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ability to theatricalize the person being represented and his world. Unfortunately, that ability is not well apparent here. The book consists primarily of static doctrinal and moral conversations between
Bonhoeffer and others; as a result, characters sound, at best, like puppets reading from political pamphlets or philosophical treatises, at worst like characters in a grade-B war flick." She concludes, "what might otherwise have been a provocative and multifaceted psychological portrait of a Christian pacifist turned conspirator is finally a disappointingly uninspired account."
194:, working with a group of upper-echelon Nazi officials who plot to kill Hitler. He uses his position to gather counterintelligence and to help Jews flee Germany. Bonhoeffer struggles with the moral dilemma of justifying taking one life to save others. In April 1943, Bonhoeffer is arrested and imprisoned. There, he faces the interrogator Bauer, who mocks his faith, and is a foil for all Bonhoeffer's doubts and moral quandaries.
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theological struggles in the book also brought
Giardina back to her church, in a journey to "live in God" that culminated with her being re-ordained in 2007, having left the church year earlier due to conflicts over miners' rights. The novel is her first narrated in the third-person. In a mirror image of her experience with her earlier novel,
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review, recognizes that "Giardina’s strength lies in her ability to show how historical particulars craft individuality." However, the review is less laudatory about her recreation of
Bonhoeffer's life from biographical sources, claiming that such work "is an act of imagination that requires an adept
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Raised in a privileged, upper-middle-class German family at the beginning of the 20th century, Bonhoeffer is a sheltered and dreamy loner, indulged and protected by his family. After failing to develop as a musician, he turns to theology, initially as an academic pursuit, not a spiritual calling. His
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review claims that "Giardina creates a fictional account of
Bonhoeffer that transcends the usual ‘historical novel’ as it becomes a dramatic meditation on the meaning of his life. Giardina breathes new life into Bonhoeffer. He is no longer the pristine icon of his worshipful admirers. Giardina makes
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states: "The story—compelling in and of itself—is engrossingly narrated, with an eye for significant detail, a strong sense of life’s bitter ironies, and a powerful feeling of immediacy. The characters, especially
Bonhoeffer himself, are lifelike and complex. Giardina also does a fine job of evoking
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first gave her a book of his writings. The novel dwells upon moral decisions, most notably the acceptability of sin if the sin will prevent a greater evil. Giardina immersed herself in
Bonhoeffer's life, attracted to the story because of the ambiguities of the situation. Grappling with the moral and
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Today there are once more saints and villains. Instead of the uniform grayness of the rainy day, we have the black storm cloud and brilliant lightning flash. Outlines stand out with exaggerated sharpness. Shakespeare’s characters walk among us. The villain and the saint emerge from primeval depths
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of 1927, in which hundreds of mostly Black men mysteriously die after being pulled off bread lines to help dig a tunnel. Bonhoeffer disguises himself as a worker, actually and symbolically stripping himself of all articles of selfhood: He must hide his glasses, pretend to be mute because he has an
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to frame
Bonhoeffer's saga and Germany's slide into Nazism and war. The music's liner notes helped her focus on the character of SS officer Alois Bauer, a music lover who serves as Dietrich's doppelgänger and is a composite of Bonhoeffer's real interrogators. Acknowledging a touch of authorly
218:, she began it in the first-person, and junked the first 50 pages in order to start over. She also decided to shift from past to present tense for the book's final scenes, adding suspense to the question of whether the imprisoned Bonhoeffer would be freed by the advancing Allies.
292:, "Giardina . . . surpasses herself with this powerful re-creation of the life and martyrdom of German pastor and theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer . . . A big novel in every sense of the word, and a triumphant portrayal of one of the century’s authentic heroes."
363:: "Saints and Villains depicts a mental and physical adventure of one man. It is a treatise on man’s inhumanity to man and one person’s courage in rising above such horrors to find his own faith strengthened in the process."
183:, Bonhoeffer's writings and sermons take on an increasingly anti-Nazi tone. When the Nazis set up a state church, he helps found another pastoral movement in opposition, and speaks as a representative of that movement at the
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s positive review observes: "In a series of telling scenes brought to life with unerring choice of detail . . . Giardina exerts an admirable grip on her panoramic story." However, writing for
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writes, "Giardina . . . succeeds in fleshing out
Bonhoeffer’s factual biographies with fine and detailed human touches–the more ‘believable’ because they are based on diligent research."
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As the Nazis become increasingly violent, anti-Semitic and anti-intellectual, Bonhoeffer feels compelled to act. He takes a job as a low-level military intelligence agent in the
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is more a predictable dramatization of the facts than an original reimagining of a life. The pathos of
Bonhoeffer's story is still best captured in his own elusive writings."
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and by their appearance they tear open the infernal or the divine abyss from which they come and enable us to see for a moment into mysteries of which we had never dreamed.
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is less impressed. Though he recognizes
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163:. He befriends an African American student, Fred Bishop, who introduces him to the endemic racism in the United States, and takes him to visit both
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its only prominent negative review. Another character invented by Giardina is Fred Bishop, a black minister studying with Bonhoeffer at New York's
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Bonhoeffer spends the rest of the war in jail, and as the war nears its end, his fate hangs in the balance—will he be saved by the approaching
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Bonhoeffer returns to Germany, and soon after, Hitler and the Nazis come to power. When attacks on Jews became open public policy after the
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accent, and don ragged clothes to fit in. This sense of being depersonalized foreshadows what happens to Jews in Germany upon his return.
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The title was suggested to her by a friend who saw the following quote from Bonhoeffer on Giardina's refrigerator:
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Giardina had ruminated on Bonhoeffer and his work for some 20 years, ever since her mentor in the
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The Wide Reach of Salvation: Christian Universalism in the Novels of Denise Giardina
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revenge, Giardina bestowed on Bauer the same surname as the
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him again a credible, though exceptional, person." The
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Reviews of Saints and Sinners were mostly positive.
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