The Weekend: A Novel [Hardcover]

Bernhard Schlink (Author), Shaun Whiteside (Translator)

Book Description

Release date: October 12, 2010

Old friends and lovers reunite for a weekend in a secluded country home after spending decades apart.
 
They excavate old memories and pass clandestine judgments on the wildly divergent paths they’ve taken since their youth. But this isn’t just any reunion, and their conversations about the old days aren’t your typical reminiscences: After twenty-four years, Jörg, a convicted murderer and terrorist, has been released from prison. The announcement of his pardon will send shock waves through the country, but before the announcement, his friends—some of whom were Baader-Meinhof sympathizers or those who clung to them—gather for his first weekend of freedom. They have been summoned by Jörg’s devoted sister, Christiane, whose concern for her brother’s safety is matched only by the unrelenting zeal of Marko, a young man intent on having Jörg continue to fight for the cause.
 
Bernhard Schlink is at his finest as The Weekend unfolds. Passions are pitted against pragmatism, ideas against actions, and hopes against heartbreaking realities.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Old friends cautiously reunite at an isolated German estate after one of them is released from prison in Schlink's (The Reader) meditative novel on the past's grip on the present and the possibility--or impossibility--of redemption. Convicted of quadruple murder and numerous acts of terrorism on behalf of the radical left, Jörg spent 24 years in prison before being unexpectedly pardoned. His sister, Christiane--whose obsessive concern for her brother's welfare has turned her into a borderline recluse--arranges a gathering to welcome Jörg back into society. Among those assembled are journalist Henner, whom Jörg believes betrayed him to the police; quiet Ilse, using the weekend to begin a novel about a common friend's alleged suicide; and Marko, a young revolutionary keen on convincing Jörg to use his newly earned freedom to speak out against the current government. Schlink avoids the easy route of condemnation and salvation, never lingering too long on Jörg's crimes--though the ties to the RAF aren't cloaked--and though the past is admirably handled (sketched in, but not overbearing), the book's real strength is the finely wrought dynamics among the characters, whose relationships and histories are fraught with a powerful sense of tension and possibly untoward potential.
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Review

Praise for The Weekend
“Schlink avoids the easy route of condemnation and salvation . . . The book’s real strength is the finely wrought dynamic among the characters, whose relationships and histories are fraught with a powerful sense of tension and possibly untoward potential.”
—Publishers Weekly

Praise for The Reader
“Arresting, philosophically elegant, morally complex . . . Schlink tells this story with marvelous directness and simplicity, his writing stripped bare of any of the standard gimmicks of dramatization.”
 —The New York Times
 
“[A] beautiful, disturbing, and finally morally devastating novel. From the first page, The Reader ensnares both heart and mind.”
 —Los Angeles Times
 
Praise for Homecoming
“A beguilingly oblique novel . . . Despite its intricate, mazelike progression, Homecoming has surprising narrative thrust.”
 —The Economist
 
“Sensitive and disturbing . . . The reader’s mind opens to the story like a plant unfurling its leaves to the sun.”
 —The New York Times Book Review
 
Praise for Flights of Love
“An outstanding collection.”
 —The Wall Street Journal
 
“Intimate, smart, powerful . . . As memorable as The Reader . . . Dazzling.”
 —The Washington Post Book World

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: Pantheon; 1 edition (October 12, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0307378152
• ISBN-13: 978-0307378156
• Product Dimensions: 5.3 x 1 x 7.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,001,308 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars A novel that is timely, relevant and controversial October 20, 2010

By Bookreporter

Format:Hardcover

Some familiar and recurring themes in popular fiction include characters trying to escape their fate, family secrets and ties, as well as the past impacting the present and threatening to repeat itself. All of these subjects are firmly in place within the pages of Bernhard Schlink's claustrophobic new novel, THE WEEKEND.

Schlink is best known for his international bestseller, THE READER, which was later turned into a film that earned Kate Winslet an Oscar. This notoriety has allowed more readers to find him and enjoy his often challenging work. Translated from German into English by Shaun Whiteside, THE WEEKEND is a short novel that deals with some big issues.

