Der Vorleser

This book just fell short with me, on oh so many levels. One thing that did intrigue me and that I have not yet seen much of is the perspective of Germans after the Holocaust and their views on the Third Reich and Hitler's agenda, especially of the younger generation of that time. That was really the only thing that struck me about this book. The rest was just not enough. For one, the affair between MIchael and Hanna was deplorable. Is it supposed to not be as bothersome because it is an older woman with a teenage boy, rather than an older man with a teenage girl? Either way, in my opinion, it's just not palatable and I felt neither sympathy for either of the characters nor did I feel that it was relatable on many levels at all whatsoever. The writing fell flat for me and was rather dry. Not in the beautiful sparse language trends of Hemingway, but in an annoying succinct manner that just left each situation as it occurred "as is" with nothing left to ponder. I noticed that this novel has won awards and while it means absolutely nothing to me because her choices are not always great or even good in the least, but it was on Oprah's Book Club list a number of years back. Neither are good enough reasons for anyone to read this book, in my opinion. Spare yourselves and read a nice historical account of Germany after the Holocaust, if you are inclined. I am sure it would be much richer reading in any case than this novel.

--an edition with images from the 2008 movie, The Reader (which I haven't seen), with Kate Winslett in the character of Hanna Schmitz and Ralph Fiennes as Michael Berg

When I was in my early 20s, I fell in love with somebody I could not have, that is, he was not the marrying kind. After a while a friend of mine, a slightly older contemporary, told me that man I loved was bisexual, which ended my attraction, just like that. I wasn't repulsed--nothing like that; but the bond was broken.

I had another female friend, a fellow graduate student, who had an affair with the head of the facility where we both were doing our internships. She broke off with her boyfriend, for how could someone her same age compete with the attentions of the powerful established male? Subsequently, she never married, never had children.

Those affairs in academia between male professors and female students have only recently come to be considered wrong--an abuse of power. Think Arendt and Heidegger, or even Abelard and Heloise. (Yes I know he got in big trouble, but it was for damaging Heloise's uncle's property, not for sexually abusing a person in his custody.)

In my own situation, the young man was my same age, possibly a factor. And I never even found out for sure if he were really bisexual. But in any case, not all romantic attraction ends when the object of affection turns out to be unsuitable. Think of the movie The Crying Game, in which Stephen Rea's character maintained some sort of fixation on Jaye Davidson's character, even after he found out all was not as it had seemed.


--Stephen Rea and Jaye Davidson in The Crying Game, 1992

Sometimes, who one loves, or, maybe, who one becomes imprinted on, is unaccountable. But the impact--in these cases, the distorting impact--is real.

Not to mention the impact of history and context within which our loves and attachments are set. What a complicated scenario this book describes: the consequences of wrongness along multiple dimensions, through and through.


You could tell from the title that this book is about reading:

I began with the Odyssey. I read it after Gertrud and I had separated. There were many nights when I couldn't sleep for more than a few hours; I would lie awake, and when I switched on the light and picked up a book, my eyes closed, and when I put the book down and turned off the light, I was wide awake again. So I read aloud, and my eyes didn't close. And because in all my confused half-waking thoughts that swirled in tormenting circles of memories and dreams around my marriage and my daughter and my life, it was always Hanna who predominated, I read to Hanna. I read to Hanna on tape.
...

In general I read to Hanna the things I wanted to read myself at any given moment. With the Odyssey, I found at first that it was hard to take in as much when I read aloud as when I read silently to myself. But that changed. The disadvantage of reading aloud remained the fact that it took longer. But books read aloud also stayed long in my memory. Even today, I can remember things in them absolutely clearly.

Also, it's about writing:

When I began writing myself, I read these pieces aloud to her as well. I waited until I had dictated my handwritten text, and revised the typewritten version, and had the feeling that now it was finished. When I read it aloud, I could tell if the feeling was right or not. And if not, I could revise and record a new version over the old. But I didn't like doing that. I wanted to have my reading be the culmination. Hanna became the court before which once again I concentrated all my energies, all my creativity, all my critical imagination. After that, I could send the manuscript to the publisher.

É um livro invulgar!

Uma prosa minimalista que esconde a profundidade das ideias e questões filosóficas que aborda.

