Ontroerend, ingetogen, prachtig!

Van alle thema's en vragen waar dit boek me over na liet denken zijn schaamte en schuld de rode draad en het meest indringend. Hoe zwaar kunnen schuld en schaamte wegen en hoe onontwarbaar kan dat uiteindelijk worden in iemands leven, een heel leven lang... De verteller, Michael Berg, zet een stap achteruit in het terugblikken op zijn leven, wat precies genoeg afstand schept om na te denken over alle (filosofische) vragen die dit boek oproept.

n  'Wanneer ik word gekwetst, komen de destijds ondergane kwetsingen opnieuw naar boven, wanneer ik me schuldig voel, de schuldgevoelens van destijds, en in het verlangen van het nu, het heimwee van nu voel ik het verlangen en het heimwee van toen. De lagen van ons leven liggen zo dicht op elkaar dat we in het latere altijd het vroegere tegenkomen, niet als iets wat afgedaan en afgehandeld is, maar actueel en levend.'n

La recitire (a treia oară) și tot 5 stele.

"As expectativas dos pais, das quais cada geração tem de se libertar, eram simplesmente goradas pelo facto de esses pais terem falhado durante o Terceiro Reich e depois do seu fim. Como poderiam ter alguma coisa a dizer aos filhos aqueles que tinham cometido os crimes do nazismo, ou que os tinham tolerado, ou que tinham tolerado que os criminosos vivessem entre eles depois de 1945, ou que os tinham mesmo aceitado?"

A história de amor em toda a sua peculiaridade não me incomodou, no final o que falou mais alto neste história foi a relação da geração pós nazismo com a geração anterior, sendo que a geração anterior eram os seus progenitores, educadores, vizinhos, gente do convívio diário desses jovens. Não é uma leitura ligeira e termina deixando um sentimento amargo, porque não existe justificação certa para um passado errado.

I thought this was an interesting (if not somewhat disturbing) story, but not one that particularly blew me away. The questions of morality and complicity are intriguing as well; probably my favorite parts of the story where Michael's recollections of his experiences and trying to make sense of which were good, how he should feel about them in hindsight, etc. Glad I finally read this because it is so famous but not one that I'm in love with.

n  «Quería tener sitio en mi interior para ambas cosas: la comprensión y la condena. Pero las dos cosas al mismo tiempo no podían ser.»n

Es muy interesante este libro. Está ambientado en Alemania, pocos años después del fin de la Segunda Guerra Mundial y tiene un ritmo que va variando durante las tres partes en las que está dividido. Si bien al principio puede no parecer más que una historia juvenil de descubrimiento sexual, al ir transcurriendo el tiempo dentro de la vida del protagonista y narrador, va ganando una profundidad y complejidad filosófica/psicológica que lo vuelve, como ya dije, muy interesante.

Una gran porción de n  El lectorn está dedicada a la relación (creo que unilateralmente) amorosa de Michael con Hanna. La peculiaridad es que él es un chico de 15 años y ella una mujer de 36 de la que se enamorará, y con la que pronto iniciará una relación donde se complementará lo físico con horas de lectura en voz alta.
No se puede decir que esta primer parte del libro sea erótica, creo que sería mas apropiado definirla como sensual. No hay descripciones gráficas salvo algún que otro comentario aislado, y la mayor parte de sus encuentros son sencillos y casi mundanos. A pesar de ser el recuerdo de los ojos maravillados de un chico de 15 años, el narrador ya es adulto y quizás sea por eso que los describe como un «ritual de lectura, ducha, amor y reposo».
No puedo decir que me haya gustado esta relación. No es sólo por la diferencia de edades y maduración, sino por la manera en que ella lo trata. Hanna es dada a la manipulación psicológica, a la humillación y a los rechazos, teniéndolo constantemente temeroso de perderla si la contraría.

Pero ésto no es lo más importante de la historia.
La verdad es que ahora que lo terminé siento que toda esa parte de la adolescencia de Michael no fue otra cosa sino una larga introducción para lo que viene después. Años más tarde va a reencontrarse accidentalmente con Hanna y descubrirá algo horrible de su pasado que lo cambia todo. Está en la sinopsis así que por desgracia no me sorprendió, pero no por eso deja de ser un muy buen giro.
A partir de este punto el libro cambia por completo. Se vuelve muchísimo más profundo y la narración toma una voz más madura y filosófica, demostrando lo bien que puede escribir el autor. Aborda además el dilema que aqueja a la sociedad alemana al tener que ver con ojos realistas y condenatorios los crímenes que cometieron personas que aman, cuenta con detalle sobre la vida en algunos campos de concentración y exterminio, y se introduce de a ratos en un análisis entre filosófico y sociológico que personalmente me resultó muy interesante.