Taking place over a weekend in the German countryside, a group of friends and family members unite to celebrate the release of Jörg from prison, where he has spent 24 years for acts of terrorism. While this experience has changed Jörg somewhat, he is still passionate in his beliefs and the need to be actively involved in standing up against what he considers to be injustice in the world around him.

The weekend gathering is hosted and organized by Jörg's sister, Christiane, and she has invited a select group of people from his past to celebrate his release. However, not everyone there is in agreement that Jörg has paid for the acts of terrorism that took the lives of innocent people decades earlier. The country itself is still ambivalent about Jörg's pardoning as he was an active member of the infamous Baader-Meinhof group that continues their controversial reputation throughout Germany and still has many sympathizers.

One of the main supporters --- and the individual many blame for Jörg's participation in their radical agenda --- is Marko. Marko's presence at the gathering causes a stir, and his agenda is obvious: to put Jörg back on the path he left prior to his jailing. Jörg is a shade of himself and often uncomfortable in dealing with the issues that brought about his incarceration. His discomfort in interacting fully with his guests is obvious.

It would not be a Bernhard Schlink novel if, in addition to the controversial social commentary, there wasn't some underlying secrets that drive the narrative forward. First off, Jörg confronts one of his guests, Henner, who he blames for turning him over to the authorities 24 years earlier. In actuality, the real turncoat is present at the gathering and torn as to how and when to make his or her confession to Jörg. Additionally, Jörg's estranged son, who never visited him during his years in prison, shows up and confronts his father with his personal assertions that justice was not served, and the innocents who died and families who were affected due to Jörg's actions are shamed by the premature pardoning.

This set-up and mix of characters and agendas make for a tense weekend, and readers will be challenged as to where their allegiance should lie. What was most interesting about this novel was the controversial perspective given for the post-9/11 world in which we live. At one point, Marko makes a poignant proclamation that "...without September Eleventh none of the good things that have happened over the past few years would have happened. The new attentiveness to the Palestinians, still the key to peace in the Middle East, and to the Muslims, still a quarter of the world's population, the new sensitivity to the threats in the world, from the economic to the ecological, the realization that exploitation has a price that is always rising --- sometimes the world needs a shock to come to its senses." This mimicked what Simon Reeve wrote in ONE DAY IN SEPTEMBER (2000) --- that the Munich massacre was one of the most significant terror attacks of recent times, one that "thrust the Palestinian cause into the world spotlight, set the tone for decades of conflict in the Middle East, and launched a new era of international terrorism."

Like Marko's claim, THE WEEKEND is a novel that is timely, relevant and controversial. Most of all, it is worth reading and discussing, as Jörg's own struggle and guilty conscience represent feelings that many people in the volatile world we live in go through on a daily basis. Jörg's forgiveness by those who oppose his release or his salvation through repentance of the crimes that put him away is only the surface of this book. Passion versus pragmatism often brings about internal chaos, and readers will experience all of this over an eye-opening weekend spent with Jörg and the people in his life.

--- Reviewed by Ray Palen

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars "Wouldn't you have to be sick to kill people not out of passion and desperation, but with a clear head and in cold blood?" October 22, 2010

By Mary Whipple HALL OF FAMETOP 100 REVIEWER

Format:Hardcover

Bernhard Schlink faces a monumental challenge in this novel in which he attempts to connect the terrorism of the Baader-Meinhof Gang in Germany in the seventies with the earlier German national terrorism that the Nazis represented and the later terrorism of Al-Qaeda. Here he investigates why people become terrorists and what happens to them in the aftermath of their crimes. Set in the present, the novel opens as Christiane, the physician sister of Jorg, a man who has been imprisoned for twenty-four years for his crimes in the 1980s, waits outside the prison from which he is to be released. She has planned a weekend for him at a dilapidated but spacious old estate surrounded by parkland, fields, and a stream, with a sense of quietude that everyday life does not often offer. Several of Jorg's former friends will join them for the weekend, before the press and the country can intrude on their privacy, and she has high hopes of providing Jorg with an environment in which he can begin to come to terms with his past and his long imprisonment.

