The Reader

Rating:
Summary: Not worth it
Review: I thought the "surprise" toward the end was quite obvious from the very beginning and really not that intriguing. I also have a hard time empathizing with either character.

Rating:
Summary: Sleeping with the enemy.
Review: "Hanna was delighted; she laughed and beamed," Schlink's narrator remembers in THE READER. "She looked down at herself, turned around, danced a few steps, looked at herself in the mirror, checked her reflection, and danced some more. That too is a picture of Hanna that has stayed with me" (p. 64). Bernhard Schlink is a law professor at the University of Berlin, and a practicing judge. Set in postwar Germany, his 218-page novel opens with Schlink's narrator, Michael Berg, reminiscing about his first sexual encounter. He was fifteen (p. 34) and obsessed with sex. Hanna was 36 (p. 39) and detached. "That summer was the glide path of our love," Michael recalls. "We kept up our ritual of reading aloud, showering, making love, and then lying together" (pp. 69-70). After Hanna unexpectedly disappears, Schlink's novel then shifts to Hanna's trial for holocaust war crimes, which Michael observes as a law student.

Sparsely written, Schlink's novel is much more than a coming-of-age tale, or a passionate love story with a twist. It is a simple story that asks hard questions about sex, love, war crimes, and illiteracy. The answers are profound. A German acquaintance living here in Boulder encouraged me to read this novel. "It's one of my favorites," she said. THE READER is the kind of book you want to share with other readers.

G. Merritt

Rating:
Summary: Two-edged Sword . . .
Review: The Reader seemed to take two different paths in this novel. The first path is the affair between Michael and Hanna. Hanna teaches Michael the ways of loving and showers him with attention and love. The second path seems to be the path of Hanna giving advice to Michael about his life and his future. The two seem to conflict at times but the novel is very well written. It seems like they're an old married couple at times. The book is touching and it shows the love that they have for one another but yet can't continute acting on. Later in the book, Michael finds out a secret about Hanna and he is forced to face her once again. It's interesting how their relationship is like a circle. The book is easy to read and follow and is full of rich detail. I would recommend the book to everyone because everyone can benefit from reading it.

Rating:
Summary: Manipulative book about a potential Nazi
Review: When I first read this book I liked it a lot. Then the more I thought about it, the more I found things wrong with it until I reached the point where I thought it was important to warn people about the dangers in it.

The first part deals with an abusive, horrible sexual relationship that somehow people are calling erotic and romantic. She used a kid that didn't know better and pummeled him into a submissive emotional dependence to the point where she scarred him for life (see his later marriage). I can expand on this but I don't think I need to and besides, the biggest problem is yet to come.

The moral dilemma about revealing her illiteracy was very interesting but it's extremely misplaced. Just because she was honest at the trial, that doesn't mean she even showed one sign that she wouldn't do any different if it happened again. So who cares about her shame?! First put the murderer away! And what about the other defendants who didn't even show guilt? By taking into consideration her shame, they got away with reduced sentences. Mass murderers no less. But read on...

Then there is the sympathy and all the work he went through to make her life slightly more pleasant. Perhaps she finally showed regret and a change at the end when she was reading about the holocaust, but the book does not mention or show this so we have no way of knowing what she was thinking. And besides, he didn't know what she was up to until after he did everything for her and after she died. And even if she did feel guilty, aren't there much better people worth helping? What about the surviving daughter? Talk about misplaced sympathy!

But all this isn't as bad as the overall big picture I got from the book. The main character was weak minded, apathetic and full of misplaced morals (another example of this is how he dealt with his marriage). All this led me to believe that it was because of people like him that the Nazis could get away with what they did. Guilt is meaningless and even detrimental when it comes with passive behaviour. And sometimes guilt is even used as an excuse to feel human while committing inhuman actions. If Germany is populated with the likes of him nowadays and Nazis would rise to power, the holocaust would happen again. I have no doubt about that.

And don't tell me that this book is objective and cannot be criticised from a moral point of view because it isn't. It's unconsciously manipulative and VERY subtly monstrous. And the proof is that most of the reviews I read for this book describe this as a 'touching love story', a sympathetic view at human characters and real dilemmas, or praising it as putting a human face to Nazis.

So altogether I felt this book was pro-Nazi, despite its strong initial impression otherwise. The problem is not that it pictures Nazis as human with sympathetic emotions, but that it didn't condemn them despite their emotions. People would love to think of Nazis as cold hearted monsters but the truth is a Nazi lives potentially in every heart and if you are not careful, you can be a Nazi sympathizer too.

