the German post-WWII generation - wary of commitment, eager to 'get on', liberally-educated, unable to comprehend the motivations of their parent's generation on either a personal or national level. Peter's unfinished doctoral thesis in law is about the absolute requirement for justice regardless of practical consequences. Doing right is for him a matter of principle not effects.
The conventional stance on justice can be summarised as the Golden Rule: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. This is the traditional Judaeo-Christian principle which is arguably the core of European civilisation. It is so widely taught as philosophy and preached as religion that we might be tempted to take it for granted as defining the only defensible moral stance.
But Peter is confronted in his paternal search by a very different moral principle, the Iron Rule: Do not make others endure what you are unprepared to endure. A law of chivalry rather than love perhaps. At first glance the Iron Law seems to have some affinity with the Golden Rule. Both appear to restrict behaviour within similar ethical bounds. But this is not at all the case.
The Iron Rule was the central moral principle of fascist Germany. Among other things, it implies an acceptance of killing to the extent that one accepts the possibility of being killed. In other words, total commitment of one's life to the cause is the moral justification for any action taken in the name of the cause, including mass murder. In less inflammatory terms it can be interpreted as the willingness to endure the effects of evil in pursuit of the good.
Peter finds the Iron Law abhorrent but also discovers it to be the foundation of his father's position in legal philosophy, and his teaching at an American university. His father's arguments to justify this position are a combination of solipsistic analysis and the philosophical maxims of Carl Schmitt, the leading Nazi intellectual apologist of the 1930's. As a political rat, the father has substantial influence in New York City and Washington, DC; a combination of Werner Earhard and Warren Bennis.
Implicitly Peter recognises the uselessness of engaging in debate with his father. Both the Golden Rule and the Iron Rule are self-fulfilling prophecies. Following either will produce the conditions justifying the chosen behaviour. Both, it turns out, fit his initial thesis, that is, they are applied regardless of consequences. But the consequences are exactly contrary. Neither can be 'proven' by either logic or experience. So, Peter can only do one thing: walk away, even if it requires abandoning his own heritage.
This, of course, is not a resolution of the issue. Peter is aware of the continuing problem: "I did not like my father, and I did not like his theory: it freed him of all responsibility, the responsibility for what he had written and for what he had done. At the same time, I was fascinated by how he had made his way through life, getting involved in whatever came his way, then moving on, and in the end creating a theory to justify it all." Peter's ambivalence does not dissipate because of a single ethical decision; it is a permanent condition.
After all, the Iron Rule is manly, it gets results, it's simple, it moves the earth. It also eliminates the post-war "... fear of being on the side-lines..." So Peter feels comparatively inept under the Golden Rule, "unlike his father the successful adventurer and latterly legal scholar who could cope with anything." The Iron Rule sits waiting patiently for the right moment and the right vocabulary with which to re-exert itself. Therefore, there is real existential content to Peter's intellectual choice. Does he become a Telemachus fighting at the side of his father-hero Odysseus or does he reject the Iron Law permanently and let his mother and father work out their own problems? What does homecoming really mean?
July 23, 2023
I’ll talk about this book in terms of its three major themes. ‘Homecoming’ is one – specifically a man returning home to his wife and family after a long absence to find – what? Wife gone? His wife with another man? His wife surrounded by suitors? Obviously the classic homecoming is that in the Odyssey: Odysseus comes home to Penelope. References to that homecoming are made a dozen times in this story.
Justice is a second theme. The author was a German judge and a professor of law and philosophy, so one theme is ‘justice.’ What is it and how do we deal with it? So we get some discussions, often in dialog, ranging from the cosmic aspects to the mundane: when we feed ducks, should we aim some pieces of bread at the smaller ones, struggling to get anything?
A third theme is a boy’s search for who his father was. His mother says his father is dead and she goes into a frenzy when he asks any questions about him. His grandparents (his father’s parents) also believe their son is dead. But is he? Will this search for who his father was turn into an actual search for his father?
The story starts out as a coming-of-age story telling us of the delights of a young boy staying each summer with his grandparents. The grandparents run a small press that publishes a small run of books by local authors. The partial proof pages of one novel fascinate the boy. So we get bits and pieces of a homecoming story when a WW II vet returns home to find his wife with another man. What happens then?
After his grandparents’ deaths, the narrator, now a young man (the book is in the first person) is still obsessed with finding out the ending to the story. So a lot of the early story touches on the search for this book. This is in the days before the internet, so he goes to libraries and bookstores and writes letters searching for the book.
The main character takes up with a woman and experiences his own twist on a homecoming. Near the end of the story, he goes overseas for a long period of time. The tables are turned and he wonders what awaits him at his homecoming.
Although it’s not a long book (260 pages) it dragged a bit and I see in a review from one of my GR friends that he gave up after 140 pages. I liked much of it but I had two problems with the ending. One I’ll put in a spoiler. But here’s the first one: the ending to me seemed disconnected from the themes of the book. It made me feel that I didn’t get it, or perhaps I missed something?
Secondly I felt the ending was unrealistic. I know fiction is fiction but still … So, I gave it a ‘3’ and I note that GR readers have rated it a 3.2 which is very low.
The author (1944- ) is best known for his novel The Reader, which the GR blurb tells us The Reader was the first German book to reach the number one position on the New York Times bestseller list.
Top painting: Penelope and her suitors by Pinturicchio circa 1500 on Wikimedia
The author from new-books-in-german.com
Justice is a second theme. The author was a German judge and a professor of law and philosophy, so one theme is ‘justice.’ What is it and how do we deal with it? So we get some discussions, often in dialog, ranging from the cosmic aspects to the mundane: when we feed ducks, should we aim some pieces of bread at the smaller ones, struggling to get anything?
A third theme is a boy’s search for who his father was. His mother says his father is dead and she goes into a frenzy when he asks any questions about him. His grandparents (his father’s parents) also believe their son is dead. But is he? Will this search for who his father was turn into an actual search for his father?
The story starts out as a coming-of-age story telling us of the delights of a young boy staying each summer with his grandparents. The grandparents run a small press that publishes a small run of books by local authors. The partial proof pages of one novel fascinate the boy. So we get bits and pieces of a homecoming story when a WW II vet returns home to find his wife with another man. What happens then?
After his grandparents’ deaths, the narrator, now a young man (the book is in the first person) is still obsessed with finding out the ending to the story. So a lot of the early story touches on the search for this book. This is in the days before the internet, so he goes to libraries and bookstores and writes letters searching for the book.
The main character takes up with a woman and experiences his own twist on a homecoming. Near the end of the story, he goes overseas for a long period of time. The tables are turned and he wonders what awaits him at his homecoming.
Although it’s not a long book (260 pages) it dragged a bit and I see in a review from one of my GR friends that he gave up after 140 pages. I liked much of it but I had two problems with the ending. One I’ll put in a spoiler. But here’s the first one: the ending to me seemed disconnected from the themes of the book. It made me feel that I didn’t get it, or perhaps I missed something?
Secondly I felt the ending was unrealistic. I know fiction is fiction but still … So, I gave it a ‘3’ and I note that GR readers have rated it a 3.2 which is very low.
The author (1944- ) is best known for his novel The Reader, which the GR blurb tells us The Reader was the first German book to reach the number one position on the New York Times bestseller list.
Top painting: Penelope and her suitors by Pinturicchio circa 1500 on Wikimedia
The author from new-books-in-german.com
September 28, 2024
A review in one question and an answer.
What's worse than a book that disappoints?
One that's good for the first 30 pages, then stops.
What's worse than a book that disappoints?
One that's good for the first 30 pages, then stops.
Read
August 31, 2021I am bailing on this one. After reading 140 pages and growing increasingly bored and getting in a bad mood (i.e., why am I reading this when I am not enjoying the act of reading?) I went to Goodreads reviews for other assessments. After reading a number of reviews I see a number of other reviewers felt the same way as me, which did not make me feel so alone. I am not going to critique the book since I did not read it to its ending. It just wasn’t for me.
February 4, 2012
Bernhard Schlink should have written an essay or article on the theory of law, justice and the philosophy of good and evil and left it at that. Instead he tried carve a story about a boy’s search for an absent father into this lecture. I think there are some interesting concepts explored in the book, and it had the potential to be another “The Reader”- his first novel, but it needed to be revised (more than once) and a heavy hand of editing would have helped too.
I like books that have a mythological theme throughout, but while Schlink uses the Odyssey and the genre of “homecoming” literature, he isn’t able to thread it into the fabric of the story very successfully. In fact it’s overused. Instead you read point of view newspaper articles of the mystery character he is researching and in Part 5 you get to attend actual lectures and seminars and hear him pontificate.
When Schlink actually remembered that he was writing a novel, you get a glimpse of what he’s capable. The opening of the book where he describes his summer visits to his grandparents is beautifully done. He also makes use of déjà-vous both conceptually and practically and it’s well done (except he tries to reuse it at the end again and makes a mash of it). The loveless relationship he has with his mother is also done well and faithfully throughout the entire novel.
The ending (Part 5) is a huge disappointment. The bizarre climatic event was actually annoying (so much so that I admit to skimming through a few pages – and I NEVER do that). Thinking about it, Schlink needed something to break his desire to continue seeking his father. The event is what allows him to turn off the TV midway through watching his father being interviewed on National TV. He irrevocably shuts his father from his life in the same manner his father did to him as a young boy.
A book is supposed to give you something. Sometimes it’s just the pure pleasure of an author’s style of writing, sometimes it’s the pure genius creativity of the story. It could be that you are learning something new….like travelling in the shoes of someone different and gaining their perspective on life, or you could learn about the country and culture in which the book takes place. Sometimes you can relate to the author (they are in similar circumstances as you) or they are describing places and events you’ve been. This novel didn’t give me anything other than the enjoyment of reading Part 1 (which I will always remember as a short story), and perhaps the knowledge that the philosophy of law, good, evil and justice are topics I am not genuinely interested in.
I like books that have a mythological theme throughout, but while Schlink uses the Odyssey and the genre of “homecoming” literature, he isn’t able to thread it into the fabric of the story very successfully. In fact it’s overused. Instead you read point of view newspaper articles of the mystery character he is researching and in Part 5 you get to attend actual lectures and seminars and hear him pontificate.
When Schlink actually remembered that he was writing a novel, you get a glimpse of what he’s capable. The opening of the book where he describes his summer visits to his grandparents is beautifully done. He also makes use of déjà-vous both conceptually and practically and it’s well done (except he tries to reuse it at the end again and makes a mash of it). The loveless relationship he has with his mother is also done well and faithfully throughout the entire novel.
The ending (Part 5) is a huge disappointment. The bizarre climatic event was actually annoying (so much so that I admit to skimming through a few pages – and I NEVER do that). Thinking about it, Schlink needed something to break his desire to continue seeking his father. The event is what allows him to turn off the TV midway through watching his father being interviewed on National TV. He irrevocably shuts his father from his life in the same manner his father did to him as a young boy.
