Flights of Love by Bernhard Schlink

What a relief to have a real Saturday, full of extra sleep, a leisurely breakfast, snowshoeing, and even time to read! Ken's cousin Tom from Portland, Maine, is visiting, and we've had loads of fun introducing him to Adirondack life. I took Tom on a long snowshoe this morning, which he clearly loved, and this afternoon the "boys" went out on an Adirondacks tour by truck, leaving me with quiet time to read and play with the computer.

I've read another story in Bernhard Schlink's collection Flights of Love. I'm enjoying each story and am intellectually stimulated but ultimately perplexed. I've studied and followed German history over a period of many decades, but still, these stories, I believe, were originally written to be absorbed by German readers only. They require an inside knowledge, a code of history and collective memory that I would love to crack but can't completely. I realize that no matter how many times I read them and study the critical literature, I will never fully comprehend them. But I love the challenge of trying to fit my worldview and my imaginative understanding into these stories. Very cool indeed.

I'm providing only one link to Flights of Love. If you google it, you will find reviews written by many critics who still hold contemporary Germans responsible for the atrocities of 70 years ago. Such critics are not capable of understanding contemporary German literature.