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The Assault | 
 enlarge | Author: Harry Mulisch
Publisher: Pantheon
Category: Book
List Price: $13.95
Buy Used: $0.01
You Save: $13.94 (100%)
New (39) Used (69) from $0.01
Avg. Customer Rating:  23 reviews
Sales Rank: 53575
Media: Paperback
Edition: American ed
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 192
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.5
Dimensions (in): 7.9 x 5.1 x 0.6
ISBN: 0394744209
Dewey Decimal Number: 839.31364
EAN: 9780394744209
ASIN: 0394744209
Publication Date: March 12, 1986
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: Writing Present;Slight Water Damage Giving great service since 2004: Buy from the Best! 4,000,000 items shipped to delighted customers. We have 1,000,000 unique items ready to ship! Find your Great Buy today!
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Product Description
A novel that probes moral devastation in the wake of the slaughter of an innocent family by the Nazis in retaliation for the association with a Dutch collaborator.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 18 more reviews...
A matsterpiece November 12, 2007
Harry Mulisch is not well known in the United States -- and it's a shame. The Assault is an undiscovered masterpiece: a moral quandary is wrapped in a thriller and a deeply philosophical work; the result is stunning. The Assault is one of the best novels I've ever read; it ranks easily along works by Fitzgerald, Hemingway, Garcia Marquez, Lessing and even Tolstoy. I recommend this novel wholeheartedly. It will stay with the reader and reveal hidden layers of meaning over time.
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I'm sorry to say I was not very taken with Mulisch's other major oeuvre, "The Discovery of Heaven." Unlike "The Assault" which is stunning in its minimalism, "Discovery" is excessively verbose and so pretentiously intellectual that it made me imagine Umberto Eco on speed.
Probably the best novel I have ever read! May 21, 2007
I read this book for the first time many years ago, and I have re-read it a couple of times since then. I purchased another copy of it recently as a gift for an old friend from college. After my first reading of it, my conclusion was that it was probably the best novel I had ever read. This judgment was confirmed by a friend (a college librarian), who independently told me that she had the same opinion. I have recommended the book to many people since then. The novel tells the story of a teenager from the traumatic event that he undergoes in the last year of World War II in the Netherlands (1944-45) through several later stages in his life, and how he comes to terms with this event both psychologically and with regard to figuring out the details of what happened. The book has a beautifully crafted plot and is written in wonderful sparse prose. In the Netherlands, this novel was extremely popular and has probably become on the the most widely read novels ever.
no Dutch literature? Learn Dutch and get real!!! July 10, 2006
3 out of 4 found this review helpful
I just wanted to comment on Peter Reeve's review. He says there is 'not much' of a Dutch literature.
Come on, Mr Reeve, the fact that the Assault is the only book to be found in American bookstores doesn't mean that the Dutch don't have a literature but rather that Americans can't read Dutch and that they think they don't need any more translated literature!
Mutatuli, Hella Haasse, Anna Enquist, Margriet de Moor, Frederik van Eeden, Louis Couperus, Joost van den Vondel, Godfried Bomans, F. Bordewijk, Gerrit Achterberg, Annie M.G. Schmidt, ...
These are but a few random stars of the Dutch literature. Saying there is no or almost no Dutch literature is the same thing as saying there is no American literature.
Excellent book February 24, 2006
A historical subject and a story which is full with hidden references and symbols. Mulish is always amazing and never boring. Makes excellent subject for a reading class.
Haunted and haunting July 23, 2005
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
In a Haarlem street the Dutch Resistance kills an active collaborator. In retaliation the Germans have destroyed a house in that street in which live ten-year-oldAnton Steenwijk with his parents and elder brother. Anton survives, but his parents and brother are killed. As Anton grows up, he wants to suppress all memories of that time, and it is not a coincidence that he chooses to become an anaesthetist. But of course the trauma is buried within him, and affects his mental life in many ways, some that are inexplicable to him. But the members of the resistance who had carried out the assassination are haunted also, by their knowledge that their deed had led to uninvolved people being shot. All these states of mind are explored in this story, as much that lay concealed emerges over the 36 years after the event. The reader is engaged as taut knots are loosened and unwound.
During all this time the world moves on and new political issues arise - Vietnam; the anti-nuclear movement. Do they leave the old issues behind or are they connected with them?
This short book's limpid prose is very precise, profound and rich in unobtrusive symbolism. It is all very compelling
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