Corum Womens 196 260 20 0F01fm32r Bubble Limited

Corum Womens 196 260 20 0f01fm32r Bubble Limited

Hailed for it is 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 versus 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 lover—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 mystery she considers more shameful than murder.

The Reader, which won the Boston Book Review‘s Fisk Fiction Prize, wrestles with a heap of more demons in it is few, in an outstanding manner lucid pages. What does it mean to love those people–parents, grandparents, even lovers–who consecrated the worst atrocities the world has ever known? And is any atonement possible through literature? Schlink’s prose is clean and pared down, stripped of unnecessary imagery, dialogue, and excess in any form. What remains is an austerely beauteous narrative of the try to breach the gap among Germany’s pre- and postwar generations, amongst the guilty and the innocent, and amongst words and silence. –R. Ellis

From School Library JournalYA. Michael Berg, 15, is on his way home from high school in post-World War II Germany when he becomes ill and is befriended by a woman who takes him home. When he recovers from hepatitis a great deal of weeks later, he dutifully takes the 40-year-old Hanna flowers in appreciation, and the two become lovers. The relationship, at primary rigorously physical, deepens when Hanna takes an interest in the young man’s education, insisting that he study hard and attend classes. Soon, meetings take on a more significant procedure in which after lovemaking Michael reads aloud from the German classics. There are hints of Hanna’s darker side: one inexplicable moment of violence over a minor misunderstanding, and the fact that the boy knows not one thing of her life other than that she collects tickets on the streetcar. Content with their arrangement, Michael is only too more than willing to overlook Hanna’s secrets. She leaves the city abruptly and mysteriously, and he does not see her again until, as a law student, he sits in on her case when she is being tried as a Nazi criminal. [...] The theme of good versus evil and the question of moral obligation are eloquently staged in this spare coming-of-age story that’s sure to inspire questions and passionate discussion. —Jackie Gropman, Kings Park Library, Burke, VA
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library JournalAfter falling ill on the street in the German town where he lives, 15-year-old Michael is helped by a woman named Hanna. When he returns to her apartment to thank her various months later, he begins a ardent love affair with her. In time, she demands that he read aloud to her before they make love, and they essay numerous of Germany’s and the world’s great creative writing of recognized artisti value together. One day, however, Hanna disappears without saying farewell, and Michael grieves and believes it to be his fault. He finds her again years later when, as a law student, he encounters her as the defendant in a court case. To disclose more of the plot would be unfair, but this very readable novel by German author Schlink probes the nature of love, guilt, and obligation while painting a sympathetic portrait of Michael and an achingly complex picture of Hanna. Recommended for most collections. —Michael T. O’Pecko, Towson State Univ., Md.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Most helpful client reviews

274 of 281 persons found the following review helpful.
COMPELLING…COMPLEX…PROFOUND…
By Lawyeraau
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 disunited into three parts. The introductory portion 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 pretty 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 in the long run finds himself seduced by her and engaged in a sexual encounter. They become lovers for a amount of time of time, and a element of their kinship was that Michael would read aloud to her. Michael romanticizes their affair, which is a cornerstone of his young life. Then, one day, as abruptly as she appeared in his life, she disappears, having inexplicably moved with no forwarding address.

The second share of the book deals with Michael’s probability encounter with Hanna again. He is now a law student in a seminar that is focalized 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 endured 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 feelings 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 all around the trial, realizing as he hears the proof that she is refusing to divulge the one piece of proof that could perchance absolve her or, at least, mitigate her complicity in the crimes with which she is charged. It is as if she considers her mystery 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, guilty conscience into question. Consequently, Hanna finds herself bearing the legal guilt feelings of all those involved in the crime of which she is accused and is condemned accordingly.

The third portion of the book is genuinely the way Michael deals with having found Hanna, again. He removes himself from further visual representation and discussion on the issue of Germany’s Nazi past. It affects his conclusions as to his career in the law, ultimately 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 mystery they share of what she seems to be most ashamed. Yet, he cautiously never personalizes the contact. The end, when it comes, is almost anti-climatic.

The kinship amongst Michael and Hanna genuinely seems to be analogous to the kinship amongst the generations of Germans in post-war Germany. The affair amidst Michael and Hanna is representational of the affair that Germany had with the Nazi movement. The eroticism of the book is a necessary element for the collective guilt feelings and shame that the Germans bear for the Holocaust, as well as for the moral divide that seemingly exists amidst the generations. Yet, the book likewise shows that such is not always a black and white issue, that there are from time to time gray areas when one discusses one’s actions in the context of the forces of good and evil. There is also the issue of legal and moral responsibility. One would think that the two are synonymous, but they are not always so. It also philosophizes on the capacity to love another/a nation who/that was complicit in war crimes. This is an insightful, allegorical book that defies categorizing. It is also a book that is a fantasti selection for a reading circle, as it has a wealth of issues that are ripe for discussion. This is merely a superlative book. Bravo!

