" " I ... I mean ... so what would you have done? "
Hanna meant it as a serious question. She did not know what she should or could have done differently, and therefore wanted to hear from the judge, who seemed to know everything, what he would have done. "

This same question is posed in other situations throughout this book.
Should Michael, being the only other person to know Hanna's secret, have exposed this secret in order to help her during the trial?
Should Michael have been more understanding toward Hanna, after the trial?
Should the average German citizen feel shame for not doing more to avert the Holocaust?
How should today's German citizen feel towards their ancestors that had to endure World War II?
As 'that guard', what should Hanna have done?

You be the judge...........

Interesante y bien escrita. Nos da buenos puntos de vista sobre cómo reaccionó la sociedad alemana después de la segunda guerra mundial. Es una gran reflexión sobre la culpa y la responsabilidad, colectiva e individual y sobre el castigo. Lástima que los personajes principales me hayan despertado empatía cero.
3,5*

[Before reading: posted late 2009]

Haven't read it, but was completely blown away by the movie. Masterpiece! Kate Winslet was even better than I'd expected, and that's saying quite a bit.

Maybe I'll finally get serious about improving my German... no question about the appropriateness of the book.
_______________________
[After reading: posted early 2019]

It's funny how all the books you read link up inside you and start talking to each other. I finished Der Vorleser a week or so ago, and for once I just didn't know what to say. Everything I thought of seemed inadequate. But then yesterday I started Romain Gary's Chien blanc, which a French friend had recommended to me, and after a couple of hours I found a scene that brought everything into focus.

In Gary's supposedly autobiographical novel, the author, who's living in 1968 LA, adopts a stray dog, a German shepherd he calls Batka. Gary is a dog person, Batka is a kind, good-natured dog, and they really hit it off. Within days, Gary and his wife feel he's part of the family. But then a terrible and unexpected thing happens. A guy comes to clean their pool, and the moment Batka sees the visitor he's transformed into a murderous, snarling beast. Teeth bared, he lunges at the terrified pool cleaner, who's luckily still on the other side of the gate. Gary can barely hold him back. He apologises profusely and the pool cleaner, still shaking, leaves. A couple of days later, the same thing happens again, this time with a Western Union delivery boy.

Gary thinks about it, and there's a link between the two incidents which is distressingly obvious: the pool cleaner and the delivery boy were both black, all their other visitors that week have been white. He takes Batka to a friend who's an expert on animals, and the friend confirms his suspicions. Batka is a "white dog", a dog who's been painstakingly trained to attack blacks. They have them in the American South. Originally, they tracked escaped slaves; now the police use them against demonstrators. Gary's friend says Batka, who is about seven, is way too old to be retrained and is highly dangerous. The only sensible thing is to put him down.

Gary sits with the dog for several hours. Then he takes Batka to his car and visits a friend who lends him a revolver. They drive out to an isolated place in the woods. They get out of the car. Batka is happy to be with his master. He sits expectantly, waiting for new instructions. Gary takes out the revolver. Batka knows what is is, but he doesn't run. He just sits where he is, looking at Gary sadly. Gary aims, but he's now crying so much that he can't see properly. He fires and misses. Batka still doesn't run. Instead, he slowly walks over to Gary and licks the barrel of the gun. Gary can't take any more. They get back in the car and drive home.

Well, Der Vorleser is like that. Except that it's not a stray dog he's known for a week, it's the love of his life.

أفكار مثيرة للاهتمام والتأمل طرحها الكاتب في تلك الرواية. ولكنه-الكاتب-كان مثل بطل الرواية. مُشتت وضائع وغير متأكد من أي شعور يعتمل بداخله. ولذلك لم أستطع التوحد مع أفكاره الغير مترابطة أو حتى متابعتها. لم أستطع فهم تساؤلاته فضلاً عن محاولاته لوضع إجاباتٍ لها.

ربما لم أفهم شخصية "هانا" بشكلٍ جيد. ولكنها كانت ذات معالم أقوى وأوضح بكثير من شخصية الراوي "مايكل". شخصية هانا ليست بالشخصية التي يمكن أن تحبها أو يتحرك داخلك إحساس بالتفهم تجاه ما اقترفته في ماضيها. ومع ذلك فإن مسار حياتها على مأساوية نهايته كان يتحرك بشكل جدير بتفاعلك العاطفي معها كقارئ لحكايتها.