Dividi a história em três partes:
1 - O relacionamento entre Michael (15 anos) e Hanna (36 anos) como metáfora do conflito geracional na Alemanha após a II Guerra Mundial.
2 - O dilema moral de Michael quando assiste a um julgamento por crimes de guerra, e descobre que Hanna está no banco dos réus.
3 - A compaixão de Michael para com Hanna.

Foi simultaneamente uma surpresa literária e um desafio moral, e a moralidade é complicada. Não somos todos cúmplices de grandes erros? Serão alguns erros demasiado grandes que permitam expiação? Será que aqueles que cometem grandes erros são dignos de compaixão?

Agora é ver o filme.

**This review contains spoilers since what I have to say about this book can't be expressed without revealing details. If you haven't read this book and wish to, you should stop reading now...**

If I had read this book, 'The Reader' by Bernhard Schlink a decade ago, I would have felt much differently about it than I do reading it now. This book, a thin volume at just 218 pages, presents moral situations or dilemmas which invite the reader to consider his own feelings and beliefs. I am much less rigid in my views now than I was even a decade ago. This story occurs in post-World War II Germany and centers around 15-year-old Michael Berg and a woman names Hanna Schmitz. On his way home from school one day, Michael became violently ill while on the street. As fate would have it, Hanna Schmitz was nearby and helped Michael get back to his home. Michael was ill with hepatitis for quite some time but when he began to feel better, he sought out Hanna to thank her for her assistance. Michael and Hanna.. a woman more than twice his age.. began a sexual relationship, creating the first of several dilemmas in this story.

Although I personally did not find this aspect of the story romantic or erotic, given my understanding of adolescent hormones and adult loneliness, I wasn't at all surprised by the development of this relationship. Putting moral issues aside and looking at this relationship from a reasonable and logical viewpoint, a relationship with a person who never calls you by your given name but simply 'kid' is probably an omen. Also, any relationship which is secret is never a healthy one. secrets isolate the people involved from family, friends and peers... so this relationship, to me, was doomed from the outset. And as I expected, one day, Hanna simply disappeared.. leaving Michael with no explanation but with plenty of guilt. he couldn't stop wondering if he had done something which forced her to leave. Michael had no way of knowing it at the time but Hanna was on the run, not from him but to conceal certain truths about herself.

It was years later that Michael saw Hanna again. By this time, he was studying law and his education was coinciding with Nazi War Crimes trials occurring in various towns. Michael's law seminar was encouraged to attend a trial which was taking place in a neighboring town. The students and professors would be following the trial of a group of women camp guards. The law students were ambitious in their agenda and relentless in discovering the truth. They were interested in defining.. "What IS law? Is it what is on the books, or what is actively enacted and obeyed in society?" What was occurring in Germany at that time was that the younger generation was examining and discussing the crimes perpetrated during World War II so that they could discover the degree of guilt and responsibility which should be assigned to their elders. I should mention that what the students were doing was not particularly popular nor was it welcomed by some people in society. The trials being held didn't hold much interest for some and "literally repelled others."

I found this particular section of the story to be compelling and of great interest. I, of course, was not all that surprised by the citizens who wished to avoid these trials or who wanted to forget about what had happened. I was intrigued by the enthusiasm of the students who were determined to display all the facts.. withholding nothing... so that the responsibility and culpability of society could be determined. I suppose this can be explained as the zealotry that often characterizes youth. And of course, it was most likely difficult to avoid dealing with these issues completely when the country had been forced onto the world stage to account for war crimes.. crimes against humanity. But I couldn't help but think about Germany's reluctant assent to shine a light on the atrocities that had been committed and compare it to how the United States has typically handled the atrocities it has committed over the years. Usually, this country (the US) develops a sort of collective amnesia. Then we simply rewrite history so that it is clear to anyone who questions that we have a mandate bestowed upon us from God because we are an 'exceptional' or special people. It's definitely something to consider if you ever find yourself wanting to condemn the actions of another country....

