Der Vorleser = The Reader, Bernhard Schlink

The Reader is a novel by German law professor and judge Bernhard Schlink, published in Germany in 1995.

The story is told in three parts by the main character, Michael Berg. Each part takes place in a different time period in the past.

Spoiler Alert

Part I begins in a West German city in 1958. After 15-year-old Michael becomes ill on his way home, 36-year-old tram conductor Hanna Schmitz notices him, cleans him up, and sees him safely home. He spends the next three months absent from school battling hepatitis. ...

Part 2, Six years later, while attending law school, Michael is part of a group of students observing a war crimes trial. A group of middle-aged women who had served as SS guards at a satellite of Auschwitz in occupied Poland are being tried for allowing 300 Jewish women under their ostensible "protection" to die in a fire locked in a church that had been bombed during the evacuation of the camp. The incident was chronicled in a book written by one of the few survivors, who emigrated to the United States after the war; she is the main prosecution witness at the trial. ...

Part 3, Years have passed, Michael is divorced and has a daughter from his brief marriage. He is trying to come to terms with his feelings for Hanna, and begins taping readings of books and sending them to her without any correspondence while she is in prison.

Hanna begins to teach herself to read, and then write in a childlike way, by borrowing the books from the prison library and following the tapes along in the text.

She writes to Michael, but he cannot bring himself to reply. After 18 years, Hanna is about to be released, so he agrees (after hesitation) to find her a place to stay and employment, visiting her in prison.

On the day of her release in 1983, she commits suicide and Michael is heartbroken. Michael learns from the warden that she had been reading books by many prominent Holocaust survivors, such as Elie Wiesel, Primo Levi, Tadeusz Borowski, and histories of the camps.

The warden, in her anger towards Michael for communicating with Hanna only by audio tapes, expresses Hanna's disappointment. Hanna left him an assignment: give all her money to the survivor of the church fire.

عنوانهای چاپ شده در ایران: «برايم كتاب بخوان»؛ «کتابخوان»؛ نویسنده: برنهارد شلینک؛ تاریخ نخستین خوانش روز نوزدهم ماه فوریه سال2004میلادی

عنوان: برايم كتاب بخوان؛ نویسنده: برنهارد شلینک؛ مترجم بهمندخت اویسی؛ تهران، نشر فرزان، 1381؛ در سیزده و 239ص؛ شابک9643211703؛ چاپ دیگر با عنوان کتابخوان؛ تهران، نشر تاریخ ایران، 1388، در 204ص؛ شابک 9789646082755؛ موضوع داستانهای نویسندگان آلمان - سده 20م

داستان در سال 1958میلادی در آلمان آغاز می‌شود؛ «میشائیل»، نوجوان پانزده ساله، بطور اتفاقی، با زنی به نام «هانا»، آشنا و به او علاقمند می‌شود؛ «هانا» هر بار که «میشائیل» نزد او می‌رود، او را وادار می‌کند، تا برایش با صدای بلند کتاب بخواند؛ «میشائیل» روزی متوجه می‌شود، که «هانا» بدون آنکه نشانی از خود برجای بگذارد، شهر را ترک کرده است؛ سال‌ها می‌گذرد، و «میشائیل» بزرگ می‌شود؛ او در رشته ‌ی حقوق تحصیل می‌کند، و روزی، در یکی از دادگاه‌ هایی که برای مجازات جنایتکاران جنگ جهانی دوم برپا ‌شده، «هانا» را می‌یابد؛ «هانا» در جایگاه متهمان قرار گرفته، و شواهد بر این دلالت دارند، که او در زمان جنگ، نگهبان زندانیانی بوده است، که به شکل وحشیانه ‌ای قتل‌عام شده ‌اند …؛ با اقتباس از این داستان فیلمی نیز به همین نام ساخته شده است؛

تاریخ بهنگام رسانی 18/07/1399هجری خورشیدی؛ 28/06/1400هجری خورشیدی؛ ا. شربیانی

n  Betraying not to betrayn

In Germany, many years after the World War II, those who had been too young to take an active part in the Nazi period were called “the lucky-late born”. But what is it so lucky in suspecting, openly accusing or ashamedly hiding the crimes of your parents, relatives, older friends? How did an entire “late-born” generation deal with this feeling of shame and betrayal intertwined with love? How did they cope?

