Although "Homecoming" might be described as a man's search for the father he never knew, its German author, Bernhard Schlink, does not reveal this popular if mundane premise until halfway through his beguilingly oblique novel. Similarly, its theme could be reduced to the protagonist's rather dreary discovery that in tracking down his father he is "really looking for himself". Yet, in the meantime, the author is looking for the identity of modern Germany, and vivifying his generation's continuing difficulty in arriving at the truth about the second world war-whatever truth is, as Prince Charles once asked about love.
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