A book is supposed to give you something. Sometimes it’s just the pure pleasure of an author’s style of writing, sometimes it’s the pure genius creativity of the story. It could be that you are learning something new….like travelling in the shoes of someone different and gaining their perspective on life, or you could learn about the country and culture in which the book takes place. Sometimes you can relate to the author (they are in similar circumstances as you) or they are describing places and events you’ve been. This novel didn’t give me anything other than the enjoyment of reading Part 1 (which I will always remember as a short story), and perhaps the knowledge that the philosophy of law, good, evil and justice are topics I am not genuinely interested in.
October 2, 2012
"... because I wanted a new life, but did not know what it should be like." Most children growing up knowing little about an absent father will at some stage seek clues from the past in order to comprehend their own persona. The quest to fill gaps and to identify with their own behaviour may reveal unpleasant surprises. These can be especially disturbing for those growing up after a war during which their fathers may have condoned or even committed atrocities. In "Homecoming", Bernhard Schlink translates this complex theme into an engaging, multilayered tale, focusing on another sensitive topic of recent German history.
After "The Reader's"[1995] worldwide success, expectations for this follow-up novel have been predictably high. In the earlier book, the protagonist was presented as an accidental spectator and partaker in an older woman's exposure as a concentration camp guard. Here, Schlink couches the uncovering of an older generation's deceitful behaviour within a first-person's account of an active, at times obsessive, pursuit of a fictional character, its author, and indirectly of the protagonist's father. The author creates in Peter Debauer a modern-day Odysseus, who roams from place to place, unable to accept his life and "come home". Will he, eventually, find out what he was searching for - about the unknown figures and, especially, about himself?
Peter recalls his childhood memories fluctuating between those of his reserved and strict mother and of idyllic vacations at his grandparents' place in Switzerland. The mother avoided her son's questions about his father beyond the bare minimum: he had died during the war. His father's parents were not much better, and while sharing stories from their son's childhood, they omitted any reference to him beyond his student years. The lack of information had disturbed the boy, yet he had felt incapable of asking for more. On the other hand, he enjoyed his grandfather's tales of military campaigns and soldiers' homecoming stories. Schlink uses the grandfather's authority to raise contentious issues like honour and valour explained to the boy in the context of recent history. Accounts of German soldiers' tortuous travels in reaching home after escaping Russian POW camps were popular at the time and featured in the pulp fiction series that the grandparents published.
Despite prohibiting instructions, Peter secretly read parts of one such story on the galleys his grandparents had given him as scrap paper. Unfortunately, several chapters and the ending were missing. What had happened after the hero, Karl, reached home only to find his wife with young children and another man? Was it fiction or the author's personal experience? Coming across the fragment as an adult during a discontented period in his life, Peter's curiosity is reawakened to find the rest of the story and to trace its author. Coincidences facilitated his task as he put his mind to compiling the diverse pieces of evidence. Some clues challenged his up till then laissez-faire attitude to his emotional life, while others tested his political frame of reference. The more he found, the more he sensed some familiarity with the place to which Karl returned. Peter's new romantic interest, while adding new pieces to the puzzle, nonetheless also interfered with his pursuing the mystery.
In addition to applying Ulysses' Odyssey as a metaphor for Peter's quest, Schlink applies its structure to different levels of the narrative. As Peter's own life emulates the fictitious Odysseus, Peter's personal character adapts and changes as the situation or his obsession appear to require. Not surprisingly, given Schlink's own dedication to the profession and the specific topic he discusses, his protagonist joins the league of legal researchers. Schlink places Peter into historical contexts such as the fall of the Berlin Wall. In its aftermath archives were opened that brought much disturbing evidence to light. Mirroring the author's own experience, Berlin has a profound impact on Peter. It reveals another facet of his personality. Continuing his search there, he becomes aware of correlations between the composition of the fiction fragment and some academic legal texts, justifying fascistic ideology. This in turn leads him to new clues as to the author's identity. Drawing on several known contemporary cases of successful ideological turncoats, Schlink develops one such character into the primary counterpart to Peter. While he feels more repulsed by than attracted to this potential opponent, Peter devises a scheme to unmask him that takes him eventually to New York.
The author doesn't shy away from touching on some weighty topics that have been close to his jurist's heart for many years. He draws attention to some dubious legalistic philosophy and practice prevalent during the Third Reich and still persisting in some quarters, which, for example, argue for shifting guilt from the perpetrator to the victim, or from actor to commentator.
"Homecoming" is a complex and profound book and despite its fluid conversational style, should be read carefully with attention to the clues that, while appearing haphazard and scattered at first, combine into a meaningful whole. Peter Gebauer may not come across as a strong or likeable character, yet Schlink has succeeded in creating in him an excellent example of the type of person confronted with the challenges of his time. The topical political and philosophical controversies that are brought to light are well integrated into the narrative. They encourage pause for reflection without losing or sidelining the pre-eminent theme of the story.
After "The Reader's"[1995] worldwide success, expectations for this follow-up novel have been predictably high. In the earlier book, the protagonist was presented as an accidental spectator and partaker in an older woman's exposure as a concentration camp guard. Here, Schlink couches the uncovering of an older generation's deceitful behaviour within a first-person's account of an active, at times obsessive, pursuit of a fictional character, its author, and indirectly of the protagonist's father. The author creates in Peter Debauer a modern-day Odysseus, who roams from place to place, unable to accept his life and "come home". Will he, eventually, find out what he was searching for - about the unknown figures and, especially, about himself?
Peter recalls his childhood memories fluctuating between those of his reserved and strict mother and of idyllic vacations at his grandparents' place in Switzerland. The mother avoided her son's questions about his father beyond the bare minimum: he had died during the war. His father's parents were not much better, and while sharing stories from their son's childhood, they omitted any reference to him beyond his student years. The lack of information had disturbed the boy, yet he had felt incapable of asking for more. On the other hand, he enjoyed his grandfather's tales of military campaigns and soldiers' homecoming stories. Schlink uses the grandfather's authority to raise contentious issues like honour and valour explained to the boy in the context of recent history. Accounts of German soldiers' tortuous travels in reaching home after escaping Russian POW camps were popular at the time and featured in the pulp fiction series that the grandparents published.
Despite prohibiting instructions, Peter secretly read parts of one such story on the galleys his grandparents had given him as scrap paper. Unfortunately, several chapters and the ending were missing. What had happened after the hero, Karl, reached home only to find his wife with young children and another man? Was it fiction or the author's personal experience? Coming across the fragment as an adult during a discontented period in his life, Peter's curiosity is reawakened to find the rest of the story and to trace its author. Coincidences facilitated his task as he put his mind to compiling the diverse pieces of evidence. Some clues challenged his up till then laissez-faire attitude to his emotional life, while others tested his political frame of reference. The more he found, the more he sensed some familiarity with the place to which Karl returned. Peter's new romantic interest, while adding new pieces to the puzzle, nonetheless also interfered with his pursuing the mystery.
In addition to applying Ulysses' Odyssey as a metaphor for Peter's quest, Schlink applies its structure to different levels of the narrative. As Peter's own life emulates the fictitious Odysseus, Peter's personal character adapts and changes as the situation or his obsession appear to require. Not surprisingly, given Schlink's own dedication to the profession and the specific topic he discusses, his protagonist joins the league of legal researchers. Schlink places Peter into historical contexts such as the fall of the Berlin Wall. In its aftermath archives were opened that brought much disturbing evidence to light. Mirroring the author's own experience, Berlin has a profound impact on Peter. It reveals another facet of his personality. Continuing his search there, he becomes aware of correlations between the composition of the fiction fragment and some academic legal texts, justifying fascistic ideology. This in turn leads him to new clues as to the author's identity. Drawing on several known contemporary cases of successful ideological turncoats, Schlink develops one such character into the primary counterpart to Peter. While he feels more repulsed by than attracted to this potential opponent, Peter devises a scheme to unmask him that takes him eventually to New York.
The author doesn't shy away from touching on some weighty topics that have been close to his jurist's heart for many years. He draws attention to some dubious legalistic philosophy and practice prevalent during the Third Reich and still persisting in some quarters, which, for example, argue for shifting guilt from the perpetrator to the victim, or from actor to commentator.
"Homecoming" is a complex and profound book and despite its fluid conversational style, should be read carefully with attention to the clues that, while appearing haphazard and scattered at first, combine into a meaningful whole. Peter Gebauer may not come across as a strong or likeable character, yet Schlink has succeeded in creating in him an excellent example of the type of person confronted with the challenges of his time. The topical political and philosophical controversies that are brought to light are well integrated into the narrative. They encourage pause for reflection without losing or sidelining the pre-eminent theme of the story.
May 18, 2023
"Pats nezināju, ko teikšu nākamajā brīdī, uzzināju to tikai, kad biju pateicis." (200. lpp)
Bernhards Šlinks manā atmiņā iesēdies ar brīnišķīgo grāmatu "Priekšlasītājs", nupat Zvaigzne izdevusi arī viņa stāstu krājumu "Atvadu krāsas" Silvijas Brices tulkojumā, ar ko vēl neesmu iepazinusies, bet kādā brīdī manā plauktā nonāca viņa "Pārnākšana" (2007), kam tikai šogad ķēros klāt. Rakstnieka stils man joprojām mīļš un tuvs, tomēr šī grāmata, īpaši sākuma daļā, likās samudžināta. Mudžekļiem tiku cauri un galvenā varoņa dzīves apmulsumu lēnām iemīlēju. Sākuma citāts itin labi raksturo ne tikai varoni, bet arī pašu grāmatu, tomēr kopiespaids un filozofiskā stīga man patika. Katrā ziņā mana dienasgrāmata pilnīgi noteikti pamanīja, ka lasu Šlinku, jo citēju diezgan daudz.
Bernhards Šlinks manā atmiņā iesēdies ar brīnišķīgo grāmatu "Priekšlasītājs", nupat Zvaigzne izdevusi arī viņa stāstu krājumu "Atvadu krāsas" Silvijas Brices tulkojumā, ar ko vēl neesmu iepazinusies, bet kādā brīdī manā plauktā nonāca viņa "Pārnākšana" (2007), kam tikai šogad ķēros klāt. Rakstnieka stils man joprojām mīļš un tuvs, tomēr šī grāmata, īpaši sākuma daļā, likās samudžināta. Mudžekļiem tiku cauri un galvenā varoņa dzīves apmulsumu lēnām iemīlēju. Sākuma citāts itin labi raksturo ne tikai varoni, bet arī pašu grāmatu, tomēr kopiespaids un filozofiskā stīga man patika. Katrā ziņā mana dienasgrāmata pilnīgi noteikti pamanīja, ka lasu Šlinku, jo citēju diezgan daudz.
April 23, 2011
The whole thing feels rather forced. It begins with an unlikely obsession (fragments of a long-lost novel that the narrator, Peter DeBauer just has to find out more about) becomes a search for his father who was supposed to have been killed in the war. But there are way too many far-fetched clues - people who remember conversations and incidents from over 40 years earlier, for example.