Rating:
Summary: Deeply Moving
Review: The Reader captivated me from the outset and never let go. It is one of the most moving books I've ever read. It's also the only book that my book club has unanimously loved in the 2 years that we've been meeting. I can't imagine anyone not feeling as if they've learned something valuable about human nature after reading it. If you only read one book this year, make it The Reader.

Rating:
Summary: A good book.
Review: Bernhard Schlink's ``The Reader'' is a fascinating book, at first, a kind of first-love story of an adolescent and an older woman and second the emotional trial of both the boy and the woman in a postwar Holocaust trial. I feel it is the second part of the book which really captivates, the first part, as the relationship between the boy and the woman develops in a stunted way with a lack of emotional attachment or closeness by the woman, something which the boy craves, does not capture me anywhere near as much. I could feel for the boy, his first crush if you like, something all boys go through, who hasn't suffered through a crush on a teacher for example. The writing is simple and to the point not too much beating around the bush and yet still eloquent, maybe because of it. In the second half of the book one finds out why the woman is so distant and why she moved away so suddenly with the boy emotionaly distraught. She was a concentration camp guard during the war and her inability to form close relationships are part of her, possible self-hatred/guilt, and fear of any sort of vulnerability especially as regards her inability to read. Through the trial we find out much about the feelings of the boy and the aftermath of his own guilt and fear and the subsequent sending to her, in prison, of tapes made by the now adult boy while he read books to her. Its remarkable and hard to put down.

A good book.

Rating:
Summary: Heart and Soul
Review: I read very few books but I could not unglue myself from Bernard Schlink's The Reader. This story is about Michael, a young boy...only 15 and with newfound hormones I'm sure...and his older lover Hanna. I found it to be not only shocking and disturbing at first, but I was close to throwing it across the room at the thought of this "couple" being together. It was not until I got past the initial shock factor that I saw how beautiful and touching Michael's pure feelings for Hanna were. To recognize the "love" you must think as a juvenile...innocently and sensitive. You will find yourself caught up in a time where you believed that your childhood sweetheart was the only one in the world that could fulfill your heart's desires.

Later on in the story Michael has grown and at this time Hanna is no longer a part of his life. It is not until he sees her in a courtroom for her crimes during the Holocaust that he meets up with that area of his life once more. Does that love still exist in the depths of Michael's heart? As the reader you find yourself really examining that love and applying it to your own life. Has Hanna crafted an important part of his life that stays with him today? You'll also evaluate the things that crafted your life...the things that gave it depth and meaning. Schlink's adding of a story to the history of the Holocaust made that part of history all the more alive for his readers. It brings you in...heart and soul.

Rating:
Summary: Review for THE READER
Review: The reader was a very good book w/ a lot of socking parts. I would recomend it to anyone who likes romance with a twist.

Rating:
Summary: Compelling
Review: This is a quick and easy read...(I finished it in a weekend and I consider myself a slow reader). It is written almost completely in the first person with very little dialogue between the characters. The book chronicles a teenager (Michael) and his journey through life, from a passionate love affair with a woman who is 21 years his senior (Hanna) and his life following that affair. Michael wrestles with the feelings that he has for Hanna and what he can/should do about them. Hanna disappears one day and the next time he sees her, she is on trial for crimes committed against the Jews. She refuses to defend herself because she is guarding another secret that she is ashamed to admit to. Michael discovers this secret (I'm not going to give it away!) and realizes that she can get a lighter sentence if she tells it to the court. Michael again wrestles with feelings of helplessness; he doesn't know what is morally correct...should he tell the court what Hanna is hiding or should he allow her to condemn herself? This book deals with questions that would be difficult for anyone to answer. The ending is bittersweet and sad; it will definitely leave an impression on the reader...

Rating:
Summary: Misplaced morality
Review: I did not like this book, not because of the writer's style, but because of its contents. The protagonist has a moral dilemma because he once loved a woman who became an SS guard during Nazi Germany. This woman was on trial for the atrocities she committed. Since she was illiterate, the argument went, she could not properly defend herself. That sums up the protagonist's moral quandry. I'm reading the book wondering why someone would want to use ANY defense for the monsters of the Third Reich! There isn't a punishment on this earth harsh enough for them. The protagonist once loved this woman, now is trying to say that what she did wasn't as bad as it sounded in court. In my opinion, he is monstrous as well for loving such a cruel person in the first place. He further demonstrates what a selfish coward he is later in the book by how he conducted his marriage. I was generally disgusted by the whole thing.