على جهلي المطبق بقواعد اللغة وقواعد الكتابة السليمة، لم أملك إلا أن ألاحظ وجود نوع من "الاستسهال" حدث في ترجمة تلك الرواية.
وللأمانة، وجدت ملاحظات في مراجعات الرواية باللغة الإنجليزية تشير إلى عدم وضوح النص بلغته الأصلية "الألمانية" مما جعل ترجمتها باللغة الإنجليزية لا تتميز كثيراً عن نظيرتها باللغة العربية.

This novel breaks so many taboos, it is hard to know where to start reflecting on it. And yet, its plot is not unrealistic or uncommon.

It is about a sexual relationship between a young man and an older woman.

It is about illiteracy and shame.

It is about crimes against humanity, committed out of helplessness and an egocentric wish to hide one's own weakness.

It is about the Holocaust weighing on the shoulders of post-1945 Germany's population.

It is about the past being reshaped in memory when further knowledge about a person adds a new layer to a relationship.

It is about the coexistence of complete indifference towards the lives of many human beings and compassion for one specific individual.

It is surprisingly not much about hatred, despite the topic.

It is about overcoming a disability.

It is about facing justice - or not.

It is painful to read. And yet hope hides in a corner.

If you can't read it yourself, find someone who is willing to read it to you. Or record it on tape. Literacy is a massive achievement and immensely important for human communication.

Read it!

Hace unos días una compañera de GR me recomendó esta lectura, y no dudé ni un segundo en ir a la biblioteca para ver si tenían este libro. Es más, como sé que más o menos nos gustan las mismas lecturas, ni tan siquiera perdí el tiempo en leer la sinopsis. ¿Para qué lo iba hacer? Además, ¿no es más interesante abrir un libro sin saber lo que te vas a encontrar en su interior? ¿Dejarte llevar hacia donde él quiera conducirte? Pues bien, he de decir que esta lectura me ha gustado y sorprendido a partes iguales: he disfrutado con el amor de Michael por Hanna, y cuestionado el pasado de ella. Y al final, supongo, los he perdonado y entendido a los dos.

"The Reader" focuses on the generation born after World War II in Germany dealing with their knowledge of the horrors of the Holocaust, and realizing that people of their parents' generation had a role in carrying out the atrocities. They may find that they loved or thought highly of people who were part of the Nazi machine.

Michael Berg is the narrator of this fictional memoir which opens when he first meets Hanna Schmitz. Michael is 15 years old, and Hanna is in her 30s when they become involved in an intense, volatile sexual relationship. Hanna also enjoys having Michael read aloud to her. When she leaves town without any warning, Michael blames himself, wondering what he did wrong. He can never form a good relationship in the future because Hanna is always in the back of his mind.

Years later, Michael sees Hanna again in troubling circumstances. He sees another side of Hanna--a woman who has been hiding many secrets from her past. After many more years pass, Michael decides to sort things out in his mind and write down his memories. He is part of the after-war generation whose lives have become wrapped up in the previous generation's secrets, guilt, and wish for forgiveness.

"The Reader" is an excellent short book written in spare language. This is the second time I've read this thought-provoking story, and each reading has left me feeling disturbed and unsettled.

What About the Children?

The Reader is a profound exposition of the 'second generation' issues concerning moral guilt for the Holocaust. But it is, I think, also relevant more generally to the way in which human beings get ensnared incrementally into the evils of their society. We are all inevitably involved in this larger problem. And, like the SS guards at a Nazi death camp, we are unaware of the moral peril of our situation, and unwilling to remove ourselves from that situation even when its harmful effects are obvious.

To be more personal and concrete: At the moment I have three acquaintances, each of whom has had a reasonably successful corporate career - one as an investment manager in the City, the second as a senior executive of an international sporting organisation, and the third as a partner of a global accounting firm. All three are, however, deeply dissatisfied with their lives.

Their marriages, they all feel, are on the edge of breakdown. One has had a psychological breakdown and is now institutionalised. Another has been made redundant and, despite a large payout, sees nothing but existential gloom for the rest of his days. The last is disgusted with the complete indifference of both his colleagues and clients to the visible harm their firms are inflicting on the world. All of them, it shouldn't be necessary to emphasise, 'volunteered' for the careers and styles of living they now suffer from.

