The Reader

by Bernhard Schlink

Book Overview

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... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0679442790
• ISBN13: 9780679442790
• Release Date: January 1997
• Publisher: Vintage Books USA
• Length: 218 Pages
• Weight: 0.67 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 4.6" x 7.6"

Customer Reviews

Still Good

I read this way back in high school (for myself, not for school) and fell in love with it. I'm glad to find I still enjoy it as much now as I did then.

Much better than the movie.

I left the film with many questions about the motivation of the main characters. I then decided to buy the book and was rewarded with a more morally and philosophically complex development of these characters. A quick read and far more satisfying than the movie even if the actors turned in very gifted performances.

Intense, Emotional, Moving, and Unforgettable

"The Reader" is an intensely moving novella in which Michael, a fifteen-year old German boy, falls in love with a thirty-six-year old woman, Hanna, a streetcar conductor. A story as old as the hills, yet their affair became a life-altering event for both of them. The narrative is divided into three sections: one, the affair, two, Hanna's trial as the perpetrator of war crimes atrocities while she was serving as an SS guard in concentration camps, and three, Hanna's years of imprisonment following the trial and Michael's half-life seeking answers and salvation. In Part One Michael thinks he has betrayed Hanna by disavowal, by not admitting her existence to his friends. That is nothing compared to his betrayals of her during the trial and in her prison years. In the sections of the book in which Michael is trying to probe his own moral predicaments and dilemmas, his philosophical positions, his reasoning is complicated and convoluted. He goes to the judge to give him information, and he chickens out. He goes to his father and is satisfied with non-answers to his problems. He lacks moral courage and conviction and is willing to let events take their course. It is not a story of redemption, and no one gets off easy in this sad story. Michael attended all of Hanna's long trial and watched her tortured and damaging testimony. She realized he was in the courtroom but didn't acknowledge him. Hanna had a cold-blooded streak, and Michael had a selfish, cowardly stripe. When they first met he could see her tough side, her coldness at times. She called him, at first sarcastically "kid," but it becomes obvious that she loved him. She loved to be read to, and he read serious stuff to her. When she left him, he vowed "never again to love anyone whom it would hurt to lose." In later life he can't get over two parts of his life: Hanna and the trial. The book gives no easy answers. We cannot forgive Hanna for what she did. She had a secret that she tried desperately to keep. I think each reader will come away from this book with a different outlook, different opinions, different conclusions, but with a recognition of how real the two people have become and how they continue to inhabit and haunt our minds.

Ein wunderbares Buch, das wichtige Fragen stellt

Ein wunderbares Buch mit vielen Höhepunkten und überraschenden Momenten, das es verdient hat, auch in Amerika die Bestsellerlisten zu stürmen. In Deutschland bezeichnete Der Spiegel den Roman bei der Veröffentlichung im Jahr 1995 als ein literarisches Ereignis. Dem kann man nur zustimmen, denn selten kommt ein kurzes Buch, mit rund 200 Seiten, das derart fesselt. Bernhard Schlink hat drei Themen (Holocaust, Analphabetismus und Liebe zu einer wesentlich älteren Frau) wirklich gut miteinander verknüpft. Ferner hat der Autor eine vorzügliche Balance zwischen nüchterner Analytik und malerischer, ausschmückender Poesie gefunden. Ein überaus unterhaltsames und fesselndes Werk. Und für alle, die vielleicht nicht perfekt Deutsch können: Der Roman liest sich recht flott und leicht (kurze Sätze, prägnanter Ausdruck, weitestgehend lineare Erzählung, wenige Figuren). Neben den beiden Büchern von David Bergmann Der, die, was?mein Lieblingsbuch in deutscher Sprache!

COMPELLING...COMPLEX...PROFOUND...

Winner of the Boston Review's Fisk Fiction Prize, this thematically complex story is written in clear, simple, lucid prose. It is a straightforward telling of an encounter that was to mark fifteen year old Michael Berg for life. The book, written as if it were a memoir, is divided into three parts. The first part of the book deals with that encounter. While on his way home from school one day in post-war Germany, Michael becomes ill. He is aided by a beautiful and buxom, thirty six year old blonde named Hanna Schmitz. When he recovers from his illness, he goes to Frau Schmitz's home to thank her and eventually finds himself seduced by her and engaged in a sexual encounter. They become lovers for a period of time, and a component of their relationship was that Michael would read aloud to her. Michael romanticizes their affair, which is a cornerstone of his young life. Then, one day, as suddenly as she appeared in his life, she disappears, having inexplicably moved with no forwarding address. The second part of the book deals with Michael's chance encounter with Hanna again. He is now a law student in a seminar that is focused on Germany's Nazi past and the related war trials. The students are young and eager to condemn all who, after the end of the war, had tolerated the Nazis in their midst. Even Michael's parents do not escape his personal condemnation. The seminar is to be an exploration of the collective guilt of the German people, and Michael embraces the opportunity, as do others of his generation, to philosophically condemn the older generation for having sat silently by. Then, he is assigned to take notes on a trial of some camp guards. To his total amazement, one of the accused is Hanna, his Hanna. He stoically remains throughout the trial, realizing as he hears the evidence that she is refusing to divulge the one piece of evidence that could possibly absolve her or, at least, mitigate her complicity in the crimes with which she is charged. It is as if she considers her secret more shameful than that of which she is accused. Yet, Michael, too, remains mute on the fact that would throw her legal, if not her moral, guilt into question. Consequently, Hanna finds herself bearing the legal guilt of all those involved in the crime of which she is accused and is condemned accordingly. The third part of the book is really the way Michael deals with having found Hanna, again. He removes himself from further demonstration and discussion on the issue of Germany's Nazi past. It affects his decisions as to his career in the law, eventually choosing a legal career that is isolating. He marries and has a child but finds that he cannot be free of Hanna. He cannot be free of the pain of having loved Hanna. It is as if Hanna has marked him for life. He divorces and never remarries. It is as if he cannot love another, as he loved Hanna. Michael then reaches out to Hanna in prison, indirectly, through the secret they share of what she see

Ausgezeichnet auf Deutsch!

Der Roman "der Vorleser " von Bernhard Schlink ist einfach Super! I absolutely loved Schlink's novel "The Reader"... I had picked up the German Edition of this novel in Germany this summer, and finally got around to reading it. I couldn't put it down and read it in four hours. I haven't read the English translation, so I cannot judge the version that others have written reviews about on this site, but the German novel is the best thing I have read since Patrick Suskind's "The Perfume" a few years ago. It is extremely thought provoking and makes one seriously think about love, relationships, guilt, responsibility,shame etc.