They did not, Bernard Schlink tells us in his novel The Reader, because they could not. Every memory of every gesture and every word of love became eventually tarnished by a past that forever shadowed them, stealing their ingenuity and their joy:

Why? Why does what was beautiful suddenly shatter in hindsight because it concealed dark truths? Why does the memory of years of happy marriage turn to gall when our partner is revealed to have had a lover all those years? Because such a situation makes it impossible to be happy? But we were happy! Sometimes the memory of happiness cannot stay true because it ended unhappily.

Moreover, dreadful disclosures tend to superpose happy memories, corrupting them with the suspicion of potential dangers, thus doubting the very essence of love. This was the tragedy of a generation. This is the tragedy of the narrator, Michael Berg, when he discovers his former lover Hanna Schmitz, who disappeared without a word many years ago, in a courtroom among other defendants accused of war crimes:

Would she have sent me to the gas chamber if she hadn’t been able to leave me, but wanted to get rid of me?

It is not accidental that there are many insurmountable gaps between the two lovers: of age (she is thirty-six to his fifteen), of education (he is a student she will be proven illiterate), of mentality, of emotional and physical intensity, gaps that will add to the awful discovery to confuse and hurt the narrator into re-writing his past while becoming resigned that this past will shape his future under the inescapable sign of guilt and betrayal:

…if I was not guilty because one cannot be guilty of betraying a criminal, then I was guilty of having loved a criminal.

It is the guilt of all German sons, brothers and friends in this guilt of a lover who tries to make sense of a senseless past that robbed him of his life. Michael tries to ease it by a cathartic gesture, that revives an old ritual of their former relationship: he records himself reading and send the tapes in prison to Hanna, both because he guessed she cannot read and as a way of remembering their happy days together. But even this memory is somehow stained by the ambiguous uncovering during the process that she used to choose young, frail girls to read to her for a month or so before sending them to Auschwitz to die.

It is his way to compromise with his past, to accept the unacceptable until he finally can resign to go on with his life:

In the first years after Hanna’s death, I was tormented by the old question of whether I owed her something, whether I was guilty of having loved her. Sometimes I asked myself if I was responsible for her death. And sometimes I was in a rage at her and at what she had done to me. Until finally the rage faded and the questions ceased to matter. Whatever I had done or not done, whatever she had done or not to me – it was the path my life had taken.

The final question Schlink’s novel seems to ask concerns the extent of the bystander’s guilt. Could Michael have redeemed Hanna and thus free himself? Did he betray himself by betraying her? Is there a way for this crippled generation to forget the horrors of the beloved past without denying them? Is there a path towards forgiveness?

And it comes into my mind a discussion on the same subject in the John Fowles’ Magus, which could also explain why the obvious answer to this question is negative:
"I suppose one could say that Hitler didn't betray his self." (…)
"You are right. He did not. But millions of Germans did betray their selves. That was the tragedy. Not that one man had the courage to be evil. But that millions had not the courage to be good."

DNF at 50%
Unbearable romanticizing of sexual harassment towards a young and naive Schoolboy by a much older woman. Throughout the first part of the story (the only part I read) Schlink doesn’t develop some kind of real reflection, but instead overprays how ‚manly‘ the clearly broken relationship has made his main character....utterly toxic!
Mostly the story is told through tedious, useless Poem-language that miserably tries to amplify a unique form of narrative and fails completely. If I wanted to read cheap Calendar Euphemisms, I could have bought a Julia Engelmann book. (Shots Fired)
Furthermore Schlinks work is Overrepresented by a Visual Layer, describing every bit of a scene and so does not leave real marks on the readersoul. There’s no point of reflection, nor an organic characterview which could have been established - frustration in a bottle. Both protagonists failed to appear as real human being, as they are constantly used to deliver the authors forced emotional field and always seem like blank mannequins, without any structure.
By hiding literary cliffs behind retrospective amnesia the novel gambles away its last chance for enfolding an immersive story shockingly fast.