When Michael Berg walked into the courtroom, he immediately noticed Hanna Schmitz. Hanna had been one of the women camp guards and now she would be expected to account for her actions. The scene was highly dramatic and I could feel the pieces of the puzzle which had been Hanna Schmitz, begin to fall into place for Michael. Her behaviors... her reticence to talk about herself and her life.. began to make sense for the first time.But Hanna was holding tightly to one more secret... a secret she would rather die for than have it exposed to the world. Michael finally put the missing pieces together.. her running away, her inability to stay with any one job for long and even her recruitment by the Nazis to guard women prisoners at Auschwitz ... all of this had been to keep the fact that she was illiterate from the world.

I have to admit that although the clues were there in the story, I had not guessed that Hanna's big secret was her illiteracy. Up until that big reveal, Hanna had not been a sympathetic nor an understandable character. But when I realized that she was illiterate, I couldn't help but feel compassion for her. Perhaps she was not deserving of compassion because any sympathy shown to her was far more than she had demonstrated to the women prisoners whose lives she controlled. But illiteracy has a personal meaning for me. Several years ago, after the death of a family member, our family discovered that this family member had been illiterate . He had been able to keep this secret through the diligence and aid from his wife for more than 50 years. It was a shocking revelation and all I could think about was the huge amount of energy he must have expended daily to hide this from his family, his co-workers.. from the world. His obvious shame and humiliation were all I could think about and it broke my heart. And Hanna's illiteracy... it was something I could not only imagine but feel a personal connection to. I believe Michael felt that sense of compassion for Hanna as well.. although he felt it wasn't an excuse for her actions. Instead of reporting this discovery to the judges, he allowed her to keep her secret.. even though it meant she would spend a much longer time in prison. Did Michael do the right thing? I think in realizing that allowing Hanna to maintain her privacy and dignity was more important than potentially having her prison sentence reduced.

I have been thinking about this story a great deal.. even though I finished reading it days ago. To me, the story of Michael Berg and Hanna Schmitz was not simply their singular, personal story. What occurred in their lives seemed somehow symbolic of the tragedy of a nation... of the world... tragic events which the entire world talks about, writes about and tries to make sense of more than seven decades later.

تعرفت على هذا العمل من خلال الفيلم المقتبس عن هذه الرواية وتحت نفس العنوان. شاهدت هذا الفيلم منذ عدة سنوات وكان فيلمًا رائعًا.. واليوم كانت قراءته على ذات المستوى من الروعة؛ رغم أنني أفضل الفيلم على الرواية، لكنه عمل ساحر جدًا .

Part 1 and 3 were fine. Part 2 was like reading 'The boy in the striped pajamas'.

When I first saw this book at the thrift-store months ago, I thought to myself that it had to be amazing. The cover image intrigued me, I'm interested in reading books that pertain to the Holocaust, and at only 218 pages, it's short so I felt sure that it would pack a punch.

The first part interested me, due to the fact that I felt the book was leading up to something really dramatic and exciting, but I never felt that spark that makes a book great. Everything felt a bit rushed, and matter-of-fact, and almost scripted. The beginning of Hanna and Michael's affair was so abrupt that it seemed unnatural.

The second part, which should have really interested me, as it's the part that dealt with the majority of the Holocaust issues, was interesting only because of Hanna's actions. Her secret wasn't really a revelation to me, as I had suspected it for quite a while.

The third part was boring to me. Michael annoyed me in his alienation from others, and his refusal to accept other women as they are and instead tries to make them fit into this ideal Hanna-mold that Hanna herself didn't even fit. It felt to me that he gave up living after his affair with Hanna deteriorated, just as he had given up against her so many times while they were together. Hanna was the star, and Michael was responsible for the stage-dressing and supporting roles.

One thing that irritated me throughout the story was Michael's inability to remember the things that he wants to tell us about. I understand that most people do not have 100% recall, but I counted at least 5 examples of where he would try to describe what he couldn't remember. This just seemed so lazy to me. Like the author expects the reader (meaning us) to do all the work of imagining the scenario for him, so that he does not have to give it life of its own. I suppose that some will say that Michael's inability to remember everything makes the story more real, but I just kept thinking what a cheat it was.

This was an OK book. I'd recommend it if I thought that the person would really enjoy it, but I myself felt disappointed by it over all.

"You don't have the power to upset me. You don't matter enough to upset me."

Best quote ever :)