The characters themselves don't come alive. They're more like pieces in a chess game, and often seem to be there to allow deBauer (or rather Schlink - he's always there) to expound his theories on war, justice, German unification and so on.
And the writing is not just spare but dry and convoluted, certainly devoid of anything approaching passion. Is it the translation perhaps?
I wanted to like this book. But it's just not as good as The Reader
The characters themselves don't come alive. They're more like pieces in a chess game, and often seem to be there to allow deBauer (or rather Schlink - he's always there) to expound his theories on war, justice, German unification and so on.
And the writing is not just spare but dry and convoluted, certainly devoid of anything approaching passion. Is it the translation perhaps?
I wanted to like this book. But it's just not as good as The Reader
February 16, 2025
Karl Gecikecek Bekleme
Enteresan roman! İki tane Eve Dönüş var: Arka kapakta anlatılan Eve Dönüş. Diğeri de Bernhard Schilink'in yazdığı. Arka kapakta anlatılanı okumaya sayfaları çevirdiğinizde avucunuzu yalıyorsunuz. Hiç kaçmaz kesin yani. Niyesi var mı, tanıtımda merkez konu gibi duran askerin yıllar sonra eve dönüş hikayesine kitabı yarıladığınızda bile rastlayamayacaksınız. Sonrasını tahmin etmek güç değil: Biri geciktiğinde kim sakin kalabilir ki! "Bu ne biçim roman. Hani asker nerde" diye tepineceksiniz ya da "roman çok ağır ilerliyor" algısında bunalma tehlikesi geçireceksinizdir. Karl'ı bekleme gecikecek yani. Karl? Askerin ismi. Arka kapak yazılarını dikkate almadığınızda Bernhard Schilink'in yazdığı Eve Dönüş'ü okuyacaksınız demektir bu. Ve romanın ortamına girdiğinizde inanır mısın asker de hikayesi de Schilink'in hiç umurunda değil; anlatılan dünya şeyden sadece biridir asker Karl ama romanı da taşıyan önemde bir figürdür de. Eve Dönüş başlığının anlamı şöyle: 2. Dünya Savaşı sonrasında asker öyküleri peynir ekmekten daha fazla satmış. Asker yıllar sonra eve dönüş yapıyor ve kapıda karısını başka bir erkekle görüyor. Hikaye bu. Milyonlarca kombinasyonda yazılan bu eve dönüş hikayeleri travma (savaş) sonrası stres bozukluğuna iyi geldiği belli ki yok satmış. Bernhard Schilink de bu 'eve dönüş' fenomeninden bu romanı kurmuş; Alman arabaları misali sürüşü öylesine rahat ve konforlu ki anlatamam. Schilink bölümleri çok kısa tutmuş en fazla üç sayfa, karakterler de bizden biri olunca müthiş keyif verici bir okuma sağlıyor. Karakterler nasıl bizden biri? Yabancımız değil yani. Anlatıcı Peter Debauer şehir (para) değerlerini çalıştıran korkak aptal erkeklerden; sevgilisi Barbara desen kapitalizme 'arzu'larıyla omuz verip yükselten kadınlardan. Romanı Peter Debauer anlatıyor. Çocukken yaz tatillerini İsviçre kırsalındaki dedesiyle nenesinin yanında geçirirmiş. Dedesi resim yapıp oyalansın diye Peter'e ön yüzlerinde Karl'ın hikayesinin anlatıldığı kağıtlardan veriyor ama "yazıları sakın ha okuma" diye tembih ediyorlar. Çocuk bu durur mu sıkıntıdan patladığı bir anında okuyor, hoşuna gidiyor hikaye ama sonunu öğrenemiyor, kağıtlar kayıp. Dedesine nenesine soruyor duymamazlıktan geliyorlar. Öyle kalıyor mevzu. Peter kendisini anlatmaya devam ediyor. Annesi büyütmüş. Şirketler için yetiştirmiş. Ama hesaplar tutmuyor: Peter bir aşk yenilgisi kaçışı olarak hukuk fakültesindeki asistanlğını da bırakarak Amerika'ya gidiyor. Çiçekli bahçeleriyle iki katlı evleriyle, rahat insanlarıyla, havasıyla suyuyla her şeyiyle San Fransisco'ya bayılıyor Peter fakat vatan hasretliği ağır basıyor. Dönüyor. Bir yayınevinde yayın yönetmenliği işi buluyor. Barbara'yla.. "Hey hey dur bir saniye! Bütün bunlar ne demek oluyor? Okuru ilgilendiren ufak bir detay bile yok." Ben de Peter'i anlatmayı tam burada veya biraz daha ileride bırakacaktım, Barbara'yla feci kavga ediyorlar. Neyse boş ver gitsin. Flaş haberi vereyim: Peter dediğimiz adam yalanda yaşıyor. Geçmişi karanlık ama bilmiyor. Peter Debauer diye biri evraken yok aslında. Kimliğini arıyor. Anne ketum, kurşun yağmuruna tutsan konuşmaz. Enfes bir hikaye. Şu an yeniden okuyasım geldi. Okuması konforlu çünkü. Lafını etmeden geçemeyeceğim: Yazarlar bazen romanı kurarken başka yazın türlerine düşkün okurlarına göz kırparlar; mesela çatışma seven okurlarına çatışma sahnesi de yazarlar romana veya mitoloji severler için mitolojik hikayelere yer verirler, başka mesela bilimsel açıklamalar yaparlar, mesela fazlasıyla detaya girilir-Maggie O'Farrell çok detay verir mesela- neyse. Yazar sonuçta okuruna göz kırpsın kırpmasın romandan bağımsız bu alıntılara ben "bataklık" diyorum ve romanın bu bataklık kısımlarını pas geçiyorum okumuyorum. Aksi durumda; bataklığa bata çıka romanın sonunu getirsen bile yıldız çakacak gücü bulamazsın. Eve Dönüş'de de bataklıklar vardı. Okumadım. İlerki sayfalarda Fransız kalma gibi bir sıkıntı yaşamadım. Bir okuma tekniği olarak tavsiye ederim.
(İçimdeki ses "arkadaşlarını neden yanıltıyorsun" diyor "Peter Debauer kimliğini değil babasını arıyor." Buyur ne diyeceksin!)
Enteresan roman! İki tane Eve Dönüş var: Arka kapakta anlatılan Eve Dönüş. Diğeri de Bernhard Schilink'in yazdığı. Arka kapakta anlatılanı okumaya sayfaları çevirdiğinizde avucunuzu yalıyorsunuz. Hiç kaçmaz kesin yani. Niyesi var mı, tanıtımda merkez konu gibi duran askerin yıllar sonra eve dönüş hikayesine kitabı yarıladığınızda bile rastlayamayacaksınız. Sonrasını tahmin etmek güç değil: Biri geciktiğinde kim sakin kalabilir ki! "Bu ne biçim roman. Hani asker nerde" diye tepineceksiniz ya da "roman çok ağır ilerliyor" algısında bunalma tehlikesi geçireceksinizdir. Karl'ı bekleme gecikecek yani. Karl? Askerin ismi. Arka kapak yazılarını dikkate almadığınızda Bernhard Schilink'in yazdığı Eve Dönüş'ü okuyacaksınız demektir bu. Ve romanın ortamına girdiğinizde inanır mısın asker de hikayesi de Schilink'in hiç umurunda değil; anlatılan dünya şeyden sadece biridir asker Karl ama romanı da taşıyan önemde bir figürdür de. Eve Dönüş başlığının anlamı şöyle: 2. Dünya Savaşı sonrasında asker öyküleri peynir ekmekten daha fazla satmış. Asker yıllar sonra eve dönüş yapıyor ve kapıda karısını başka bir erkekle görüyor. Hikaye bu. Milyonlarca kombinasyonda yazılan bu eve dönüş hikayeleri travma (savaş) sonrası stres bozukluğuna iyi geldiği belli ki yok satmış. Bernhard Schilink de bu 'eve dönüş' fenomeninden bu romanı kurmuş; Alman arabaları misali sürüşü öylesine rahat ve konforlu ki anlatamam. Schilink bölümleri çok kısa tutmuş en fazla üç sayfa, karakterler de bizden biri olunca müthiş keyif verici bir okuma sağlıyor. Karakterler nasıl bizden biri? Yabancımız değil yani. Anlatıcı Peter Debauer şehir (para) değerlerini çalıştıran korkak aptal erkeklerden; sevgilisi Barbara desen kapitalizme 'arzu'larıyla omuz verip yükselten kadınlardan. Romanı Peter Debauer anlatıyor. Çocukken yaz tatillerini İsviçre kırsalındaki dedesiyle nenesinin yanında geçirirmiş. Dedesi resim yapıp oyalansın diye Peter'e ön yüzlerinde Karl'ın hikayesinin anlatıldığı kağıtlardan veriyor ama "yazıları sakın ha okuma" diye tembih ediyorlar. Çocuk bu durur mu sıkıntıdan patladığı bir anında okuyor, hoşuna gidiyor hikaye ama sonunu öğrenemiyor, kağıtlar kayıp. Dedesine nenesine soruyor duymamazlıktan geliyorlar. Öyle kalıyor mevzu. Peter kendisini anlatmaya devam ediyor. Annesi büyütmüş. Şirketler için yetiştirmiş. Ama hesaplar tutmuyor: Peter bir aşk yenilgisi kaçışı olarak hukuk fakültesindeki asistanlğını da bırakarak Amerika'ya gidiyor. Çiçekli bahçeleriyle iki katlı evleriyle, rahat insanlarıyla, havasıyla suyuyla her şeyiyle San Fransisco'ya bayılıyor Peter fakat vatan hasretliği ağır basıyor. Dönüyor. Bir yayınevinde yayın yönetmenliği işi buluyor. Barbara'yla.. "Hey hey dur bir saniye! Bütün bunlar ne demek oluyor? Okuru ilgilendiren ufak bir detay bile yok." Ben de Peter'i anlatmayı tam burada veya biraz daha ileride bırakacaktım, Barbara'yla feci kavga ediyorlar. Neyse boş ver gitsin. Flaş haberi vereyim: Peter dediğimiz adam yalanda yaşıyor. Geçmişi karanlık ama bilmiyor. Peter Debauer diye biri evraken yok aslında. Kimliğini arıyor. Anne ketum, kurşun yağmuruna tutsan konuşmaz. Enfes bir hikaye. Şu an yeniden okuyasım geldi. Okuması konforlu çünkü. Lafını etmeden geçemeyeceğim: Yazarlar bazen romanı kurarken başka yazın türlerine düşkün okurlarına göz kırparlar; mesela çatışma seven okurlarına çatışma sahnesi de yazarlar romana veya mitoloji severler için mitolojik hikayelere yer verirler, başka mesela bilimsel açıklamalar yaparlar, mesela fazlasıyla detaya girilir-Maggie O'Farrell çok detay verir mesela- neyse. Yazar sonuçta okuruna göz kırpsın kırpmasın romandan bağımsız bu alıntılara ben "bataklık" diyorum ve romanın bu bataklık kısımlarını pas geçiyorum okumuyorum. Aksi durumda; bataklığa bata çıka romanın sonunu getirsen bile yıldız çakacak gücü bulamazsın. Eve Dönüş'de de bataklıklar vardı. Okumadım. İlerki sayfalarda Fransız kalma gibi bir sıkıntı yaşamadım. Bir okuma tekniği olarak tavsiye ederim.