All of the people who visit for the weekend were supporters of the gang in the past, but none, other than Jorg, have participated in the sometimes deadly actions taken by the group in the belief that they are making positive changes for the country. Significantly, all have established new lives, and none are currently involved in any radical causes. They include a bishop, a successful dental technician with a string of labs, a journalist, a teacher, and some spouses. The only two about whom there are questions are Andreas, who was Jorg's defense counsel during his trial, and Marko Hahn, a younger man determined to have Jorg join the country's contemporary radicals, and he envisions an anti-government organization which will soon join with Al-Qaeda to accomplish joint goals.

The action, as it evolves, is psychological action, primarily, and the sense of ominous prescience, as characters interact, is reminiscent of some of Agatha Christie's "closed room" mysteries. Jorg, the "hero" of the eighties, is a weakened man who is out of touch with present-day life, however, and as the weekend guests connect and reconnect with each other, and former loves and former relationships are recalled and sometimes rekindled, the reader hopes that the author will finally get the novel out of the personal and into the universal, which will give meaning to their actions.

The author frequently reminds the reader of the continuing terrorism of Al-Qaeda, and two scenes in the book are set inside the World Trade Center during the September 11 attack. Considering the enormous difference between the scale of the 9/11 attack and the events from Jorg's past, I was offended by the deliberate connections Schlink made between the Baader-Meinhof crimes, however terrible, and the worst act of terrorism in modern world history. Linking them seemed opportunistic, a way to draw on the horrors of 9/11 in order to add to the impact of the novel. The novel, unfortunately, does not live up to its potential, in my opinion, as it could have been a thorough and thoughtful analysis of Germany between World War II and the present, including an analysis of the philosophical and political issues involved. Schlink is a talented writer with a unique gift for conveying descriptions, especially lyrical ones, but this novel, which promised so much, was ultimately a disappointment to me. Mary Whipple

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful

2.0 out of 5 stars Trivialities of evil June 14, 2011

By H. Schneider

Format:Hardcover

Bernhard Schlink is one of the most successful contemporary writers of fiction in Germany. He is a retired law professor and public law judge. His main success in fiction was the Reader, filmed with Kate Winslet.
I am not among his admirers. I have liked some of his books, but when he gets serious I find him rather unbearable. His writing is lacking beauty of language or style. His German is not even as precise as I would expect from a jurist. He transforms theoretical problems of social/political relevance into short prose texts which can boast construction and intricacy of relations and maybe clarity of definition, but not poetic power. If fiction has no special grace, why not stick to non-fiction?
Schlink is not funny at all, ever. He is working hard at being relevant. If he is read in future, he will be read for historical understanding, but not for artistic value.

The Weekend, of 2008, is about the `homecoming' of a convicted terrorist from the Baader Meinhof school of thought, after over 20 years in prison, released due to an act of clemency by the Bundespräsident. His loyal sister picks him up and takes him to a secluded run-down mansion near Berlin, where he meets with old friends and some others, like a new friend of his old political persuasion, and his lawyer. The emphasis of the story is on memories and relations between the members of the group. We are not wallowing in guilt or accusations, luckily. But we are also not treated to a serious consideration of the roots of the terror.
There are sub-stories, like the memories of a friend who committed suicide (or did he fake it?) at about the time when the terrorists were at their work. Or like the nymphomaniac, celebrity- collecting daughter of one of the friends. She is a `story', a Freudian shock effect.
I find nearly nothing to recommend this novel. It lacks deeper insight. It is missing the opportunity to address a difficult subject in a responsible or even interesting way. It is not well written. Its characters are not drawing me in. They are banalities. They have nothing to tell me. Or you.
(I may need to add that I also disliked the Reader immensely. If you liked that, the Weekend might work for you.)