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Title: A Masterwork
Review: When my work took me to Holland for a few months, I asked people there what Dutch novels they would recommend. They all said "The Assault". It would certainly be an exageration to say that Holland has no literature, but not much of an exageration. It is renowned for its great painters and architects, not its writers. But in "The Assault" at least, they have produced an indisputable masterpiece. If you read just one Dutch novel, this has to be it.An exquisitely poignant evocation of life in German-occupied Holland in World War II, it invites the reader to make moral judgements and then systematically undermines those judgements. It is a restrained, undemonstrative, beautifully written work that unfolds gradually and in a most unexpected way. Highly recommended.
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