Ya cerca del final del libro fue el único momento en que sentí pena y simpatía por Hanna. Ella tiene un secreto (que salta a la vista leyendo un poquito entre líneas al principio) que la avergüenza y que la lleva a tomar decisiones muy erradas. El sentimiento de vergüenza está muy presente en toda la historia en diferentes contextos, y es muchas veces lo que motiva los cambios.
Ésta es una historia dramática que va tomando más y más peso a medida que avanzan los breves capítulos, y que llevará a un final esperable pero inesperado. Es una muy buena opción para leer algo corto y rápido pero cargado de contenido, tanto literario como humano.


Reseña de Libros junto al mar

If ever there was a book to go into blind, it would be this one. I’ve never felt so morally conflicted while reading. Much like the award-winning film, it’s thought-provoking in a way I’ve never quite experienced. I found it hard to put down.

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

The Reader is told in three parts, across many years. Set in post-war Germany, 15-year-old Michael Berg is suffering from hepatitis, and becomes sick outside the building of 36-year-old Hanna Schmitz. She comforts him and walks him home. Later, once feeling better, he goes to thank her. An affair then commences that will ultimately shape his life.

Themes and subject matter here won’t be for everyone. It’s not afraid to be controversial. The short chapters moved quickly and I found myself immediately captivated. The tension between Michael and Hanna was palpable. Their interactions soon revolve around Michael reading to her. This activity is pivotal to the plot and later takes on different meanings. They don’t even learn each other’s names until their sixth or seventh meeting, with Hannah referring to Michael as ‘Kid’ throughout – reinforcing the taboo nature of their “relationship.”

n  “Why does what was beautiful suddenly shatter in hindsight because it concealed darker truths?”n

As Michael tells his story, you gain an intimate understanding of what he’s thinking and feeling – perhaps even more than the film. The book explores many themes. I found the ideas of ‘numbness’ and ‘detachment’ among the most fascinating. It was also interesting to see how this relationship impacted Michael, altering the entire course of his life and personality in various ways.

Without giving spoilers, the court room scenes and revelations were harrowing. The Holocaust will always be heartbreaking to read – in any context. It was portrayed here in ways I hadn’t read before, which added to the poignancy and its ability to make me reflect, become lost in thought.

Despite its short length, I felt things got too philosophical towards the end – though this didn’t detract much. The prose itself is quite simple, yet still packs a punch. The Reader is a book that will stimulate emotions – one way or another. The final scenes are good examples of this.

If you’re after a quick, yet powerful and thought-provoking read, then The Reader might be for you. It’s a haunting story that will undoubtedly linger once you’ve closed the book. The film is just as good.

n  “She stopped at the window, looked out into the darkness, at the reflection of the bookshelves, and at her own.”n

It's too simple to say I read any single book because I want to read it. There are dozens of reasons I'll pick up a particular title: I like the author; I like the subject matter; the book is an award winner; the book comes with many trusted recommendations; I was supposed to read the book in high school and I feel guilty because I played Goldeneye on my N64 instead. I will freely admit that I read War and Peace simply to say I read War and Peace. I'd take it to the cafeteria every day and let people see me with it. I was trying to project a certain image; unfortunately, the image I projected was a creepy loner way too interested in Russian melodrama.

I read The Reader because it had Nazis. And because it prominently featured a deviant sexual affair. Sold and sold.

I dared think that Bernhard Schlink's novel might be that rarest of things, these days: truly transgressive. I mean, sex and Nazis and a literary pedigree to boot. Where do I sign up?

This slim novel tells the story of an affair between 15 year-old Michael and the far-older Hanna, with whom he has an affair in West Germany in 1958. Hanna, a tram conductor, comes to Michael's aid when Michael falls ills. Later, Michael's mother forces Michael to go thank Hanna; after a laughably stupid seduction (the literary equivalent of that old porn standby, the copy repairman), the two are having an affair.

I guess this is shocking? Taboo busting? I don't know. I can't really muster much moral outrage at statutory rape when it is set against the recent background of the Holocaust. Moreover, the scenes between the two "lovers" (how I despise that phrase!) are written in such a mundane, clinical fashion, that I could only speculate that Schlink (or his translator) was a technical writer, taking time off from telling me the side effects of Ditropan. (In reality, Schlink is a judge, and I suppose the detached, just-the-facts-ness of The Reader could be compared to a legal brief).

The affair goes on for awhile. It doesn't generate much heat, since both the main characters are constructed out of cardboard, with macaroni faces and yarn for hair. The title is also explained - partially - because Michael must read aloud to Hanna before they Biblically unite. That sound you hear is my eyes rolling.

Eventually, Hanna disappears. Seven years later, Michael is a law student, and he attends a war crimes trial where - SHOCK! - Hanna is on trial. Turns out she was a concentration camp guard: think Mary Kay Letourneau crossed with Heinrich Himmler.