(İçimdeki ses "arkadaşlarını neden yanıltıyorsun" diyor "Peter Debauer kimliğini değil babasını arıyor." Buyur ne diyeceksin!)
April 12, 2009
I am a big fan of Bernhard Schlink's "The Reader," even though it has now been Oprahfied. So I began "Homecoming" with high expectations. I was somewhat disappointed. "Homecoming," I believe, tries to do too much. It is a story of a lost father and the guilt and sense of mystery a young German feels as he tries to recuperate someone whose life was lived in the shadow of the Third Reich, but it is also organized around The Odyssey, attempting to play off that classic, and is, moreover, a meditation on justice and evil (oh yes, and a love story as well). Schlink throws one or two too many balls into the air, and he can't quite juggle them all. While I personally felt the last part of the novel, in which the protagonist goes to America and audits his father's classes without the latter ever knowing who he is, was the most engrossing part of the book, the end is not terribly satisfying and also does not reverberate well with the "homecoming" in The Odyssey. Still, Schlink is a formidable writer and has a very rich mind. His interpretations of The Odyssey, put in the mouth of the philosopher of law de Bauer are fascinating (pp. 201-03), and his description of the events immediately after the fall of the Berlin wall is of real interest (pp. 142-44).
July 30, 2012
I genuinely enjoyed this book so I'm going to grant it 5 stars without thinking the second time. It's a really good story, the main character is easy to understand and the plot is not extremely complicated, but not too simple either.
The ending sentence I loved,
Recommended for everyone, in my opinion!
The ending sentence I loved,
Recommended for everyone, in my opinion!
December 1, 2012
Feh. This was a BORING book. The author tried to draw parallels with The Odyssey, which just ended up reminding me how much I hated Odysseus - how much he was a womanizing, cocky, douchebag.
"[...] I was too much in love with the play of my ideas to impose a structure on them."
This book may have done better as a scholarly essay, the forced plot and love story was boring and pointless.
"[...] I was too much in love with the play of my ideas to impose a structure on them."
This book may have done better as a scholarly essay, the forced plot and love story was boring and pointless.
March 13, 2017
O lectură ideală pentru a fi citită într-un cotlon pașnic al Elveției, spre exemplu. Viața de zi cu zi, fără evenimente "senzaționale", este transpusă într-un mod fluid, ceea ce face, cu toată simplitatea subiectului, o operă ușor de digerat. Ceea ce mi-a plcut cel mai mult a fost însă folosirea "tacticii" memoriei afective. De la legendarul roman proustian, nu am mai citit nimic -nicio operă- în care memoria afectivă să fie atât de bine conturată...
November 7, 2011
I discovered ‘Homecoming’ by Bernhard Schlink a few years back during one of my random browsing sessions at the bookstore. Schlink was more famous for his book ‘The Reader’ which was made into a movie of the same name and which won Kate Winslet her first Oscar. ‘Homecoming’ appealed to me because of its bookish cover and the plot. I thought I will read it for German Literature Month. It was gripping from the first page to the last. I finished reading it today. Here is what I think.
What I think
‘Homecoming’ is the story of a boy, Peter Debauer, who discovers a few pages in his grandparents’ home which have the story of the homecoming of a German soldier who escaped a Russian POW camp after the Second World War. But, unfortunately, the ending of the story is missing and the boy is not able to find it even after searching for it in his grandparents’ home. In later years, after the boy has grown up, he doesn’t forget this story and later in adult life, he resumes his search for the story ending. He discovers that the house described in the book resembles a real house and starts his investigation there. He also wants to know more about his mysterious father, who is supposedly killed in the Second World War and about whom his mother is silent. He goes on a quest to find the story ending and the secret behind the disappearance of his own father. The shocking secrets that Peter discovers and how the two story arcs come together form the rest of the book.
I loved ‘Homecoming’. I loved it first for its bookish cover. I also loved it for the pleasant font and the font spacing. The generous font spacing made me read faster than usual and I couldn’t believe the rollicking pace at which the story moved. I am not able to tell whether this was because of the font and the spacing or whether it was because the story was fast-paced. Despite the rollicking pace, the story didn’t shy away from complex ideas, like the distinction and deep connection between good and evil, the deconstruction of law and the complex nature of love. Bernhard Schlink also doesn’t write those page long sentences which German writers are fond of, but writes shorter sentences, though some of them are a few lines long. (I don’t know whether this was truly the case, or whether it was because the translator did it that way. Sometimes, in a translated work of literature, we don’t know how much of the translation owes to the original writer and how much to the translator.) I think this must have also contributed to the fast pace of the book.
Starting from the first paragraph which went like this :
When I was young, I spent the summer holidays with my grandparents in Switzerland. My mother would take me to the station and put me on the train, and when I was lucky I could stay put and arrive six hours later at the platform where Grandfather would be waiting for me. When I was less lucky, I had to change trains at the border. Once I took the wrong train and sat there in tears until a friendly conductor dried them and after a few stations put me on another train, entrusting me to another conductor, who then in similar fashion handed me on to the next, so that I was transported to my goal by a whole relay of conductors.
the book gripped me till the end. I liked the description of the narrator’s time with his grandparents during summer, how rural Switzerland looked like, how his grandparents loved literature and poetry and history and how the narrator fell in love for the first time.
Schlink paints precise, interesting portraits of different characters in the book and I liked that aspect of the novel very much. For example, here is a description of Peter’s grandparents.
I don’t know whether it was a happy marriage; I didn’t even know whether it makes sense to speak of the happiness of their marriage or whether they ever thought about it. They lived a life together, took the good with the bad, respected each other, relied on each other. I never once saw them have a serious argument, though they often teased and even poked fun at each other. They took pleasure in being together and showing themselves together, he the dignified personage he had become in his old age, she the beautiful woman she had remained.
The descriptions of his mother, by the narrator, Peter, are some of the most interesting passages in the book. Here is one :
She would have been a good doctor : she was precise, she had a good eye for what mattered and what did not, and she kept on top of things. What she lacked in warmth, she would have made up for in vigilance and commitment : her patients might not have liked her, but they would certainly have felt they were in good hands.
And another :
Sometimes I brought all the ingredients and cooked. My mother did not like to cook and was not good at it : I was raised on bread, cold cuts, and warmed-up canned foods. Seldom did I see her so happy and gay, so girlish, as when I was at work at the stove and she was doing some unimportant task for me or was simply on her first glass of champagne.
And another :
My mother was good at making me feel guilty. It was the way she brought me up to be good in school, to do my house and garden chores, to deliver my magazines on time, and to see to the needs of my friends. The privilege of getting an education, living in a nice house with a nice garden, having the money to pay for necessities (let along extras), enjoying the company of friends and of a loving mother – all this had to be earned; moreover, it had to be earned with a smile : my mother had solved the conflict between duty and desire by decreeing that I was to desire to do my duty.
In another place, Peter describes his relationship with his mother in a beautiful passage. It goes like this :
The relationship between single mothers and only sons has a bit of the married couple to it. This does not make it a happy one : it can be just as loveless and aggressive, just as much of a power struggle as a marriage. As in marriage, though in its own way, there is no third party or parties – no father, no siblings – to drain off the tension that inevitably arises in so intimate an association. The tension does not truly dissipate until the son leaves the mother, and often the dissipation takes the form of a nonrelationship much like that of a divorced couple. It may also turn into a lively, intimate, tension-free relationship, and after years of going through the motions with my mother – seldom making trouble and always a bit bored – I was looking forward to our week together as a promise of better things to come.
One of the interesting things that made me smile in the book was that for quite a while, we don’t know the narrator’s name. I had crossed nearly one-third of the book and still I didn’t know the narrator’s name. I wanted to find out how long the author was going to carry on with this game and whether he will ever reveal the narrator’s name in the end. Then suddenly there is a scene, where the narrator meets the heroine, Barbara, and he says ‘My name is Debauer. Peter Debauer.’
One of my favourite parts of the book was the depiction of the relationship between Peter and Barbara. It starts with how they first meet when Peter is trying to discover the ending of the story, and then it describes how they fall in love, Barbara’s complex background, how their relationship goes through ups and downs and whether they get back together in the end. It is a delightful subplot to the overall theme of the book and I liked it more than the main story. Barbara was one of my favourite characters in the story, starting from how she looked, the way she smiled and what she said. Some of my most favourite passages in the book were about the love between Peter and Barbara. For example there is this conversation which is one of my favourites :
‘Is it important to you that we be married? It makes no difference to me.’
‘Well, it does to me.’
‘Are you afraid we’d lose each other the way we did the last time?’
‘Let’s say I learned then how strong the bonds of matrimony can be. I think you really loved me, yet you stood by your husband.’
‘Not because he was my husband. He fought for me; you sulked.’ The dimple over her eyebrow had come out, and her voice was hard. ‘Have you forgotten? Have you forgotten that I called you, called you again and again? That I stood in front of your door and knocked and shouted? That I wrote to you? But you preferred to make a victim of yourself, the poor man ill used by the evil woman.’
And this conversation :
‘I love this place. It’s a good place. I love its big, bright rooms, I love the balcony, I used to take my nap on, even when it rained. You can hear the rain in the trees, hear the birds singing, and the air is cool, but you’ve got a roof over your head and you pull the warm blanket up over your ears and you feel safe. Try it sometime.’
I thought of the daily nap I took during the first few summers I spent with my grandparents. If it was warm enough, I could take it on the balcony, and when it rained they covered me with a blanket, just as Barbara had described. How could I have forgotten?
And this beautiful description :
I was too happy with Barbara, happy to wake up with her, shower with her, happy that we would brush our teeth and hair together, that she would put on her makeup while I shaved. I loved our breakfast conversations about the shopping to be done, the errands to be run, the plans for the evening; I loved coming home to her, seeing her get up from her desk, feeling her arms around my neck or, if I came home first, looking forward to seeing her and spending the evening with her, whether at home or on the town, and then preparing for bed together and knowing that if I happened to wake up in the night I would hear her breathing and it would take nothing at all to touch her or snuggle up to her or wake her. Sometimes she teased me, saying, ‘What a bourgeois match I’ve made. You’d be happy just to stay at home and read, listen to music, watch television, and chat, plus an occasional promenade along the river.’ But she would laugh as she said it. ‘What do you mean?’ I would say, laughing along with her. ‘I like walking up the hill too.’
Had she wanted me to, I would have taken her every night to a movie or play or concert or to see friends. But it wasn’t staying home that I enjoyed; it was the routine of love.
