The Reader
Author: Bernhard Schlink
Translated from German to English by: Carol Brown Janeway
Pages: 216

Writers note
I first read this book back in 2013 during my first week of university. It was given to me for free by the local library during freshers week as part of the World Book Night 2013 series in the hope of encouraging more people to read and enjoy books. The idea is that once you have finished, you pass it along to someone else and so on.

I'm not entirely sure what caused me to hold onto this book, it's not the sort of thing I normally read and I've not read it since until now, but when I got the idea to start writing book reviews it was the first book I thought of for some reason even though I have found it quite difficult at times to express how I feel about parts of this book (mainly parts two and three).

I must admit that normally once I have read a book I can go without touching it for years, but remember everything the second I re-read the first few lines. For some reason with, The Reader, I could only remember the very basics of the beginning and not the whole story.

The book itself I found to be a quick read, it's short, only 216 pages long and is split into three parts. It's written ten years in the future with the main character looking back on the story's events.

I would not recommend this book for young readers due to sexual references.

Storyline (spoilers)

Based in Germany after the aftermath of the second world war it follows the story of fifteen year old Michael Berg who after falling ill with Hepatitis, meets an older woman named Hanna (aged thirty six). Once recovered he goes back to visit Hanna and almost instantly falls in love with her and the pair of them very quickly start a love affair which leaves Michael feeling confused and elated at the same time.

Several years later, during Michael's study of law, he is shocked to find that one the defendants at a trial he is observing is Hanna and that she was involved with the Nazis and one of the concentration camps. During the trial Michael also realises that Hanna is illiterate and struggles to come to terms with his feelings for the woman he loved and the person he now knows her to be. When Hanna gets sentenced to life in prison, Michael continues to struggle to free himself from her and ends up recording stories for her and sending them to prison, he visits her on one occasion a week before she is due to be released. In the end Hanna commits suicide the day before her release and Michael is left to struggle with his feelings towards her and what she has done both to him and to others.

Views

Despite overall enjoying the book and finding it interesting, I did not like Hana from the start. As a character I thinks she's well written and fits the story very welI, but as a person, I don't like her. Its made very clear early on that despite being a strong and intelligent individual, she is not a good person (From the way she treats Michael throughout their relationship, her actions in the Nazis concentration camps to the very end when she appears to show very little remorse for what she's done). You could say that her suicide at the end shows that she feels guilt for her actions but there is almost no sign of this prior to that moment.
I can relate to her wanting to hide her illiteracy, at work I've come across several individuals who for whatever reason are illiterate. Some of them will go to great lengths to hide this as they perceive this was a weakness or they are worried about how others will view them. Not that being illiterate absolves Hanna of any of her actions however it is wrong that during the trial she admitted to something she didn't do in order to prevent others from knowing this.

Michael on the other hand, I did like. He's a complete doormat when it comes to the way Hanna treats him however that could be down to his age and lack of worldly experience. I did find how quickly he becomes infatuated with her and how their relationship went from 0 - 100 within essentially a matter of minutes to be ludicrous (the previous drafts of this review have had at least two pages of pointing out what's wrong in the relationship). I do wonder exactly what Michael gets out of being in a relationship with Hanna, apart from the physical aspect, he clearly has feelings for her but I always got the impression that she got more out of it then he did.
By the end of the story I came to think that Michael is quite a sad character, his entire life has been impacted by his relationship with Hanna, even after its ended, to the point where it almost entirely revolves around her. Even after she dies, Michael still struggles to be free of her and his feelings for her are quite complex especially once he seems to realise exactly what Hanna has done to him.

I was confused that Michael felt that he was betraying Hanna by not telling his friends about her and he makes reference to this and his guilt around it throughout the story. At no point has he done this prior to that point (start of chapter 15) and at no point does Hana give any indication that she wants their relationship to go public. She declined to go to the cinema with him and on the holiday that he takes her on they sign into hotels as mother and son. I would understand it if he had cheated on her or had deliberately gone against her wishes, but as far as I could tell Hanna didn't want others to know about their relationship.

Overall the story itself I found to be well written. Its quite descriptive and at times goes into great detail despite how short it is. The fact that its split into three sections clearly separates the different parts of the story without having the fill in the gaps in between with irrelevant waffle instead opting to have a quick overview. It also deals with some very serious topics through the relationship between the two main characters, the impact it has on Michael, the revelations during the trial in part two and Hanna's suicide at the end of part three. Apart from getting annoyed at Hannas behaviour towards Michael I admit that I didn't find myself getting overly emotional about the story however I think that the point was to get the reader to think about the topics discussed in the story rather than to trigger an emotional response. Its not something I would recommend to a younger reader because of this and due to the adult topics but its a good read and I do feel its worth reading, especially if your looking for something you could read in a day.