It's hard to screw up a novel about a Nazi pedophile, but it happens here.

There is always going to be tension when a fictional work of art (using that term loosely) is set against the backdrop of a recent tragedy. Until the last person who survived said tragedy is dead, any author daring to touch the subject is going to get dinged a little. We can all argue about the morality of such fictionalizations, but the point is moot. It's going to happen.

Schlink obviously knew the dangers going in, and tried to avoid them. In doing so, he wrote a book that is simply flat. There are two directions to take a story like this. First, there is over-the-top, Inglorious Basterds-style pulp. Just accept that your book is basically fan-fiction from the SS Experiment Camp line of movies, and wait for Cinemax to call with an offer. The second direction is to make a serious, searching novel about an ordinary person who survived the Holocaust, but as a cog in the machinery of death, rather than a survivor. Explore how that person lives each day wtih the things he or she has done. This kind of book would take a lot of psychological digging, and there aren't a lot of authors up to this task.

The Reader tries to do a little of both, and ends up a big, dull, intellecutally-insulting dud. As already noted, the love affair generates slightly less heat than the pairing of Liza Minnelli and David Gest. The decision to include a statutorily illegal relationship was obviously meant to garner attention, but it fails to shock, titilate, or even vaguely incite any interest.

The transition to the courtroom, and beyond, is even worse. Here, the author makes a half-hearted attempt to avoid moral relativism, and then falls right into that trap. In an epic bit of reductionism, Schlink manages to equate the tragedy of the Holocaust with - spoiler alert, I guess - adult illiteracy. If only that was a joke.

Schlink's idea of depth is to fill a couple of pages with facile hypothetical questions that he helpfully leaves unanswered. All the better; I doubt I would care about what answers he discovered.

While Part I of The Reader is a tepid affair between two paper dolls, and Part II reduces the Holocaust to one SS Guard's illiterate shame, Part III manages, stunningly, to get worse. The epilogue, which must be read to be believed, is so stilted, awkward, and glib that I almost felt bad for the characters/ciphers forced to utter the tortured dialogue.

I suppose I got what I deserved. It's like when you click on a hyperlink for naked celebrity photos and get a computer virus instead. (Or so I've been told...) I picked up this book thinking it might be trashy, and it turned out it was, but just not the kind of trash I enjoy.

Just not for me.
Hated both characters.
I didn't feel sorry for either of them.

Whenever a film is coming out that is based on an acclaimed book, I try to read the book first (knowing that the reverse order almost never happens for me). The Reader is the latest such circumstance, and I'm glad I made the time for this quick read. The book centers on the reflections of a man who, as a teenager in post WW-II Germany, had a passionate love affair with a reticent and mysterious older woman. Mere months later, she disappears from his life. The rest of the book explains why, and the impact this revelation has on the main character. Schlink writes beautifully simple, declarative prose that is shorn of pretense. The Reader envelops us in the painfully bittersweet and conflicted memories of a man whose lover turns out to be a mirage, and the resulting guilt he feels regarding their relationship, as it existed both before and after he learns about her shameful past. This relationship is purposefully symbolic to represent for Schlink the complicated feelings of second generation Germans about the horrific legacy of the Holocaust, as perpetrated in varying degrees by their very own loved ones. Schlink adroitly raises the many thorny issues raised by this sensitive subject, and equally skillfully leaves the narrative open for his readers to puzzle over them, just as his sad, sympathetic narrator must as well.

Lust, love, obsession, or compulsion?

15 year old Michael falls in love with 36 year old Hanna. They make love and he reads to her every night. He questions his actions and Hanna's reactions, his faults and hers. He can't decide who is at blame.

Years later, she is on trial for the choices she made prior to meeting Michael. He watches from a distance, still questioning who she is to him.

Mercy and longing saturate this book. Novels that make me feel something are rare. This one took me somewhere.

I can’t find the right superlative..This pushed so many buttons for me.

The sexual coming of age of a young boy and his wonderfully drawn relationship with an older woman. (It brought back memories of an early crush when about the same age as Michael, here). Set in the aftermath of WW2 in Germany. Coping with national guilt, its effect on relationships between the generations. I found the ending predictable but that is in no way a criticism. An inspirational read which I now want to re-visit.

Great book.Wonderful piece and remotely expressed Words flowing like water in oceans.
I'd Miss someone with that book.
As the Young Lady entangled with teen.
Which flows the flawless love between them even when she got life imprisonment, She was turned to old. And Teen was turned to Man.
Time had changed, but their love sustained as he gave her recordings of stories.
Lovely Book.
Also, Watch movie based on this novel, My one of favourite actress, the drama Queen Kate Winslet's performance was surreal .