When Peter’s and Barbara’s relationship went through ups and downs, I, alternatively, rejoiced and panicked. My heart went through a rollercoaster ride and I dreaded what will happen in the end, because I really liked both of them and wanted them to end up together and happy. Schlink kept me in tenterhooks till the end, before I could discover whether they ended up happy.
The story is structured like Homer’s epic ‘The Odyssey’ – both the story that Peter reads and his own quest for the ending of that story and the secret behind his father’s disappearance.
One of the things I noticed in the story was the way time lapses. Sometimes a day or an hour is described in many pages. Sometimes whole years and decades lapse, in a few lines, in the blink of an eye. At one point of time, the narrator has passed out of university and is working with a publisher. He is having problems in his love life and his quest for the secrets he is searching for is not getting anywhere. At that point, I thought he must be in his late twenties. Then suddenly the narrator says that he is forty-five! I didn’t see that the years have passed by in a blink. I saw the whole story in a different light, then.
There were beautiful passages in the book on history, deconstruction, law and ethical dilemmas. Like this :
History is clearly in no hurry. It respect daily activities like work, shopping, cooking, and eating; it understands that bureaucratic processes, sporting events, and get-togethers with family and friends must go on. Presumably the same rules applied to the French Revolution : it is all very well to storm the Bastille on July 14, but on July 15 the cobbler must return to his last, the tailor to his needle; they must make up for lost time. After a morning at the guillotine, back to nailing and sewing. What is there to do all day at a Bastille already stormed? Or a Wall already scaled?
And this :
I learned that deconstruction is the separation of a text from what the author meant it to say and its transformation into what the reader makes of it; I learned that it went even further to reject the notion of reality in favor of the texts we write and read about reality…As far as I could make out, if texts are not about what the author meant to say but what the reader makes of them, then the reader, not the author, is responsible for the text; if reality is not the world out there but the text we write and read about it, then the responsibility for murder falls on neither the real murderers nor their victims – they having lost their existence – but on their contemporaries who lodge the complaints and prosecute the plaintiffs.
And this :
What we take for reality is merely a text, what we take for texts merely interpretations. Reality and texts are therefore what we make of them. History has no goal : there is no progress, no promise of rise after fall, no guarantee of victory for the strong or justice for the weak. We can interpret it as if it had a goal, and there is nothing objectionable in that, because we must always ‘act as if’ – as if reality were more than text, as if the author were speaking to us in the text, as if good and evil, right and wrong, truth and lies actually existed, and as if the institutions of law actually functioned. We have the choice of either droning back what had been droned into us or deciding for ourselves what we want to make of the world, who we want to be in it, and what we want to do in it. We come to our truth, which enables us to make decisions, in extreme, existential, exceptional situations. The validity of our decisions makes itself felt in the commitment we make to carrying them out and the responsibility we take for carrying them out, responsibility in the sense of the iron rule…
I made a list of stories, poems and books which were mentioned in the book, which I want to read. The list has the following.
• John Maynard by Theodor Fontane
• Hutten’s Last Days by Conrad Ferdinand Meyer
• Clothes Make the Man by Gottfried Keller
• As Far as My Feet Will Carry Me by Josef Martin Bauer
I loved ‘Homecoming’. I loved the beautiful passages, the love story of Peter and Barbara, the wonderful character sketches, the font, the line spacing and the bookish cover. It is a book which satisfied me in every way. I want to read more books by Bernhard Schlink. All of them :)
Have you read this book or any other books by Bernhard Schlink? What do you think of them?
What I think
‘Homecoming’ is the story of a boy, Peter Debauer, who discovers a few pages in his grandparents’ home which have the story of the homecoming of a German soldier who escaped a Russian POW camp after the Second World War. But, unfortunately, the ending of the story is missing and the boy is not able to find it even after searching for it in his grandparents’ home. In later years, after the boy has grown up, he doesn’t forget this story and later in adult life, he resumes his search for the story ending. He discovers that the house described in the book resembles a real house and starts his investigation there. He also wants to know more about his mysterious father, who is supposedly killed in the Second World War and about whom his mother is silent. He goes on a quest to find the story ending and the secret behind the disappearance of his own father. The shocking secrets that Peter discovers and how the two story arcs come together form the rest of the book.
I loved ‘Homecoming’. I loved it first for its bookish cover. I also loved it for the pleasant font and the font spacing. The generous font spacing made me read faster than usual and I couldn’t believe the rollicking pace at which the story moved. I am not able to tell whether this was because of the font and the spacing or whether it was because the story was fast-paced. Despite the rollicking pace, the story didn’t shy away from complex ideas, like the distinction and deep connection between good and evil, the deconstruction of law and the complex nature of love. Bernhard Schlink also doesn’t write those page long sentences which German writers are fond of, but writes shorter sentences, though some of them are a few lines long. (I don’t know whether this was truly the case, or whether it was because the translator did it that way. Sometimes, in a translated work of literature, we don’t know how much of the translation owes to the original writer and how much to the translator.) I think this must have also contributed to the fast pace of the book.
Starting from the first paragraph which went like this :
When I was young, I spent the summer holidays with my grandparents in Switzerland. My mother would take me to the station and put me on the train, and when I was lucky I could stay put and arrive six hours later at the platform where Grandfather would be waiting for me. When I was less lucky, I had to change trains at the border. Once I took the wrong train and sat there in tears until a friendly conductor dried them and after a few stations put me on another train, entrusting me to another conductor, who then in similar fashion handed me on to the next, so that I was transported to my goal by a whole relay of conductors.
the book gripped me till the end. I liked the description of the narrator’s time with his grandparents during summer, how rural Switzerland looked like, how his grandparents loved literature and poetry and history and how the narrator fell in love for the first time.
Schlink paints precise, interesting portraits of different characters in the book and I liked that aspect of the novel very much. For example, here is a description of Peter’s grandparents.
I don’t know whether it was a happy marriage; I didn’t even know whether it makes sense to speak of the happiness of their marriage or whether they ever thought about it. They lived a life together, took the good with the bad, respected each other, relied on each other. I never once saw them have a serious argument, though they often teased and even poked fun at each other. They took pleasure in being together and showing themselves together, he the dignified personage he had become in his old age, she the beautiful woman she had remained.
The descriptions of his mother, by the narrator, Peter, are some of the most interesting passages in the book. Here is one :
She would have been a good doctor : she was precise, she had a good eye for what mattered and what did not, and she kept on top of things. What she lacked in warmth, she would have made up for in vigilance and commitment : her patients might not have liked her, but they would certainly have felt they were in good hands.
And another :
Sometimes I brought all the ingredients and cooked. My mother did not like to cook and was not good at it : I was raised on bread, cold cuts, and warmed-up canned foods. Seldom did I see her so happy and gay, so girlish, as when I was at work at the stove and she was doing some unimportant task for me or was simply on her first glass of champagne.
And another :
My mother was good at making me feel guilty. It was the way she brought me up to be good in school, to do my house and garden chores, to deliver my magazines on time, and to see to the needs of my friends. The privilege of getting an education, living in a nice house with a nice garden, having the money to pay for necessities (let along extras), enjoying the company of friends and of a loving mother – all this had to be earned; moreover, it had to be earned with a smile : my mother had solved the conflict between duty and desire by decreeing that I was to desire to do my duty.
In another place, Peter describes his relationship with his mother in a beautiful passage. It goes like this :
The relationship between single mothers and only sons has a bit of the married couple to it. This does not make it a happy one : it can be just as loveless and aggressive, just as much of a power struggle as a marriage. As in marriage, though in its own way, there is no third party or parties – no father, no siblings – to drain off the tension that inevitably arises in so intimate an association. The tension does not truly dissipate until the son leaves the mother, and often the dissipation takes the form of a nonrelationship much like that of a divorced couple. It may also turn into a lively, intimate, tension-free relationship, and after years of going through the motions with my mother – seldom making trouble and always a bit bored – I was looking forward to our week together as a promise of better things to come.
One of the interesting things that made me smile in the book was that for quite a while, we don’t know the narrator’s name. I had crossed nearly one-third of the book and still I didn’t know the narrator’s name. I wanted to find out how long the author was going to carry on with this game and whether he will ever reveal the narrator’s name in the end. Then suddenly there is a scene, where the narrator meets the heroine, Barbara, and he says ‘My name is Debauer. Peter Debauer.’
One of my favourite parts of the book was the depiction of the relationship between Peter and Barbara. It starts with how they first meet when Peter is trying to discover the ending of the story, and then it describes how they fall in love, Barbara’s complex background, how their relationship goes through ups and downs and whether they get back together in the end. It is a delightful subplot to the overall theme of the book and I liked it more than the main story. Barbara was one of my favourite characters in the story, starting from how she looked, the way she smiled and what she said. Some of my most favourite passages in the book were about the love between Peter and Barbara. For example there is this conversation which is one of my favourites :
‘Is it important to you that we be married? It makes no difference to me.’
‘Well, it does to me.’
‘Are you afraid we’d lose each other the way we did the last time?’
‘Let’s say I learned then how strong the bonds of matrimony can be. I think you really loved me, yet you stood by your husband.’
‘Not because he was my husband. He fought for me; you sulked.’ The dimple over her eyebrow had come out, and her voice was hard. ‘Have you forgotten? Have you forgotten that I called you, called you again and again? That I stood in front of your door and knocked and shouted? That I wrote to you? But you preferred to make a victim of yourself, the poor man ill used by the evil woman.’
And this conversation :
‘I love this place. It’s a good place. I love its big, bright rooms, I love the balcony, I used to take my nap on, even when it rained. You can hear the rain in the trees, hear the birds singing, and the air is cool, but you’ve got a roof over your head and you pull the warm blanket up over your ears and you feel safe. Try it sometime.’
I thought of the daily nap I took during the first few summers I spent with my grandparents. If it was warm enough, I could take it on the balcony, and when it rained they covered me with a blanket, just as Barbara had described. How could I have forgotten?
And this beautiful description :
I was too happy with Barbara, happy to wake up with her, shower with her, happy that we would brush our teeth and hair together, that she would put on her makeup while I shaved. I loved our breakfast conversations about the shopping to be done, the errands to be run, the plans for the evening; I loved coming home to her, seeing her get up from her desk, feeling her arms around my neck or, if I came home first, looking forward to seeing her and spending the evening with her, whether at home or on the town, and then preparing for bed together and knowing that if I happened to wake up in the night I would hear her breathing and it would take nothing at all to touch her or snuggle up to her or wake her. Sometimes she teased me, saying, ‘What a bourgeois match I’ve made. You’d be happy just to stay at home and read, listen to music, watch television, and chat, plus an occasional promenade along the river.’ But she would laugh as she said it. ‘What do you mean?’ I would say, laughing along with her. ‘I like walking up the hill too.’
Had she wanted me to, I would have taken her every night to a movie or play or concert or to see friends. But it wasn’t staying home that I enjoyed; it was the routine of love.
