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Summary: Discover how young Germany has had to deal with the past
Review: I will give you some good reasons why you should read this book. Although this is a book about the Holocaust, it is not primarily a book about the suffering of the Jews. It is instead a book about the Germans and, more importantly, the legacy of the Holocaust which has been left to a new generation who have had to deal with the disturbing and sometimes cruel knowledge of what their parents and loved ones may have done (or failed to do) during the Nazi era. When reading this book, I found myself wondering what I would be like if I were a young modern German and had to deal with the knowledge that my parents and grandparents did nothing to stop the horror of those times or perhaps may have actively contributed to it. Michael has the misfortune to fall in love with an older woman who was complicit in a horrible crime. The question that torments him is this; how can I be a good, warm, loving person if the person I love more than any other has done such a terrible thing? The story of Hanna, and his own inexplicable love and regard for her, haunts him throughout his life. Michael's quest to understand why this should be so is the basis for much of this subtly compelling book. Perhaps it is the banality of Hanna's secret - ie. that she is illiterate - that is the reason some reviewers have felt disappointed by this book. We are so used to stories of the Holocaust such as "Sophie's Choice" where the magnitude of the suffering seems to dwarf anything we could possibly imagine and if that is the type of story you are looking for, "The Reader" will not deliver that. However, the value of this work is that it looks at another aspect of the Holocaust, that is to say, the way in which young Germany has had to try to come to terms with the crimes of the past. This is an interesting subject to me. If you do not want to read yet another forumlaic book about those dreadful times, and if you want your mind to be open to another perspective of the Holocaust, then I recommend that you read this book.
Rating: 
Summary: Did we lose something in the translation?
Review: I am puzzled by this book. The characters are cold and unyielding. The prose is spare and lucid, though many parts read like the narrator's soul-less observation or statement of facts without revealing or even hinting at his pain and troubles. What is about the war and Hannah in his childhood that made him the unfeeling and unloved adult? The Holocaust forms the background for much of the novel and Schlink does suggest the hidden psychological impact of the atrocities but if his intention is to tickle without eliciting any giggles then he has succeeded.
Rating:
Summary: Why all the hype??
Review: I absolutely could not wait to read this book. As it turns out, I could have waited all my life and not missed much. The Reader's premise is a very intriguing story line with so much potential. Unfortunately, the outcome is a disappointing and depressing book that leaves much to be desired. The story develops in a very uneasy way. I felt like this story wanted to almost stop itself from being told. With all of the wonderful books out there I am a little dissapointed that I spent my time on this one.
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Summary: Have some of us missed the point?
Review: This book is not meant to distract us with stylish prose, but to listen to a man, not an artist, describe an event that happened to him in childhood and how that event affected his life. Therefore, do not expect flashy "literary" devices other than plain-spoken narrative. This is not an easy style to emmulate. The telling of the story is the stronger for it. This is a take on the Holocaust, and it is a take on sexual awakening in a young boy who has an affair with an older woman. Later, the young boy learns to take disappointment, pain, and a growing awareness of what it means to love and to extend kindness even to someone whom you feel has hurt you irreparably. To look at this book as some kind of non-literary event and therefore worthy of scorn is to completely miss the point. This book really must be read without a lot of pre-judgement of what a book should sound like, and of what a book should be telling the reader. The book has its own point of view, and exposes that point of view to us slowly and evenly, without uneccesary drama. To me, this makes it all the more compelling. It sounds utterly real. The writer has taken the chance that some readers won't get it, and, indeed, some have not. More's the pity. EKW
Rating: 
Summary: I hope everything was lost in the translation. If not...