There seem to be more aspects in the novel which may result in a better review, but I personally wouldn’t recommend it to anyone.

القارئ ...الرواية التي ترجمت إلي ٣٧ لغة و تعتبر أول رواية ألمانية تصل إلي قائمة الكتب الأكثر مبيعاً في صحيفة النيويورك تايمز..

الرواية في جزئها الأول بتحكي عن مايكل المراهق اللي عنده ١٥ سنة و أقام علاقة جنسية مع هانا السيدة التي تبلغ من العمر ٣٦ عاماً ..مع تقدمه في العمر وتطور الأحداث بنشوف إزاي أثرت هذه العلاقة علي حياته وعلي مشاعره تجاه الآخرين...

أما الجزء التاني-وهو الجزء اللي أعتقد أعطي شهرة لهذه الرواية- اللي بيتكلم فيه عن الهولوكوست و المحاكمات التي تمت بعد سقوط الرايخ الثالث وهتلر ..الجزء دة مبني علي فكرة العار والذنب الذي يشعر به الجيل التاني علي الجيل السابق الذي عايش فترة هتلر و إحساسهم إنه كان الممكن يرفضوا ما كان يحدث أو يحاولوا في مساعدة المعتقلين بأي طريقة...
بدون حرق للأحداث أو دخول في تفاصيل بس طبعاً في ربط مباشر بين الجزئين و يأتي الجزء التالت والأخير ليضع نهاية مؤلمة لهذه الرواية وهو في رأيي كان أحلي جزء فيهم..

الرواية مكتوبة بسلاسة وحتلاقي نفسك مش قادر تبطل قراءة علي الرغم إن الأحداث إلي حد ما عادية...
شخصية هانا -وهي شخصية رئيسية في الرواية -لم ترسم بعناية.. مقدرتش أفهمها أوي ولا أتعاطف معاها إلا في الجزء الأخير ..
ترجمة الرواية -في رأيي -كانت سيئة..أفقدت العمل الكثير الصراحة لدرجة إن الأحداث ملمستنيش أوي ومحسيتش إنها رواية دافية كدة ومعرفش هل ده بسبب الترجمة الغير موفقة ولا هي دي طريقة الكاتب..

رواية جميلة علي الرغم من كل شئ والرواية ليها فيلم من بطولة كيت ونسلت وأخدت عليه أوسكار وأظن إن الفيلم حيكون أحلي بكتير من الرواية..

تقييمي للكتاب ٣ نجوم وحتة :)
وبما إن الحتة دي صغيرة و مش كبيرة أوي يعني ،فحيفضل التقييم النهائي عند ٣ نجوم فقط لا غير:)

I have to admit that this book had made me came out from my reading comfort zone, and it's probably my first philosophical novel I ever read, thus it means a lot to me. Although I find this book is quite a hard read(at least for me), I still find the story is very moving and interesting.

After all, it's a story about forgiveness and redemption.

A meaningful plot summary would undoubtedly set off spoiler alarms, and one might best enjoy this novel with no preconceived notions, although it seems safe to say the story begins as a relationship forms between a young boy and an older woman, and it ends many years later. The matter-of-fact prose keeps the focus squarely on the story which can be interpreted metaphorically.

The concept of love never ceases to amaze. From the cradle to the grave, a human being is guided,driven, motivated or annihilated because of it. Even when the presence of this feeling is what makes life tick for all humanity, we tend to call the romantic variant as 'falling in' love. This has always seemed ironical to me for if this feeling was as spiritually uplifting as it is believed to be, why don't we call it 'rising in' love ?