When Peter’s and Barbara’s relationship went through ups and downs, I, alternatively, rejoiced and panicked. My heart went through a rollercoaster ride and I dreaded what will happen in the end, because I really liked both of them and wanted them to end up together and happy. Schlink kept me in tenterhooks till the end, before I could discover whether they ended up happy.
The story is structured like Homer’s epic ‘The Odyssey’ – both the story that Peter reads and his own quest for the ending of that story and the secret behind his father’s disappearance.
One of the things I noticed in the story was the way time lapses. Sometimes a day or an hour is described in many pages. Sometimes whole years and decades lapse, in a few lines, in the blink of an eye. At one point of time, the narrator has passed out of university and is working with a publisher. He is having problems in his love life and his quest for the secrets he is searching for is not getting anywhere. At that point, I thought he must be in his late twenties. Then suddenly the narrator says that he is forty-five! I didn’t see that the years have passed by in a blink. I saw the whole story in a different light, then.
There were beautiful passages in the book on history, deconstruction, law and ethical dilemmas. Like this :
History is clearly in no hurry. It respect daily activities like work, shopping, cooking, and eating; it understands that bureaucratic processes, sporting events, and get-togethers with family and friends must go on. Presumably the same rules applied to the French Revolution : it is all very well to storm the Bastille on July 14, but on July 15 the cobbler must return to his last, the tailor to his needle; they must make up for lost time. After a morning at the guillotine, back to nailing and sewing. What is there to do all day at a Bastille already stormed? Or a Wall already scaled?
And this :
I learned that deconstruction is the separation of a text from what the author meant it to say and its transformation into what the reader makes of it; I learned that it went even further to reject the notion of reality in favor of the texts we write and read about reality…As far as I could make out, if texts are not about what the author meant to say but what the reader makes of them, then the reader, not the author, is responsible for the text; if reality is not the world out there but the text we write and read about it, then the responsibility for murder falls on neither the real murderers nor their victims – they having lost their existence – but on their contemporaries who lodge the complaints and prosecute the plaintiffs.
And this :
What we take for reality is merely a text, what we take for texts merely interpretations. Reality and texts are therefore what we make of them. History has no goal : there is no progress, no promise of rise after fall, no guarantee of victory for the strong or justice for the weak. We can interpret it as if it had a goal, and there is nothing objectionable in that, because we must always ‘act as if’ – as if reality were more than text, as if the author were speaking to us in the text, as if good and evil, right and wrong, truth and lies actually existed, and as if the institutions of law actually functioned. We have the choice of either droning back what had been droned into us or deciding for ourselves what we want to make of the world, who we want to be in it, and what we want to do in it. We come to our truth, which enables us to make decisions, in extreme, existential, exceptional situations. The validity of our decisions makes itself felt in the commitment we make to carrying them out and the responsibility we take for carrying them out, responsibility in the sense of the iron rule…
I made a list of stories, poems and books which were mentioned in the book, which I want to read. The list has the following.
• John Maynard by Theodor Fontane
• Hutten’s Last Days by Conrad Ferdinand Meyer
• Clothes Make the Man by Gottfried Keller
• As Far as My Feet Will Carry Me by Josef Martin Bauer
I loved ‘Homecoming’. I loved the beautiful passages, the love story of Peter and Barbara, the wonderful character sketches, the font, the line spacing and the bookish cover. It is a book which satisfied me in every way. I want to read more books by Bernhard Schlink. All of them :)
Have you read this book or any other books by Bernhard Schlink? What do you think of them?
August 10, 2024
10 august 2024
Bernhard Schlink-"Întoarcerea acasă"
Orice carte aș citi semnată de Bernhard Schlink, îmi place. Autorul, german scrie foarte bine. Legat, concis, cu multă inteligență și transparență.
Cartea despre care scriu este altfel decât tot ceea ce am citit până acum. Este proza în care Schlink dezbate pe larg probleme sociale și prin lentila sa de avocat /jurist probleme de drept.
Titlul romanului te duce cu gândul la întoarcerea din cel de-al doilea război mondial a unui soldat german de pe front.
Dar scriitorul face referire, metaforic și la întoarcerea în copilărie, alături de bunicii elvețieni a personajului Peter Debauer, o copilărie trăită alături de o mamă singură, în absența unui tată dispărut pe front.
"Rememorate, vacanțele-mi apar ca un timp de calmă inspirare și expirare. Ca prevestirea unei vieți trăite în ritm egal. O existență a repetărilor, același lucru întâmplându-se tot mereu, de fiecare dată doar un pic diferit."
Întoarcerea acasă pentru scriitor înseamnă și întoarcerea în trecut, în istoria Germaniei, nu tocmai dreaptă și în poveștile cutremurătoare petrecute în timpul celui de-al doilea război mondial și chiar după ce acesta s-a încheiat.
" Evreii nu ne atacă? Nu vor decât să-și vadă în liniște de afaceri, să-și continue specula și cămătăria? Slavii nu vor decât să-și coacă pâinea și să-și fiarbă rachiul? Acestea toate n-au cum să-i apere. Germania a pornit lupta pe viață și pe moarte cu ei. "
Întoarcerea acasă pentru Bernhard Schlink înseamnă și întoarcerea lui Ulise în Itaca, autorul făcând o paralelă a întoarcerii cu Odiseea.
Este iubire în această carte, regăsire, identitate pierdută și renăscută, e moralitate, recunoașterea unor fapte istorice și vinovății asumate. Este o carte mai grea, dar scriitura lui Bernhard Schlink te face să vrei să afli până la capăt adevărul, despre tatăl lui Peter, pe care acesta îl găsește în viață, peste Ocean încercând să dea la o parte trecutul în care fusese susținător al naziștilor. Tată care își ia o altă identitate, își uită trecutul și își croiește o altă viață în Lumea Nouă.
"-Se întâmplă așa numai de când am aflat despre tatăl meu. Ca și cum furia mea, care nu-l poate atinge, își caută alte supape. Știu că deseori nu - ți e ușor cu mine și-mi pare rău. Și nu e vorba numai de tatăl meu. De când știu că nu-i în regulă cu el, îmi vin în minte și alte chestii care nu sunt în regulă. "
Este o rătăcire și o căutare continuă a lui Peter și în final o întoarcere la copilărie, tinerețe, iubire, identitate, acasă.
Bernhard Schlink-"Întoarcerea acasă"
Orice carte aș citi semnată de Bernhard Schlink, îmi place. Autorul, german scrie foarte bine. Legat, concis, cu multă inteligență și transparență.
Cartea despre care scriu este altfel decât tot ceea ce am citit până acum. Este proza în care Schlink dezbate pe larg probleme sociale și prin lentila sa de avocat /jurist probleme de drept.
Titlul romanului te duce cu gândul la întoarcerea din cel de-al doilea război mondial a unui soldat german de pe front.
Dar scriitorul face referire, metaforic și la întoarcerea în copilărie, alături de bunicii elvețieni a personajului Peter Debauer, o copilărie trăită alături de o mamă singură, în absența unui tată dispărut pe front.
"Rememorate, vacanțele-mi apar ca un timp de calmă inspirare și expirare. Ca prevestirea unei vieți trăite în ritm egal. O existență a repetărilor, același lucru întâmplându-se tot mereu, de fiecare dată doar un pic diferit."
Întoarcerea acasă pentru scriitor înseamnă și întoarcerea în trecut, în istoria Germaniei, nu tocmai dreaptă și în poveștile cutremurătoare petrecute în timpul celui de-al doilea război mondial și chiar după ce acesta s-a încheiat.
" Evreii nu ne atacă? Nu vor decât să-și vadă în liniște de afaceri, să-și continue specula și cămătăria? Slavii nu vor decât să-și coacă pâinea și să-și fiarbă rachiul? Acestea toate n-au cum să-i apere. Germania a pornit lupta pe viață și pe moarte cu ei. "
Întoarcerea acasă pentru Bernhard Schlink înseamnă și întoarcerea lui Ulise în Itaca, autorul făcând o paralelă a întoarcerii cu Odiseea.
Este iubire în această carte, regăsire, identitate pierdută și renăscută, e moralitate, recunoașterea unor fapte istorice și vinovății asumate. Este o carte mai grea, dar scriitura lui Bernhard Schlink te face să vrei să afli până la capăt adevărul, despre tatăl lui Peter, pe care acesta îl găsește în viață, peste Ocean încercând să dea la o parte trecutul în care fusese susținător al naziștilor. Tată care își ia o altă identitate, își uită trecutul și își croiește o altă viață în Lumea Nouă.
"-Se întâmplă așa numai de când am aflat despre tatăl meu. Ca și cum furia mea, care nu-l poate atinge, își caută alte supape. Știu că deseori nu - ți e ușor cu mine și-mi pare rău. Și nu e vorba numai de tatăl meu. De când știu că nu-i în regulă cu el, îmi vin în minte și alte chestii care nu sunt în regulă. "
Este o rătăcire și o căutare continuă a lui Peter și în final o întoarcere la copilărie, tinerețe, iubire, identitate, acasă.
January 26, 2025
Eve Dönüş, romanın kahramanı Peter Debauer’in, büyükanne ve büyükbabasıyla İsviçre’de geçirdiği tatilleri anlatmasıyla başlıyor. İsviçre vatandaşı babası II. Dünya Savaşı’nda Kızılhaç için çalışırken ölen Peter, Almanya’da annesiyle yaşamaktadır. Eğlence Romanları adı altında bir seri için redaktörlük yapan büyük ebeveynlerinin yasaklamasına rağmen arada bu romanların müsveddesini okuyan Peter, Rus çalışma kampından kaçıp evine dönen Karl adında bir Alman askerin hikayesinin küçük bir kısmına denk gelir. Yıllar sonra, büyükanne ve babasından kalan eşyaları gözden geçirirken romanın bazı bölümleri çıkar karşısına. Romanın sonunu merak eden Peter bazı rastlantılarla yazarın izini yakalar ve takip etmeye başlar.
Roman Peter’ın hayatındaki dalgalanmalar ekseninde devam ederken, zaman zaman gizemli yazar ile ilgili yeni bilgilere ulaşılıyor. Karl’ın hikayesinin aslında en eski eve dönüş hikayesi olan Odisseia ile olan benzerlikleri konu ediliyor. Kitabın arka kapakta belirtilen konu ile alakası olmadığını düşündüğümüz zamanlarda ortaya çıkan bilgiler hem Peter’ın hayatında yeni sürprizler ortaya çıkarıyor hem de Karl ve gizemli yazarın hikayesi belirli aralıklarla karşımıza çıkıyor.
Eve Dönüş’ü genel olarak beğendim. Çevirisinde yer yer hatalar var. Diğer yandan Peter’ın peşine düştüğü yazarın güce tapan, totaliter felsefesiyle ilgili sıkıcı bölümler var. Hikaye her zamanki gibi çok iyi. Schlink yine, çoğu zaman kendi kafasında yaşayan, edilgen bir erkek kahraman kurgulamış. Yerden yere vursam da sevdim Peter’ı. Çok sevdiğim güçlü Schlink kadın karakteri olarak Peter’ın annesi Ella Graf var. Ve yine Schlink romanlarının vazgeçilmezi, savaş sonrası neslin bireyi Peter’ın kendi edilgen tarzıyla Nasyonal Sosyalizmle ve babasıyla hesaplaşması var.