A central question posed to The Reader's defendant in her trial for causing the death of Jewish prisoners trapped in a burning church is, "Why didn't you unlock the door?" I posed essentially the same question to my three acquaintances: "The situation you now find yourself in did not occur overnight." I gently suggested, "Therefore as you perceived what was happening to your mind, to your family, to the quality of your life, to national culture, why didn't you stop?" In principle, stopping is even less difficult than unlocking a door.

The reasons given for not stopping were almost identical in all three cases: "I can't afford to." The financial denotation of 'afford', however, wasn't the main point. Guilt in not providing what their families needed was important. Financial compensation had become just that - compensation for the companionship of marriage and family that had been denied. This was associated with a fear of the disappointment or disapproval by their friends and family. Success is naturally a social matter defined for us by those we know well. But upon pushing a bit harder, it was also clear that the common strand among them was that each believed he had somehow let himself down by not realising the full potential he believed he had in him.

This psychic driver of "being the best you can" struck loud bells in my own experience. It also reminded me of the remarkable book by Karen Ho, a social researcher from Princeton. Her ethnographic study of the life and culture of Wall Street, Liquidated, is as insightful as it is troublesome to anyone who asks themselves why indeed they have not simply unlocked the door to an alternative life. As she discovered in her employment in an investment bank, the culture of professional firms like Goldman Sachs and McKinsey & Company is grounded in a simple, direct message: "You are here (or want to be here in the case of applicants) because you are the best and want to be among the best." Call it the Culture of Presumptive Excellence (CPE) for short.

CPE is what stimulates people to work consistently impossible hours, in places distant from home, with no respite. It also justifies the treatment of subordinates as corporate fodder, hiring and firing with panache, and insisting on single-minded loyalty as one moves up the ranks. Standards of excellence, after all, do not maintain themselves. In my experience, CPE, not compensation, or excitement, or 'perks', is the motive force of not just Wall Street but of the entire global corporate world. Escaping that world is no easier than escaping the totalitarian society of Nazi Germany. The identity and the obligations of 'being the best' is a very powerful lock indeed, without any obvious key.

Of course CPE is not merely a corporate problem; it is a societal problem. It is a problem of the perceived order. Schlink's war-trial defendant, Hanna, did not unlock the doors of the church to let the prisoners out, not because she is evil or because she was following orders. She was afraid, she says, of the disorder that would have ensued: prisoners running amok without the proper supervision to get them back in marching line.

It is this same disorder that my three acquaintances seem to fear most. The problem with being 'the best' is that the criterion for being best has to be set by someone with authority. The self-identity of the best depends on this. To reject this classification and the criteria that define it, one also must reject the authority that sanctioned it. This authority is so diffuse throughout society, that to reject it means to reject the entire society. The loss of both identity and context for establishing a new identity is the ultimate disorder, chaos.

Jean Korelitz, for example, herself a former admissions officer for Princeton, shows how pervasive the CPE is in the steps before entering the corporate world in her novel, Admission. Princeton's 'pitch' to applicants is exactly the same as that of the Wall Street firms to its applicants: "As the best, you will want to stay among the best, so apply to Princeton." The stage before this, entry into prep school, is also fictionalised from experience, in turn, by Louis Auchincloss, particularly in his novel, The Rector of Justin. The message doesn't vary: "We are the best and will help you stay among the best."

The destruction of personalities, families, and culture by CPE is systematic. And it is systematically defended even by those whom it excludes. The effects of CPE extend beyond those who are certifiably, as it were, the best to those who aspire to become part of the elite. Deficiencies are masked by the aspiration itself, which is merely the acceptance of the defining authority.

In The Reader, Hanna is able to hide her secret shame by joining the SS, an elite corps. I can say with a moral certainty that all three of my acquaintances have what are, to them, equivalent to Hanna's secret deficiencies. Fear of exposure is therefore a powerful motivation to keep the system going, to promote its stable orderliness even when it is so evidently destructive.

Schlink's narrator, Michael Berg, knows that Hanna could not have committed the crimes she is accused of because of the secret she is unwilling to reveal. She may be guilty but not as guilty as she appears, or of what she is charged with. What duty does he have to unlock the door with which she has imprisoned herself? To speak up, either to her or the court, would expose her to profound shame, greater shame even than that of being found guilty of war crimes perhaps. And if he does decide to speak up, how should he do it - to her? To her lawyer? To the judge? I feel the same dilemmas in advising my acquaintances, knowing that any mis-step could provoke yet more consternation as well as a pointed lack of gratitude for my solicited but still impertinent advice.

