Bernard Schlink's The Weekend

The novel is at first reminiscent of a tried-and-true fictional structure: bring a group of people together and have them tell stories. One thinks of The Canterbury Tales or Boccacio's Decameron, but The Weekend is anything but a group of friends reconnecting. Yet, it never quite evolves to anything else. It is clear that the novel is supposed to make a larger point, but Schlink never quite gets it there. The novel contemplates terrorism: who are the terrorists, what does it mean to be a terrorist, how does one become a terrorist,etc. Yet, there are no definitive conclusions and the novel waffles over its own raised questions. The Weekend also ponders how the past and the present elide, and how, if at all, one can escape the past to embrace the future, but here, too, there is little definitive answer.
Perhaps the novel is too disparate in its focus. If Schlink had focused on the evolution of one character, it would have surely had a more specific outcome, rendering the intended meaning more clear. As it is, one leaves the novel feeling unsure of the message.
The Weekend shines, though, in its characterization and in the subtle interplay between characters. Schlink balances the various personalities and desires in the country house with aplomb, and the novel, at the very least, is interesting from this perspective. If you are looking, though, for a revelatory, jaw-dropping narrative like the one presented in The Reader, this is not your book. The Weekend is a far more blurry a novel than The Reader and may disappoint on this score.
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