Roman Peter’ın hayatındaki dalgalanmalar ekseninde devam ederken, zaman zaman gizemli yazar ile ilgili yeni bilgilere ulaşılıyor. Karl’ın hikayesinin aslında en eski eve dönüş hikayesi olan Odisseia ile olan benzerlikleri konu ediliyor. Kitabın arka kapakta belirtilen konu ile alakası olmadığını düşündüğümüz zamanlarda ortaya çıkan bilgiler hem Peter’ın hayatında yeni sürprizler ortaya çıkarıyor hem de Karl ve gizemli yazarın hikayesi belirli aralıklarla karşımıza çıkıyor.
Eve Dönüş’ü genel olarak beğendim. Çevirisinde yer yer hatalar var. Diğer yandan Peter’ın peşine düştüğü yazarın güce tapan, totaliter felsefesiyle ilgili sıkıcı bölümler var. Hikaye her zamanki gibi çok iyi. Schlink yine, çoğu zaman kendi kafasında yaşayan, edilgen bir erkek kahraman kurgulamış. Yerden yere vursam da sevdim Peter’ı. Çok sevdiğim güçlü Schlink kadın karakteri olarak Peter’ın annesi Ella Graf var. Ve yine Schlink romanlarının vazgeçilmezi, savaş sonrası neslin bireyi Peter’ın kendi edilgen tarzıyla Nasyonal Sosyalizmle ve babasıyla hesaplaşması var.
July 3, 2009
'We make our own truths and lies....Truths are often lies and lies truths...'
Bernhard Schlink stunned the reading public with his brilliant novel 1999 THE READER and once again with HOMECOMING he proves he is one of our most important authors today. Written in German and translated by Michael Henry Heim, HOMECOMING addresses, as did THE READER, the prolonged impact of the WW II fall of Germany on the lives of those who survived it. Not only is this a gripping story of a deserted son's search for his mysterious father, it is also a treatise reflecting on the horrors of evil and challenges the responsibility of those who perpetrated it and those who 'allowed' or were victims of its perpetration. There is much profound philosophy in these pages, enough to make the reader stop, think, turn to other resources for references, and become transported by the mind of a truly gifted writer.
Peter DeBauer was raised by his distant mother who refused to inform him about his father, a mysterious man who apparently wrote novels edited and published by is own parents (Peter's paternal grandparents with whom he has an intense bond) yet 'disappeared' form his life to become involved in surviving the war by moving to Switzerland and eventually to America where he became established as a political science professor at Columbia University where, as John De Bauer, he became a highly regarded professor and mind manipulator. The story concerns Peter's quest for finding his father, a journey that places him in locations throughout Europe, seeking bits and fragments of information from anyone even slightly connected with the information he has about his father, finding solace and love from various women, and eventually results in his compulsive trip to New York to investigate the infamous John De Bauer, only to be caught up in a fascinating retreat in the frozen tundra of Upstate New York, learning the truth about his shadowy father. 'Sometimes I feel a longing for the Odysseus who learned the tricks and lies of the confidence man..., set out restless in the world, sought adventure and came out on top, won over my mother with his charm, and made up novels with great gusto and theories with playful levity. But I know it is not Johann Debauer or John De Baur I long for; it is the image I have made of my father and hung in my heart.'
The magic of reading Schlink's books is the discovery of a mixture of brilliant story development with indelibly rich characters and the sharing of philosophizing about death, murder, suicide, guilt, and history's influence on who we will become. 'At what degree of cold, hunger, pressure, or fear does the layer of civilization start to peel away?' Yes, other writers are dealing with the scars left on the German mind living in the aftermath of the atrocities of national guilt. But few do it so eloquently and with such brilliant skill as Bernhard Schlink. At novel's end, the reader is consumed with the desire to start the book all over again. Highly recommended. Grady Harp
Bernhard Schlink stunned the reading public with his brilliant novel 1999 THE READER and once again with HOMECOMING he proves he is one of our most important authors today. Written in German and translated by Michael Henry Heim, HOMECOMING addresses, as did THE READER, the prolonged impact of the WW II fall of Germany on the lives of those who survived it. Not only is this a gripping story of a deserted son's search for his mysterious father, it is also a treatise reflecting on the horrors of evil and challenges the responsibility of those who perpetrated it and those who 'allowed' or were victims of its perpetration. There is much profound philosophy in these pages, enough to make the reader stop, think, turn to other resources for references, and become transported by the mind of a truly gifted writer.
Peter DeBauer was raised by his distant mother who refused to inform him about his father, a mysterious man who apparently wrote novels edited and published by is own parents (Peter's paternal grandparents with whom he has an intense bond) yet 'disappeared' form his life to become involved in surviving the war by moving to Switzerland and eventually to America where he became established as a political science professor at Columbia University where, as John De Bauer, he became a highly regarded professor and mind manipulator. The story concerns Peter's quest for finding his father, a journey that places him in locations throughout Europe, seeking bits and fragments of information from anyone even slightly connected with the information he has about his father, finding solace and love from various women, and eventually results in his compulsive trip to New York to investigate the infamous John De Bauer, only to be caught up in a fascinating retreat in the frozen tundra of Upstate New York, learning the truth about his shadowy father. 'Sometimes I feel a longing for the Odysseus who learned the tricks and lies of the confidence man..., set out restless in the world, sought adventure and came out on top, won over my mother with his charm, and made up novels with great gusto and theories with playful levity. But I know it is not Johann Debauer or John De Baur I long for; it is the image I have made of my father and hung in my heart.'
The magic of reading Schlink's books is the discovery of a mixture of brilliant story development with indelibly rich characters and the sharing of philosophizing about death, murder, suicide, guilt, and history's influence on who we will become. 'At what degree of cold, hunger, pressure, or fear does the layer of civilization start to peel away?' Yes, other writers are dealing with the scars left on the German mind living in the aftermath of the atrocities of national guilt. But few do it so eloquently and with such brilliant skill as Bernhard Schlink. At novel's end, the reader is consumed with the desire to start the book all over again. Highly recommended. Grady Harp
April 15, 2021
3.5/5
Edit: I slept on it (da ne kazem, prespavala sam) i zaokruzila na vecu.
Godinu dana je prošlo od poslednjeg čitanja Šlinka i dogovorih se sa sobom da više neću dozvoliti da se na toliko rastanem od njegovog pisanja. Prethodnog aprila u fokusu je bila "Olga", a ovog "Povratak kući" - priča koja počinje kao "fikcija u fikciji", kada Peter Debauer kao dete naiđe na deo romana nepoznatog imena, na zadnjim stranama svoje sveske za vežbanje. Kasnije, tražeći nastavak romana i želeći da zna kako se priča završava, Peterov život upravlja se po krivinama života misterioznog pisca i pretvara se u priču o potrazi za sopstvenim identitetom.
Sada je već činjenica da ću ja uživati u bilo kojoj temi koju Šlink obradi. Tema "nenađenog" romana je povratak nemačkog vojnika nakon zarobljeništva u Sibiru. Povratak kući se kao tema više puta provlači - delom i kroz tumačenje Odisejevog putovanja. Ljubitelji mitologije, ne zalećite se - više se upušta u filozofiju nego u mitove vezane za taj put.
Pošto ne umem ovo da sumiram bez da otkrijem mnogo, dodaću samo da upoznajemo Peterove odnose s majkom, bakom i dedom, kao i odnos prema radu i životu. Pored toga, činilo mi se da roman na momente menja žanrove, što mi je došlo kao osveženje ali mislim da se neće dopasti svima. Zbog određenih filozofskih diskusija - o pravdi, dobru i zlu - mislim da je mogu čitati i ponovo, jer se u neke stvari nisam preterano udubila, a da jesam, verovatno bi sada ocena bila veća.
Možda se, nakon svih zavrzlama koje Peter pravi u romanu, nekome kraj neće dopasti - meni je bio odličan, posebno poslednji pasus. Dugo mi nešto nije tako dobro zaokružilo priču. Ipak, za likove se nisam previše vezala, kao što je to bio slučaj u prethodne dve knjige, ali je nesumnjivo da ćete se na kraju romana zapitati kakav bi bio Peterov život da do njega nikada nije dospeo deo tog "romana za razonodu i dobro raspoloženje".
Edit: I slept on it (da ne kazem, prespavala sam) i zaokruzila na vecu.
Godinu dana je prošlo od poslednjeg čitanja Šlinka i dogovorih se sa sobom da više neću dozvoliti da se na toliko rastanem od njegovog pisanja. Prethodnog aprila u fokusu je bila "Olga", a ovog "Povratak kući" - priča koja počinje kao "fikcija u fikciji", kada Peter Debauer kao dete naiđe na deo romana nepoznatog imena, na zadnjim stranama svoje sveske za vežbanje. Kasnije, tražeći nastavak romana i želeći da zna kako se priča završava, Peterov život upravlja se po krivinama života misterioznog pisca i pretvara se u priču o potrazi za sopstvenim identitetom.
Sada je već činjenica da ću ja uživati u bilo kojoj temi koju Šlink obradi. Tema "nenađenog" romana je povratak nemačkog vojnika nakon zarobljeništva u Sibiru. Povratak kući se kao tema više puta provlači - delom i kroz tumačenje Odisejevog putovanja. Ljubitelji mitologije, ne zalećite se - više se upušta u filozofiju nego u mitove vezane za taj put.
Pošto ne umem ovo da sumiram bez da otkrijem mnogo, dodaću samo da upoznajemo Peterove odnose s majkom, bakom i dedom, kao i odnos prema radu i životu. Pored toga, činilo mi se da roman na momente menja žanrove, što mi je došlo kao osveženje ali mislim da se neće dopasti svima. Zbog određenih filozofskih diskusija - o pravdi, dobru i zlu - mislim da je mogu čitati i ponovo, jer se u neke stvari nisam preterano udubila, a da jesam, verovatno bi sada ocena bila veća.
Možda se, nakon svih zavrzlama koje Peter pravi u romanu, nekome kraj neće dopasti - meni je bio odličan, posebno poslednji pasus. Dugo mi nešto nije tako dobro zaokružilo priču. Ipak, za likove se nisam previše vezala, kao što je to bio slučaj u prethodne dve knjige, ali je nesumnjivo da ćete se na kraju romana zapitati kakav bi bio Peterov život da do njega nikada nije dospeo deo tog "romana za razonodu i dobro raspoloženje".