Berg's father, a philosopher, advises a simple ethical rule: don't try to second guess the criterion of the good that an individual has established for himself. This is useless advice. It simply anoints conformity as the ethical norm. Conformity is the opposite of resistance, a capacity for which is essential to avoid personal co-optation, to either totalitarianism or corporatism. Resistance which can take many forms. All of them dangerous because they challenge order and the power behind order. And all demand apparently un-virtuous behaviour. How can one advise such a course to anyone one cares about? Ultimately Berg fails to act at all.

I find myself in Berg's position. I feel any advice I can give is vapid. To suggest resistance against a corporate culture that is so pervasive and so domineering is madness. I can only ask the question "Best is the superlative for what?" But I can't answer the question. I am as trapped as anyone else. Will the children of my acquaintances, or my own, look at the lives of their parents with the same dismay as the so-called second generation of German children perceived their parents after 1945?

Schlink's story ends in tragic sadness and unresolved guilt. Perhaps no other ending is possible.

3,5 estrellas.

Hay cosas que me han gustado mucho y otras, sobre todo una, que me ha frustrado: el narrador. Creo que entiendo que Schlink quería mantener cierta ambigüedad en el texto y escribir un narrador en negación, pero no creo que lo haya desarrollado bien. Porque creo que las pistas están ahí: una mujer adulta de 36 años se lía con un crío de 15 años y básicamente le destroza la vida. No me lo invento, lo dice un personaje (la hija judía) al final del libro, explícitamente, pero no hay un momento en el que el narrador lo vea, lo declare por sí mismo.

Y sí, es una relación abusiva obvia por lo que el propio escritor resalta: las escenas en las que ella le hace "luz de gas" al chaval o cuando le agrede físicamente; todo ello mientras el narrador declara que "eran felices". Pero al mismo tiempo está lo típico de cuando un hombre escribe esta clase de relaciones (siento generalizar) y sus fantasías calenturientas obstaculizan la descripción de un trauma. Porque trauma hay: el propio narrador confiesa que ya no siente nada, que durante años no pudo sentir nada.

¿Cosas que me han gustado mucho? Que Hanna sea ambigüa. Hasta el final. Que nunca sepamos de qué palo va, que tengamos que hacernos un juicio sobre cómo es y si, no ya si merece perdón, sino si siquiera merece compasión. Me parece que eso está muy conseguido. Y también el tema que subyace en todo el libro: sentirse culpable por cosas que no son culpa tuya. El narrador por su relación con Hanna y la generación alemana que no vivió la 2ª Guerra Mundial por las atrocidades cometidas por las generaciones anteriores.

Tal vez la idea es que nunca dejas de sentirte culpable y por eso el narrador nunca cae del guindo expresamente. Pero aun así me pareció que el que no lo hiciera dañaba al personaje y a lo que creo que Schlink quiere expresar.

15ª releitura de 2021 (BBC Listeners)
********

“There's no need to talk about it, because the truth of what one says lies in what one does.”

“It wasn't that I forgot Hanna. But at a certain point the memory of her stopped accompanying me wherever I went. She stayed behind, the way a city stays behind as a train pulls out of the station. It's there, somewhere behind you, and you could go back and make sure of it. But why should you?”

“What a sad story, I thought for so long. Not that I now think it was happy. But I think it is true, and thus the question of whether it is sad or happy has no meaning whatever.”

“...I had to point at Hanna. But the finger I pointed at her turned back to me. I had loved her. I tried to tell myself that I had known nothing of what she had done when I chose her. I tried to talk myself into the state of innocence in which children love their parents. But love of our parents is the only love for which we are not responsible. ...And perhaps we are responsible even for the love we feel for our parents.”

“Or is there no such thing as 'too late'? Is there only 'late' and is 'late' always better than 'never'? I don't know.”

Більше дописів та інфи в моєму авторському блозі - "Ласкаво просимо в Касл-Рок, штат Мен"

"Читець" Бернгарда Шлінка - це така книга, після якої важко на душі. Сказати нічого. Слів не вистачає.

Але яка ж ця історія влучна - потрапила мені в саме серце.

Вже з перших сторінок події, що відбуваються, виглядають дивними, неправильними. І я це все прекрасно розумію, але відлипнути від сторінок не можу.

Кохання підлітка та дорослої жінки - це розбещення, злочин, кримінальна стаття і термін у в'язниці. Але що робити, якщо воно справжнє? Я не знаю.

