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Loading... The Reader (original 1995; edition 1998)by Bernard Schlink (Author)
Work InformationThe Reader by Bernhard Schlink (1995)
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Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. No current Talk conversations about this book. Very interesting. The protagonist is either deeply emblematic of the problem with humanity, or it’s confusing. Why was he so dead inside? Was his affair more traumatic than her life? Strange. The tone and pacing of the book lent itself to a kind of banality that worked. The character, Hannah, was quite complex—ignorant but kind, handicapped by her illiteracy into choices without real choice. What is the guilt of the executioner? That’s the question and the lingering guilt in the subsequent generations. A teen boy stumbles into an affair with an older woman, who acts secretive throughout the relationship before simply vanishing one day. A couple of years later their paths cross again when he, as part of a school course, attends the trial of a group of Nazi soldiers and finds that she is one of the defendants. He struggles between being horrified and feeling sympathy for her. This one didn’t really work for me, and I wonder if it at least partly is a cultural thing. Then again, I generally just don’t care for novels that are mostly character studies with little plot, and rarely enjoy stories with zero likeable characters. So. an amazing book that hits any number of ethical and moral quandaries. I can see why it on a lot of book of the year lists. Set in postwar Germany, a young man falls in love an older woman (Hanna), one with secrets. As the romance progresses until Hanna inevitably disappears. The years pass, and Michael meets her again, this time in a courtroom where she and a number of defendants are accused of atrocities committed against the Jews in their care. Michael has to put his past relationship in context with the Hanna of now, while looking at is past live affair from the context as an adult. All of this juxtaposes into a moral quandry, are those following orders just as bad as those committing orders? What about someone with a disability?. Ultimately, what is justice? A book that asks a lot of questions, with no answers.
What starts out as a story of sexual awakening, something that Colette might have written, a ''Cherie and the Last of Cherie'' set in Germany after the war, is suddenly darkened by history and tragic secrets. In the end, one is both moved and disturbed, saddened and confused, and, above all, powerfully affected by a tale that seems to bear with it the weight of truth. Schlink's daring fusion of 19th-century post-romantic, post-fairy-tale models with the awful history of the 20th century makes for a moving, suggestive and ultimately hopeful work, an original contribution to the impossible genre with the questionable name of Vergangenheitsbewaltigung, ''coming to terms with the past.'' Belongs to Publisher SeriesHas the adaptationHas as a reference guide/companionHas as a student's study guideHas as a teacher's guideAwardsDistinctionsNotable Lists
Classic Literature.
Fiction.
Literature.
Historical Fiction.
HTML:Hailed for its coiled eroticism and the moral claims it makes upon the reader, this mesmerizing novel is a story of love and secrets, horror and compassion, unfolding against the haunted landscape of postwar Germany. When he falls ill on his way home from school, fifteen-year-old Michael Berg is rescued by Hanna, a woman twice his age. In time she becomes his loverâ??then she inexplicably disappears. When Michael next sees her, he is a young law student, and she is on trial for a hideous crime. As he watches her refuse to defend her innocence, Michael gradually realizes that Hanna may be guarding a secret she considers more shameful than murd No library descriptions found. |
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Google Books — Loading... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)833.914Literature German literature and literatures of related languages German fiction Modern period (1900-) 1900-1990 1945-1990LC ClassificationRatingAverage:
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