May 2, 2009
So the criticism that the lady who gave me The Reader had of it was concerning this part where the main character goes skiing toward the end of the book and he skis in a teeshirt. And she was like "That just seemed over-the-top and melodramatic and idiotic to me, like [affects silly German accent:] 'Oh I am so German and desensitized I will just ski in the freezing cold in a teeshirt because I have no feelings after all that has befallen me,'" which, yeah, is pretty dumb, I guess, if you read it like that--but I didn't read it like that (I think mainly because the first/only time I've been skiing I got so sweaty I stripped down to my teeshirt, so it just seems meh to me that the guy would ski in a teeshirt) . . . THAT SAID--once she said that, I thought to myself, Hm, yeah that makes sense. And then I read Homecoming and Jaysoos was that impression impossible to squelch! I've been fuggy lately so I also kinda zoned out on some of the plot points, but yeah. Schlink=Kind of a Turd. Like someone you'd sit behind in a 100 level philosophy class and maybe secretly want to choke a little.
July 26, 2025
Pittig boek, echt ingewikkeld en tegelijkertijd ook boeiend.
Sommige stukken vond ik saai en andere verrassend.
Ik vind het zeker knap geschreven!
Sommige stukken vond ik saai en andere verrassend.
Ik vind het zeker knap geschreven!
January 23, 2011
Das Leben des Deutschen Peter Debauer ist in diesem Roman wie eine Odyssee angelegt. Die Hauptfigur surft auf dieser Irrfahrt völlig wirr und sinnlos durch sein Leben und das Jahrhundert, auf der Suche nach dem Ende eines Romans, auf dessen Manuskript er zufällig als Kind gestossen ist und hinter ständig wechslenden Personen her.
So spannend das Epos von Homer ist, so lähmend ist diese Geschichte, denn ganze 260 Seiten weiss der Leser nicht wofür die Hauptfigur dies alles tut, wohin diese Geschichte überhaupt führen soll und was der Autor uns mit dem Werk sagen will. Erst nach mehr als zwei Dritteln der Geschichte klärt sich der wirre Plot auf und dann nimmt die Handlung schon an Geschwindigkeit und Spannung zu. Leider bleibt es dabei, dass der Showdown wieder nicht stattfindet weil Peter Debauer einfach ein laaangweiliger Zeitgenosse, ein Mehlwurm, ein Lulu, kein richtiger Mann ist und somit auch nicht interessant genug die Handlung eines Romans zu tragen. Das hat der Autor offensichtlich nicht berücksichtigt, denn einen Roman zu schreiben, nur um seine handwerklich gut gemachte Sprache vor dem Publikum spazierenzuführen, halte ich für besonders perfide.
So spannend das Epos von Homer ist, so lähmend ist diese Geschichte, denn ganze 260 Seiten weiss der Leser nicht wofür die Hauptfigur dies alles tut, wohin diese Geschichte überhaupt führen soll und was der Autor uns mit dem Werk sagen will. Erst nach mehr als zwei Dritteln der Geschichte klärt sich der wirre Plot auf und dann nimmt die Handlung schon an Geschwindigkeit und Spannung zu. Leider bleibt es dabei, dass der Showdown wieder nicht stattfindet weil Peter Debauer einfach ein laaangweiliger Zeitgenosse, ein Mehlwurm, ein Lulu, kein richtiger Mann ist und somit auch nicht interessant genug die Handlung eines Romans zu tragen. Das hat der Autor offensichtlich nicht berücksichtigt, denn einen Roman zu schreiben, nur um seine handwerklich gut gemachte Sprache vor dem Publikum spazierenzuführen, halte ich für besonders perfide.
May 2, 2011
This book showed much promise from the blurb on the back cover. I had read his other book The Reader before it was made into a film and really enjoyed it so naturally I did not hesitate to give this book a go. A fair go I did give it, 159 pages to be exact, and it went nowhere, well, nowhere I wanted to continue to go!
The premise of the book was good in that a man who had spent most of his childhood with his grandparents during the summer months realises that the have been writing manuscripts and he has read bits of them but does not know the full story that is being told. His grandparents have died and now he is trying to discover the full story.
The first 50 pages of the book were interesting and had me intrigued about where the book was going but from this point on the book slowed to a frustrating level and was filled with information that was not interesting or even particularly relevant to the synopsis of the book. I perservered but at page 159, after looking at my 'To Read' pile decided that this book was just not worthy of my time. I would not recommend this book to anyone.
The premise of the book was good in that a man who had spent most of his childhood with his grandparents during the summer months realises that the have been writing manuscripts and he has read bits of them but does not know the full story that is being told. His grandparents have died and now he is trying to discover the full story.
The first 50 pages of the book were interesting and had me intrigued about where the book was going but from this point on the book slowed to a frustrating level and was filled with information that was not interesting or even particularly relevant to the synopsis of the book. I perservered but at page 159, after looking at my 'To Read' pile decided that this book was just not worthy of my time. I would not recommend this book to anyone.
June 8, 2016
Fascinating exploration of the search for identity in post-war Germany by the author of The Reader. Legal, moral, and psychological issues thoroughly excavated but sometimes at the expense of literary value.
March 19, 2014
More like 2.5 stars. Really enjoyed Mr. Schlink's novel, The Reader, but this one fell a bit short. Probably would have embraced it more in my college years, but the novel lacked in engaging storytelling with its odd forays in philosophical discourse and a whining protagonist.
August 9, 2011
The Homecoming? It should have been called The Meandering. Maybe I would have gotten more out of it had I read the Odyssey first. But alas...
June 8, 2022
Interessante Geschichte über Heimkehren, ich mag Bernhard Schlink generell gerne. Und ich mag es, wenn Geschichten „rund“ sind, so wie diese. :)
July 21, 2024
Kompleksan i slojevit roman koji podrazumijeva predznanje o političkim i društvenim prilikama u Njemačkoj nakon II svj.rata.
Interesantan prikaz političkih razlika između Istočne i Zapadne Njemačke.
Konstantna paralelna veza sa Odisejem i njegovim povratkom sa Itake.
Kontekst podjele Njemačke, politika Gorbačova, te društveno historijski kontekst i uloga malog čovjeka u velikim promjenama.
Interesantan prikaz političkih razlika između Istočne i Zapadne Njemačke.
Konstantna paralelna veza sa Odisejem i njegovim povratkom sa Itake.
Kontekst podjele Njemačke, politika Gorbačova, te društveno historijski kontekst i uloga malog čovjeka u velikim promjenama.
Want to read
November 3, 2024Knihu vzdávam na 120 strane.
Nedokážem a nechce ju dočítať.
Filozofovanie s odkazmi na odyseiádu je ťažkopádne, nudné a zdĺhavé.
Preklad Ladislava Šimona je zlý a zaslúžil by si nejakú veľkú "prekladateľskú malinu".
Nedokážem a nechce ju dočítať.
Filozofovanie s odkazmi na odyseiádu je ťažkopádne, nudné a zdĺhavé.
Preklad Ladislava Šimona je zlý a zaslúžil by si nejakú veľkú "prekladateľskú malinu".
February 17, 2019
Bir askerin savaştan eve dönüşü hikâyesini okuyarak bir şekilde dahil olan Peter, aynı zamanda kendi hayatında da bu hikayeyle bazı tuhaf benzerlikler yaşıyor. Kitabın yaklaşık yarısından sonra öğrenmek içim peşine düştüğü olaylara yeni kahramanlar eklendiğinden epey karmaşık ve ne yazık ki sıkıcı bir hal alıyor.
Hitler Almanya'sı konusunda güzel bilgiler verilmiş. Özellikle toplumların olayları algılayış biçimi ve psikolojisi hakkında oldukça ilginç şeyler okuyoruz. Daha önce düşünmediğimiz açılardan olaylara bakılmış. Bu güzel.
Kitap 5 bölüme ayrılmış. İlk 2 bölüm ana karakterin çocukluğu, dedesi ve büyük annesiyle yaşadıkları, peşine düştüğü eve dönüş hikayesiyle tanışması konularını işliyor. Ayrıca hayatında önemli bir yeri olan kız arkadaşıyla da tanışıyor. Büyüyor ve hayatı sorgulayan biraz pasif bir kişiliğe bürünüyor. 3 ve 4. bölümde hikaye biraz evrimleşip yer yer Alman tarihi tadında, çoğunlukla karışık ve sıkıcı bir şekilde devam ediyor. Peter iyiden iyiye bir yabancılaşma etkisine de giriyor. Savaşın, toplumsal yıkımın etkilediği ikinci bir nesile mensup kendisi diyebiliriz. Son bölüm ise öğrenilen bir gerçeğin peşinde sürüklenen Peter'ın yaşadıkları.
Biraz kopuk kopuk olsa da iyi bir hikaye. Yazar fena bir iş çıkartmamış. Puanı düşük olduğundan beklenti de düşük başlıyorsunuz okumaya, bu yüzden tatmin ediyor. Yoksa beğenmeyebilirdim.
Hitler Almanya'sı konusunda güzel bilgiler verilmiş. Özellikle toplumların olayları algılayış biçimi ve psikolojisi hakkında oldukça ilginç şeyler okuyoruz. Daha önce düşünmediğimiz açılardan olaylara bakılmış. Bu güzel.
Kitap 5 bölüme ayrılmış. İlk 2 bölüm ana karakterin çocukluğu, dedesi ve büyük annesiyle yaşadıkları, peşine düştüğü eve dönüş hikayesiyle tanışması konularını işliyor. Ayrıca hayatında önemli bir yeri olan kız arkadaşıyla da tanışıyor. Büyüyor ve hayatı sorgulayan biraz pasif bir kişiliğe bürünüyor. 3 ve 4. bölümde hikaye biraz evrimleşip yer yer Alman tarihi tadında, çoğunlukla karışık ve sıkıcı bir şekilde devam ediyor. Peter iyiden iyiye bir yabancılaşma etkisine de giriyor. Savaşın, toplumsal yıkımın etkilediği ikinci bir nesile mensup kendisi diyebiliriz. Son bölüm ise öğrenilen bir gerçeğin peşinde sürüklenen Peter'ın yaşadıkları.
Biraz kopuk kopuk olsa da iyi bir hikaye. Yazar fena bir iş çıkartmamış. Puanı düşük olduğundan beklenti de düşük başlıyorsunuz okumaya, bu yüzden tatmin ediyor. Yoksa beğenmeyebilirdim.
January 14, 2009
Perhaps more daring in conception but less well realized in execution than The Reader, Schlink's Homecoming uses Homer's Odyssey (in the sense of its being of the class of nostoi) as a metaphor for "homecoming." As is so often the case, this is an example of demanding too much of a metaphor. The basic idea is sound and interesting, but Schlink has relied too much on references to the details of the Odyssey appearing in strange ways throughout the narrative, which has the dual effects of straining the willingness of the reader to suspend disbelief (in the sense of Coleridge's aesthetic theory) and of introducing an unintentional comic element into the story. Being both a fan of The Reader and a lover of the Odyssey (since even before I had any Greek), I was disappointed by the flaws in this work. It is still an interesting story as an imaginative nostos in its own right, but it left me wanting to read the great story it could have been with a lighter touch of the author's metaphorical brush.
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