Ah ! But I digress from the point here ! This book is fuelled by an affair. The love contained in the plot made me plod through the dusty attic of my mind from where the lines above clattered out. The plot centers around the affair of a younger man with an older woman. An affair ruled only by sex and sex alone. During the adolescent phase, the thoughts of love are always entwined with lust in the mind. Like copulating serpents they lie and it is a futile task trying to make out where one ends and the other begins. The journey of Michael Berg through the curves of Hanna Schmitz's anatomy is also one of self discovery for him. In the loss of innocence lies the keys to his future and he is at the verge of getting to those keys when the short and stormy affair blows out. The pain of withdrawal while at first unbearable, slowly becomes a dull ache. With the passage of years there comes a clinical detachment while seeing the ones we loved and lost long ago. The beauty of the language can be acutely felt when the author describes that memories of long ago stay behind like a city as a train pulls out of a station. The memories are there, behind you but in the passage of the train they disappear behind a bend in the track.

The story changes lanes here and does a total flip and from a loved-and-lost tale, it becomes an intricately plotted tale of human morality and guilt. In a particular passage which depicts a court scene, I was reminded of a couple of lines from a Steig Larsson book There are no innocents, only varying levels of guilt . Through those court room scenes we are asked the fundamental questions about morals and principles, about guilt and remorse, of crime and punishment and other such things.While you are made fully aware that the accused while not being fully innocent does not deserve what comes to them.

To sum it all up, this is an extremely tragic tale. The love in here is like the strong gust of wind that threatens to uproot us while standing on a ledge.For the characters in here though, the wind becomes a little too strong to bear !

Recommended.

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

Best quote ever :)

This was an extremely powerful story of a man's love for a troubled older woman. It raises many points of blame as it interweaves this story with that of Nazi Germany. How guilty is guilty and how forced are we as members of a community to adapt to their rules and regulations? We must go unquestionably forward into situations that sometimes we do not have any power over. This was Hanna's story.

I have the feeling there's more than one way of looking at this book. On one hand it can be viewed as a bildungsroman, it follows Michael Berg since the age of 15 till full maturity. On the other hand, it's the post-war German generation coming to terms with their past, the Nazi crimes and their parents' guilt. Guilt, actually, is a recurring theme in the novel: Hanna is guilty of war crimes, Michael is guilty for betrayal (plus he feels guilty for having loved Hanna and asks himself if that makes him a criminal as well), Michael's father for not being enough of a father.

The question you get stuck with, after reading, is Hanna's question addressed to the judge: "What would you have done?"
The question I am stuck with is: What would have happened if the truth had been told?

On a bohemian level, the novel is about love for books and reading, so that's a plus for bookworms :)

„Warum? Warum wird uns, was schön war, im Rückblick dadurch brüchig, daß es hässliche Wahrheiten verbarg?“ - Bernhard Schlink in "Der Vorleser"

Michael ist 15, als er an Gelbsucht erkrankt. Einmal erbricht er sich mitten auf der Straße und erhält überraschend Hilfe von einer Frau namens Hanna Schmitz. Um sich bei ihr zu bedanken besucht er sie am Folgetag und bemerkt schnell, dass er sich zu der 36 Jahre alten Frau hingezogen fühlt. Hanna und Michael beginnen eine sexuelle Beziehung, verlieren sich aber aus den Augen, als Hanna vom einen auf den anderen Tag verschwindet.

Jahre später trifft Michael Hanna im Gerichtssaal wieder: sie ist als KZ-Wärterin angeklagt.

Bernhard Schlink hat mich mit "Der Vorleser durch ein Wechselbad der Gedanken und Gefühle geschickt. Zu Beginn der Geschichte war ich abgestoßen von der Beziehung zwischen Hanna und Michael. Da ich mit solchen Beziehungen, bei denen Jahrzehnte zwischen den Partnern liegen, persönlich kaum Berührungspunkte habe und auch nicht genau weiß, wie ich das moralisch bewerten soll, hat mich Schlink damit kalt erwischt. Doch der Autor nimmt selbst auch keine Wertung vor. Nüchtern beschreibt er das gegenseitige Waschen, das Vorlesen, den Sex. Er überlässt es ganz dem Leser, zu beschuldigen - oder eben nicht zu beschuldigen.