Review: I teach a high school modern novel course, and it's become kind of a tradition for the students in my class and I to make a pilgrimage to Borders and to select, as our last novel together, a book I've never read. When I think back to that amazing pile of books we abandoned for THE READER, I feel heartsick. There was a faction in our class who wanted to read a vampire novel called I AM LEGEND, and I, wanting something perhaps a little more literary, backed the group pulling for THE READER. How I wish we had opted for the undead. This is surely one of the most manipultive and poorly written novels I've ever read. Even my high school students knew it was a dramatic step down from the novels we had read so far in class (CUCKOO'S NEST, POISONWOOD BIBLE, SULA, TIME'S ARROW, ect). There are whole chapters that read like bad essays or banal journal entries. The "climax," a court trial, is referred to rather than shown. The voice of the narrator is generic, as is his depiction of the woman he meets at 15 and then again 20 years later. We found ourselves poking fun at the sentences rather than discussing the characters. Our public consciousness regarding the Holocaust is so specific and layered (thanks to other better novels and to SCHINDLER'S LIST) that anything less seems like a horrible affront to the reader and to the victims of the tragedy. This is the second "Oprah novel" I've read that suggests, Toni Morrison and Jane Hamilton aside, that her literary tastes are flagging.
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Summary: Shocking......and, Very Complex.
Review: I found this book really difficult to justify. I don't really know if I enjoyed it or not. But, I certainly can appreciate the talent and expertise that went into writing it. I just don't know if have the knowledge to completely understand all the many complex and intriquing aspects of this story. Perhaps it could be due to my age (24) and not being able to relate to the subject matter in my own way. None the less, I can certainly understand the drama, shocking turn of events and emotional response that others have had to this book. This is a book that takes over a person and requires a lot of attention. Not a book to be taken lightly.
Rating:
Summary: An ineffectual treatment of powerful material
Review: What makes Schlink's deserving of my low rating is not any particular stylistic aspecture of the piece, but rather that which does not appear. Schlink takes in hand two subjects possessing of great deterministic and moral power...the issues of illiteracy and ethnocide (by no means am I endeavouring to say that the two stand upon equal footing). He does not, however, lead us to any marvelous realisations regarding these themes. Instead we are left high and dry; he supposes we shall be sated by his little homily that Michael (the protagonist of the piece) finds himself now unable to distinguish the boundaries of his innonence and Hanna's guilt (the implication obviously being that there perhaps are none). While this is a well and valid conclusion, I didn't need to read this piece to have that thought handed to me...Goldhagen's "Hitler's Willing Executioners" and "The German Army and Genocide" already do a more valid job. It may be I simply found myself so disenchanted by this book because I fail to conceive of these issues as proper issues for treatment in the framework of a novel.
Upon the converse, this book was...memorable. If nothing else, it was certainly memorable...powerful, disturbing, and effecting as well. I find it by no means to be great literature, nor to attempt to deal with a subject that really has any actual place being dealt with in a novel...but "The Reader" does leave the reader with dominant, powerful impressions; the most enduring of which is the idea that guilt must be doled out upon the basis of admissions at the trial...not upon reality.
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Summary: Reconstructing Morality
Review: Schlink's "The Reader" is a wonderful novel that goes to the heart of the post-WWII German social problem: how do we reconcile ourselves with our past? The two main characters, Hanna and Michael, live out this question and provoke the reader to consider the moral issues at stake. Who is "guilty" for Nazi attrocities? Should the post-war generation take responsibility for the actions of their parents? Schlink has is own, very unique, and sometimes disturbing answers to these questions. But more importantly, this easy-to-read, thought-provoking story should raise questions in the American mind about our own guilt for horrors such slavery, segregation, and Nisei imprisonment carried out by our forefathers. It certainly is a novel everyone should read to get a clearer understanding of how to live with a guilty past.
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Summary: Idea interesting but characters flat, undeveloped, immature
Review: While I found the relationship between the boy and the woman objectionable, it isn't the reason I didn't care for the book. I found the writing sparse. The characters weren't fully developed and the reader was left not knowing hardly anything of their lives or feelings. It was an interesting idea for a story; however, I feel that more should have been said about the characters' lives and feelings and less about simply their repetitive sexual affair. The chapters are annoyingly short. The feelings of the narrator seem immature and undeveloped. I realize he is 15 at the beginning of the book, but 15-year-old boys can still be interesting. Besides, the narrator ages and still no real insight is gained. Skip this one. Read instead The Pilot's Wife by Anita Shreve, or Snow Falling on Cedars by David Guterson.
Rating:
Summary: Inspiring
Review: An inspiring book about the depth of the human spirit. Worth your time.
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