The Reader by Bernhard Schlink

The Reader
by Bernhard Schlink
Pub. Date: 1995
Genre: Historical Fiction - Holocaust
224pp

Synopsis from BN.com:
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Why I Picked It:
I recently found this book in one of the boxes my husband pulled out of the shed. I had heard it was going to become a movie, and was intrigued by the story. I had put it on my list as something I wanted to read. What a great surprise to find that I already owned it!

My Review:
I could not put this book down. The language is absolutely beautiful, the first person narrative fluidly constructed. The premise is this: Michael Berg, at age 15, falls ill with hepatitis. Hanna Schmitz rescues him in the street, and after he is well, he returns to thank her, almost innocently seduced into her bed. As their love affair blossoms, he begins to read to her, the reading becoming the binding element of their relationship. Almost as abruptly as it begins the relationship ends and they do not cross paths again until ten years later. Michael is then a law student and an observer in the courtroom where Hanna is on trial for crimes committed as an SS prison guard at a concentration camp.

I was curious about Hanna Schmitz right away - her tough exterior clearly built up so as to not betray some sort of secret or a past. I guessed one part of her secret right away, but could never seem to figure out why she didn't do more for herself. And why she made the choices that she did. Why did she begin a love affair with the narrator, 15-year-old Michael Berg? Why had she become a guard at a concentration camp? Why did she not reveal the secret that would acquit her at trial? And there are other questions why. The book is full of secrets that are never quite unraveled.

The philosophical discussion of the Holocaust was directed, intriguing, leading but never pushing the reader to a definite conclusion on the major themes of how such atrocities could be committed. There is much discussion about the numbness that overtook Germany... "What then should our second generation have done, what should it do with the knowledge of the horrors of the extermination of the Jews? We should not believe we can comprehend the incomprehensible, we may not compare the incomparable, we may not inquire because to inquire is to make the horrors an object of discussion, even if the horrors themselves are not questioned, instead of accepting them as something in the face of which we can only fall silent in revulsion, shame and guilt. Should we only fall silent in revulsion, shame, and guilt? To what purpose?... But that some few would be convicted and punished while we of the second generation were silenced by revulsion, shame, and guilt - was that all there was to it now?"

I enjoyed the parallel paths of how Hanna's past forced her future and the man that Michael would become because of his relationship with Hanna. Both had been silenced and numb in their own ways. I will never forget Hanna's question to the judge in her trial, "so what would you have done?" It was an honest question. She didn't see any alternative to her actions.

Michael is faced with trying to balance the Hanna he knew, with her past that he previously knew nothing of. "I wanted simultaneously to understand Hanna's crime and to condemn it. But it was too terrible for that. When I tried to understand it, I had the feeling I was failing to condemn it as it must be condemned. When I condemned it as it must be condemned, there was no room for understanding.... I could not resolve this. I wanted to pose myself both tasks - understanding and condemnation. But it was impossible to do both."

Michael Berg as The Reader, and me as the reader. We share the same impossibility. The novel leaves you perfectly in the same shoes as Michael. You experience it, you are conflicted, searching desperately for the answers, but Bernhard Schlink does not hand you any. It is thought provoking and a book that should not be read just once, at least twice.