Olga
A Novel
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- 3,99 €
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- 3,99 €
Beschreibung des Verlags
“Two world wars and the passage of more than a century do not overshadow [Bernhard Schlink’s] story of lovers who never fully belong to each other, just as they never fully belonged to the world.”—Booklist
“A brilliant novel about history and the nature of memory.”—Evening Standard
A sweeping novel of love and passion from author of the international bestseller The Reader about a woman out of step with her time, whose life is witness to some of the most tumultuous events of modern age.
Abandoned by her parents, young Olga is raised by her grandmother in a Prussian village in the early years of the twentieth century. Smart and precocious, endearing but uncompromising, she fights against ingrained chauvinism to find her place in a world run by lesser men.
When Olga falls in love with her neighbor, Herbert, the son of a local aristocrat, her life is irremediably changed. While Herbert indulges his thirst for exploration and adventure, Olga is limited by her gender and circumstance. Her love for Herbert goes against all odds and encounters many obstacles, but even when they are separated, it endures
Unfolding across decades—from the late nineteenth to the early twenty-first century—and across continents—from Germany to Africa and the Arctic, from the Baltic Sea to the German south-west—Olga is an epic romance, and a wrenching tale of a woman’s devotion to a restless man in an age of constant change. Though Olga exists in the shadows of others, she pursues life to the fullest and her magnetic presence shines—revealing a woman complex, fascinating, and unforgettable.
Told in three distinct parts, brilliantly shifting from different points of view and narrative formats, Bernhard Schlink’s magnificent novel is a rich, full portrait of a singular woman and her world.
Translated from the German by Charlotte Collins
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Schlink (The Reader) returns with a nuanced portrait of an ordinary German woman who comes of age at the turn of the 20th century. Orphaned as a young girl, Olga Rinke is taken in reluctantly by her chilly paternal grandmother in Prussia. She becomes friends with Herbert Schroder, and by the time they're in secondary school, she falls in love with him. Olga becomes a teacher and Herbert joins the army, serving in the Battle of Waterberg in 1904 Africa, and in 1914 he sets off to explore the Arctic. Olga continues teaching through both world wars, and in her 60s, at the end of WWII, she flees eastern Germany for Heidelberg, where she takes up work as a seamstress and befriends Ferdinand, the young son of the primary family for whom she works. In the 1950s, Olga supports Ferdinand's teen rebellion—he reads Brecht and wears American-style blue jeans—and she tells him stories about Herbert's adventures. The final section features passionate, undelivered letters Olga wrote to Herbert decades earlier, while he was off in the Arctic. While the two big reveals in the final section are strongly telegraphed, the more quotidien mysteries of Olga's life will keep readers engaged. Readers who love rich character studies will want to pick this up.
