![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() The War’s major intrusion into his life is via the hunger of a growing lad, although he also takes a stand for a classmate – perhaps saving a life as he does so – but he acts impulsively, without too much reflection on his motives. He recalls ‘branches… bleached by the sun’, notices ‘bare, ice-coated, impassive trees that were totally unaware of what wartime was all about’, while damaged railway lines stand ‘upright like the horns of a snail’. He is happy to spend time watching the wave patterns created by the motorboats on the canal outside his Haarlem home. ![]() Perhaps slightly more thoughtful than some of his peers, with a love of and keen eye for nature which will later see him publish poems on the subject. Although it seems premature to crown ‘the best work of fiction I have read all year’, so it must be.Īnton Steenwijk is an ordinary boy – keen on planes and cars, arguing with his older brother – living in the extraordinary time and place of Occupied Holland at the tail-end of the Second World War. If it was via your recommendation then please accept my unending gratitude. I am not quite sure by what happy chance The Assault by Harry Mulisch arrived on my ‘to read’ list, but I am profoundly glad that it did. ![]()
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