Автор розділив книгу на три частини. І вони цілком і повністю різні.

Перша просякнута щирою закоханістю юнака до дорослої жінки, про яку він нічогісінького не знає. Тут все легко і просто, але не завжди. Часом всьо аж надто інтимно, по живому. Відчувається, що попереду буде важче.

Друга частина - вже значно глобальніша і складніша. Тут на перший план приходить проблема власного вибору, правди та брехні. Напруга в німецькому суспільстві початку 60-тих тут влучно передана лише на прикладі одного судового засідання. Я взагалі не уявляю, як німцям вдалось пережити цей розкол, пропрацювати його та переродитись, як нація.

Третя частина - це апогей усього, що відбулось раніше. Кінцівка просто розірвала мене - я не очікував такого повороту. В моїй голові була цілком інша картина, але автор зумів мене здивувати і настільки, що я просто на хвилину завис лише після одного речення.

Малесенький недолік - олдскульний переклад. Ну прям дуже кидається в очі, бо сучасні перекладачі так не працюють.

Знаю, що існує екранізація роману. Я радий, що вона мені не трапилась до прочитання першоджерела.

"Читець" Бернгарда Шлінка - однозначно must-to-read, таких емоцій від тексту я вже давненько не отримував.

n  "Pero el que huye no sólo se marcha de un lugar, sino que llega a otro. Y el pasado al que llegué a través de mis estudios era tan vívido como el presente.".n

4,5⭐️. Una lectura que no deja indiferente.

Dice la sinopsis:
Un adolescente conoce a una mujer madura con la que inicia una relación amorosa. Antes de acostarse juntos, ella siempre le pide que le lea fragmentos de Goethe, Schiller& hasta que un día ella desaparece. Siete años después, el joven, que estudia derecho, acude al juicio de cinco mujeres acusadas de crímenes nazis y descubre que una de ellas es su antigua amante. Una deslumbrante novela sobre el amor, la culpa, el horror y la piedad.

Qué destaco del libro.

La prosa del autor, fluida, rica en matices, delicada, reflexiva y madura. Engancha y se lee con facilidad. Destaca su manera de conectar con el lector a la hora de transmitir reflexiones, emociones y sentimientos. Una doble conexión, la intelectual y la emocional que me ha dejado impresionada.

La trama se articula en tres partes que corresponden a tres momentos en la vida del protagonista, adolescencia, primera juventud y madurez. La acción transcurre en la Alemania de finales de los 50 y década de los 60. Será el propio Michael quien nos narre en primera persona la historia. Vamos a conocer al adolescente enamorado de Hanna, una mujer que le dobla la edad, al joven universitario horrorizado e impotente ante los crímenes de la generación anterior y al hombre maduro que, a sabiendas de que existen realidades para las que no cabe el olvido, sí es capaz de mostrar cierta compasión por Hanna. Es una novela corta, pero compleja, que aborda cuestiones como la culpa, la responsabilidad, la connivencia, la búsqueda de la verdad, la redención y el perdón para los demás y para sí mismos.

Los personajes tan bien trazados en una obra de poco más de 200 páginas. Destaca la importancia que tiene el pasado en el presente de cada personaje. Un pasado que determina no solo las acciones de Michael y Hanna, sino la de los pocos secundarios que aparecen en la novela. Algunos, como Michael, viven marcados por las atrocidades de un pasado reciente del que no son culpables. Otros, los que sí lo son, conviven con las consecuencias de sus actos, unos actos de los que muchos no se sienten responsables e intentan justificar o blanquear.

“Los estratos de nuestra vida reposan tan juntos los unos sobre los otros que en lo actual siempre advertimos la presencia de lo antiguo, y no como algo desechado y acabado, sino presente y vívido”.

Las reflexiones sobre temas varios, como las consecuencias de la guerra y el Holocausto, la dicotomía entre decisión y acción, el eterno dilema de si es lícito revelar "por su bien" los secretos de otro y el poder de la literatura. Podría poner frases y más frases sobre cada uno de estos temas, pero creo preferible que cada lector se encuentre con las suyas, así que me contentaré con una.

“Pero la acción no se limita a llevar a cabo lo que he pensado y decidido previamente. Surge de una fuente propia, y es tan independiente como lo es mi pensamiento y lo son mis decisiones”.

En conclusión. Una novela compleja con una trama atractiva y que mueve a la reflexión. Imperdible.