Rate this book

Guilt About The Past (2009)

by Bernhard Schlink(Favorite Author)

3.86 of 5 Votes: 1

ISBN

0702237140 (ISBN13: 9780702237140)

languge

English

genre

History & Biography

publisher

University of Queensland Press

review 1: Now, readers of Schlink's fiction will know that most of his books are in some way about reconciling the past with the present. This book is a series of essays (based upon a series of lectures) that explores the concepts of collective guilt; how we might use history to motivate individual moral behaviour; how to reconcile a guilt-laden past; the role of the legal process in all of this; before settling on how the theme of guilt influences fiction.Written in an authoritative but accessible style, it should be read by anyone keen to explore the concepts of remembering and forgetting in the aftermath of terrible events and how we might forgive and reconcile the various legacies of the past. Highly recommended!
review 2: Bernhard Schlink From the PodiumFor those re... moreaders captivated by the extraordinary prose and gift for relating involving stories ('The Reader', 'Flights of Love: Stories', 'Self's Punishment', 'Self's Deception', 'Homecoming', 'Self's Murder') this book of essays from the writer who also happens to be a professor law. Presented as a series of lectures in 2008, they are such fine reading that deserve publication in book form. These six short but pungent essays explore Guilt - both as a personal feeling and as a collective shroud. Grouped together they comprise some of the more enlightening book on the subject, using of course the German people and the aftermath of WW II. In both his introduction and the first essay Schlink appropriately delves into history going back to the 1300s when law were in force that punished members of families for something one member of a family didi; entire families could be by law put in a sack and drwoned for the malfeasance of one person. He then rather quickly reminds us of the collective guilt of the British in India, of Americans and slavery, of Canadians and First Nations and so on. According to Schlink 'when some members of a collective commit crimes, its other members have a duty to identify them and expel them from the group. If they don't, they become "entangled" in the perpetrators' crimes and share their guilt; the behaviour of the few is then credited to the many. After 1945, Germans should have identified the Nazis in their midst and severed ties with them. When they didn't - when they preferred to forget Nazism - they became guilty as a collective for what had been done.' It is the courage to accept the past and at the same time investigate how to restore pride in a nation bludgeoned by the world for atrocities for the past. Schlink discusses moral consequences in his fourth essay addressing how ridiculous for politicians to apologize for things done in the past 'when it's not them who should bear any guilt for anything, and perhaps those being apologised to are not there to offer forgiveness. Given racial slaughters, of course, some reconciliation is always beneficial.' When members of a collective (such as Germany in WW II) commit crimes as in the Holocaust it is the onus, the obligation to identify the perpetrators and segregate them from the collective: those who did not come forth share the guilt and become equally guilty as a collective. In the final chapter of this book the author addresses the books and films that he believes to be accurate and responsible and also points out those he considers inferior and misleading. Being a writer of one of the more popular of these books gives him an edge in critiquing the writings of others. And even in this role Bernhard Schlink remains a figure of fairness, a man of opinions that matter. This book is a reliable survey of Guilt about the Past, whether that be counted in centuries, in decades or in days. It is pertinent information for us as well as a fine documentation of the philosophy of collective guilt. Grady Harp less

Download links for: Guilt about the Past

Advertising