94 of 95 persons found the following review helpful.
A revised reading of relationships
By Friederike Knabe
The topic of the Holocaust is raised closely each day in galore manner. Many books have been written in regards to the topic. Whether in studies, documentaries or fictional accounts, finger-pointing at the perpetrators of the crimes versus millions has been percentage of the procedure of coming to terms with the Nazi atrocities. For Imre Kertesz, widely known and esteemed author and Nobel laureate of 2002, there is no other topic. Yet, when he reflects on the traumatic affect of Auschwitz, “he dwells on the vitality and ability to create of those living today” and “thus, paradoxically, not on the past but the future.” Bernhard Schlink, professor of law and practicing judge in Germany, born in 1944, has attempted to capture the struggles of his generation in confronting the past and the future in “The Reader”. “Pointing at the guilty party did not free us from shame”, his narrator and protagonist contemplates, “but at least it overcame the suffering we went through on account of it”.

The normally unambiguous distinction amongst villain and victim has facilitated the identification with those who lost their lives or suffered under the Nazi atrocities while all scorn, abhorrence and hate was piled on the perpetrators. Until recently, few books have concentered on the after-war generation. While growing up, the children had to come to terms with the, often times sudden, exposure of their parents’ active or passive participation in the crimes of the Nazi regime. “The Reader”, set in post-war Germany and versus the backdrop of the Frankfurt Auschwitz tryouts of the mid-sixties, takes this new and, for our generations, indispensable angle: in the form of the fictional essay of Michael Berg. Michael, while not refuting guilt, shame, and atonement, is led to consider in detail and dissect the complexity of inter-generational conflicts in the context of his personal experiences. Like Schlink himself, he grapples with the rudimentary problem of the relationships amongst these two generations.

Michael recounts the most primary stages in his life, starting with experiences long passed in his youth. While his account follows the chronology of events, he growingly interleaves retrospective reflections on his past conduct, questioning his conflicting emotions – his behaviour. The story starts with Michael’s first, secret, love affair at age 15 with a woman more than twice his age. The blossoming (erotic|sexual pleasure|sexually arousing kinship strengthens his self-worth and selfconfidence yet, at the same time, progressively isolating him from his family and peers. Hanna Schmitz, of whose circumstances and background Michael knew very little, was affectionate and standoffish at the same time, prone to abrupt mood swings. The young lover is completely captivated and eager to please. He is the “Reader”, in German “Vorleser” is a person who reads aloud to an audience. At her insistence he reads his books to her and it becomes an necessary element of their shared intimacy. When she disappears one day without any warning, her loss leaves him devastated and scarred for life. He may only seek the reasons in his own actions. Seeing Hanna again years later and in unanticipated surroundings, triggers a flood of questions with regards to the person he loved and thought he knew. Her behaviour raises a lot of questions and Michael discovers a long mystery that puts in doubt the facts as they are exposed. He likewise wrestles with himself over his own inaction when confronted with choices. “What would you have done?” Although addressed to the judge by the defendant, this question hangs over Michael, as it does over his whole generation. It encapsulates the primary dilemma of the child-parent generations relationships. Finally, writing the story of his life, drafting and redrafting it in his head until it is in a publishable form, is seen as a chance for his own recovery and for living his own life.

The Reader, while a work of fiction, is deeply anchored in the personal experiences of the author and symbolic for his generation. His spare and unemotional language underlines the impression of a biographical investigation and is employed rather deliberately. The English translation captures the tone and style amazingly well. Reading this book must not be an “easy pleasure” as a great deal of reviewers have suggested. The Reader covers difficult and complex terrain in a way that it forces the reader to reflect and question their own position long afterwards. Although written directly for a German audience of Schlink’s and my generation, the novel, surprisingly, has attracted world-wide attention. While reviews and reactions amongst readers are highly diverse and even contradictory, it ought to be read by as galore persons as possible and with the care the subject matter deserves. [Friederike Knabe]

42 of 44 persons found the following review helpful.
A Unique Topic – Post WWII German Youth
By Helene Hoffman
What impressed me far more when it comes to this book than the main plot (15 year old has sensuous affair with much older woman who turns out to be former SS Guard), was a seemingly minor issue in the book. That issue was that of how the sons and daughters of the Germans who lived in Germany for the duration of WWII dealt with their “Holocaust Legacy”. My parents are Holocaust Survivors, and I have read a lot when it comes to the Holocaust, but little has been written on the topic of that basi generation of Germans born after the end of WWII. The author articulately and distinctly describes how the sons and daughters of those Germans who lived through WWII perfectly had no respect for their parents; that the sheer strength of the genocide that their parents conspired in, ignored, or did whatever, demanded that their children’s sensations toward them just had to plunge far deeper than the “typical” disdain which each generation of young people have toward their parents. My only wish is that the author had delved into this topic even further; as he himself was born in Germany in 1944, he is without doubt a fellow member of that postwar generation of Germans, and consequently has a distinguishable perspective on the subject. As for the book generally, the plot was not one thing short of incredible. With that said, I thought Parts I and III (the beginning and ending of the book) were very well-written; the author does a great occupation describing the sensuous affair of the teenager, and a outstanding occupation at the end, when it comes to his conflicting sensations towards his former lover for the duration of and after her trial, and with regards to what in the end happens to her. However, the middle of the book was awful; it was written in a superficial manner, with no real reputation development. So remember: just keep reading until the end. All in all, a arousing and attention holding portrayal, from a German, of what it means for the post-war German generation to live with tremendously complex sensations concerning the Holocaust and their parents.

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