Olga A novel

Bernhard Schlink

Book - 2021

"Abandoned by her parents, Olga is raised by her grandmother in a Prussian village around the turn of the 20th century. Smart and precocious, endearing but uncompromising, she fights against the prejudices of the time to find her place in a world that sees women as second-best. When Olga falls in love with Herbert, a local aristocrat obsessed with gaining all the power, glory and greatness the modern age can provide, her life is irremediably changed. Their love goes against all odds and encounters many obstacles, entwined with the twisting paths of German history, leading us from the late 19th to the early 21st century, from Germany to Africa and the Arctic, from the Baltic Sea to the German south-west. Unfolding across centuries, Olga... is an epic romance, and a wrenching tale of devotion to a restless man in a fateful moment of great rebellion. Though Olga lives her life within the margins of others, her magnetic presence breathes vivid life into these pages. Told in three distinct parts-which brilliantly shift from different points of view to the epistolary form-Schlink paints a full portrait of a singular woman's complex life"--

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Subjects
Genres
Romance fiction
Historical fiction
Published
New York, NY : HarperVia 2021.
Language
English
German
Main Author
Bernhard Schlink (author)
Other Authors
Charlotte Collins, 1967- (translator)
Edition
First HarperVia edition
Item Description
"Originally published as Olga in Germany in 2018 by Diogenes Verlag."
Physical Description
277 pages ; 22 cm
ISBN
9780063112926
Contents unavailable.
Review by Booklist Review

Orphaned and sent to live with a cruel grandmother in Prussia, Slavic Olga finds succor with Herbert and his sister Viktoria, aristocratic children. Olga and Herbert, both odd in their own way, fall in love as teenagers. As they near adulthood, Viktoria arranges for Olga to teach in a backwater village. Herbert's parents disapprove of a marriage to Olga, and he leaves, exploring far-flung places like German South West Africa, where he falls in love with the "great expanse." His taste for adventure draws him eventually to the Arctic. This constitutes the first part of Schlink's book. Part two focuses on Olga's later years, which are told through her young friend, Ferdinand. The final third of the novel is epistolary. Olga's undelivered letters to Herbert in the Arctic reveal several secrets, one of which leads to Olga's death. Two world wars and the passage of more than a century do not overshadow Schlink's (The Woman on the Stairs, 2017) story of lovers who never fully belong to each other, just as they never fully belonged to the world.

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

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. (Sept.)

(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Kirkus Book Review

In a story that sweeps across a century, a woman who stays home is more engaging that her lover who explores the world. Born near the end of the 19th century in a small town in Poland, Olga Rinke endures a childhood marked by poverty and loneliness. After her parents' deaths, she's raised by her cold German grandmother in a village in Pomerania. A bright and curious student, Olga finds solace in school and in her friendship and, later, more with Herbert Schröder, son of the richest man in the village. When they fall in love, his family disapproves, so they pursue their affair in secret. Restless and self-centered (and none too bright), Herbert is colonialism on the hoof. As a soldier in South West Africa during Germany's genocide against the Herero people, he feels an occasional twitch of empathy: "But they had perished with their cattle and like cattle; they had been lying on the ground, and he had been on horseback." Herbert, obsessed with travel and exploration, is often gone for months or years, but Olga remains faithful to him. Her instincts for community and stability run counter to his--she becomes a teacher, forms friendships, joins unions and churches, and creates a comfortable home for herself. She waits uncomplainingly for Herbert's visits and, even after he leaves her life for good, carries a torch. Later in life, working as a seamstress, she grows close to Ferdinand, the young son of an employer. He takes over the book's narration, recounting Olga as a mother figure and an intellectual equal with whom he remains friends for the rest of her life. The novel covers more than a century, and its swathes of historical exposition take the reader away from Olga; it's strongest when it pauses to explore the intimate texture of her life, but those pauses are too brief. She's an intriguing character, but Herbert isn't, making her devotion to him a puzzle. A couple of big reveals about Olga are telegraphed so early and so broadly that they lack punch when they come. A historical novel about a mismatched couple spends too little time with its most interesting character. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.