Genau so hält er es auch mit dem zweiten Teil der Geschichte, dem Prozess zum Holocaust. Auch hier weist Bernhard Schlink niemandem Schuld zu. Er berichtet von dem Verfahren, berichtet von den Handlungen der Protagonisten, den Schilderungen der Holocaust-Opfer und bleibt dabei vollkommen neutral. So wird der Leser fast dazu aufgerufen, sich selbst Gedanken zu machen, auch wenn das weh tut und verstört.

Die dritte Komponente des Romans ist der Analphabetismus. Hanna kann weder Lesen noch Schreiben und wahrt dieses Geheimnis wie ihren Augapfel. Um ihr Gesicht in dieser Hinsicht zu wahren, gibt sie vor Gericht Taten zu, die sie nicht begangen haben kann. Auch das hat mich seltsam berührt.

Insgesamt besticht der Autor mit einem außergewöhnlich tollen Schreibstil und einer Geschichte, die sehr komplex ist und den Leser zum Nachdenken anregt. Mir hat es sehr gut gefallen und ich wünschte, wir hätten diesen Roman in der Schule gelesen. Ich denke, dass es sich hier wirklich lohnt, den Roman in seine Einzelteile zu zerlegen, ihn inhaltlich und sprachlich in all seinen verschiedenen Facetten zu beleuchten. So lässt er mich doch teilweise ratlos zurück. Ich vergebe 4 / 5 ⭐.

Este é um livro pequeno mas bastante intenso, que levanta questões morais e reflexões sobre culpa e perdão, sobre a dicotomia entre o bem e o mal, sobre arrependimento e esquecimento.

Para mim foi particularmente interessante pensar naquilo que foi ser alemão na geração pós-guerra. Os filhos dos adultos que viveram a Segunda Guerra Mundial foram sendo confrontados, ao longo do seu crescimento, com as atrocidades cometidas pelos nazis. Alguns ter-se-ão questionado relativamente aos papéis e atitudes que os mais velhos, os seus familiares ou outros, tiveram durante a guerra. Outros terão, provavelmente, preferido ignorar. Esta geração, a que o autor do livro pertence, foi a geração responsável por julgar os crimes cometidos na guerra.

Qual foi o sentimento dos civis, ou dos que tiveram papéis subalternos durante a guerra, soldados, guardas, que continuaram as suas vidas depois da guerra? Viveram com medo, com vergonha, com remorsos ou tentavam esquecer? Alguns, continuaram a achar que a razão estava do seu lado, ou que apenas cumpriram ordens, ou que nada podiam ter feito.

A relação que se estabelece entre Hanna e Michael é desiquilibrada e abusiva. Esta mulher, vinte e um anos mais velha, exerce o seu poder sobre o miúdo, de 15 anos, usando a sexualidade para o cativar e para obter dele o que procura. Michael torna-se seu amante e seu leitor. Descobriremos mais tarde que Hanna já tinha tido outros leitores, noutras circunstâncias em que o seu poder era exercido de outras formas.

Algum tempo depois, Hanna desaparece sem aviso. Michael volta a encontrá-la, anos mais tarde, num julgamento em que ela é uma das réus. Depois de assistir ao julgamento e de ouvir a sentença, Michael percebe que Hanna lhe deixou marcas profundas e vai continuar presente na sua vida até ao fim. É possível perdoar sem compreender? A compaixão é possível sem o perdão?

Gostei muito deste livro pelas questões morais e filosóficas que aborda, não procurando fazer juízos de valor, mas sim, instigando reflexões. Talvez um dia destes me apeteça ver o filme.