The Reader -

Bernhard Schlink

Phoenix Books

1997

216 páginas

7h 12m

ISBN-10: 0753804700

For 15-year-old Michael Berg, a chance meeting with an older woman leads to far more than he ever imagined. The woman in question is Hanna, and before long they embark on a passionate, clandestine love affair which leaves Michael both euphoric and confused. For Hanna is not all she seems. Years later, as a law student observing a trial in Germany, Michael is shocked to realize that the person in the dock is Hanna. The woman he had loved is a criminal. Much about her behaviour during the trial does not make sense. But then suddenly, and terribly, it does - Hanna is not only obliged to answer for a horrible crime, she is also desperately concealing an even deeper secret. 'A tender, horrifying novel that shows blazingly well how the Holocaust should be dealt with in fiction. A thriller, a love story and a deeply moving examination of a German conscience' INDEPENDENT SATURDAY MAGAZINE

Resenhas (4)

5 (Perfeito)

Both the movie and the book are great. I couldn't say which one is better. While I was reading the book, I sometimes missed Kate Winslet's highly expressive acting. She was able to express in one scene what the author took 218 pages to communicate: Hanna's despair. But those were 218 pages really worth reading.
The story is dramatic, however, it is not told in a dramatic way. I appreciated that. It is not striving to make you cry, as so many novels insist on doing nowadays, but it certainly makes you think about love, justice, guilt and human nature. It is so deep, it covers so many eternal human issues that I guess I will have to think about it for a long time. If I had to choose a topic, though, I would say it is about ignorance.
The author does not mean that some of us are ignorant. According to him, we all are. We are eternally and forever unable to read not only the world around us but especially the people, their motivations, feelings, their whole being. No matter how close we are to someone, there is always something essential within people that we cannot grasp and this ignorance makes our relationships numb and superficial. None of us actually live in the world or interact with people. We just act according to some theory or belief without seeing people as real individuals. We live with, judge, condemn or absolve labels, characters, masks. Therefore, no justice is possible, no real life is possible, maybe only love is possible when the brain does not get in the way.
Anyway, these are my conclusions, you may come to different ones. Do read this book because it is one of the great ones. I'll certainly place it beside my all time classics.