The Reader

First published in 1995, Bernhard Schlink's acclaimed The Reader has had many turns in the spotlight. Originally penned in German, the book enjoyed runaway success before being translated to the English and published in 1997 when it was chosen for Oprah's Book Club, becoming the first German novel to top the New York Times bestseller list. Then in 2008, after being in production for years, The Weinstein Company released an adaptation of the film, directed by acclaimed filmmaker, Stephen Daldry, earning itself 5 Academy Award nominations, including a win for Kate Winslet, a career first. So why is it that this slim book is still a literay sensation, more than 10 years after its first publication?
Telling the story of 15 year old Michael Berg who has sexual encounters with Hanna, a woman more than twice his age, the novel is divided into three main parts. Starting rather pointedly, the first part deals frankly with Michael and Hanna's sexual affair- "When I was fifteen, I got hepatitis," our narrator tells us. Collapsing near Hanna's appartment, he is helped home by her. When he recovers some months later, he visits her with flowers as a gesture of thanks. He is fascinated by her and on his third visit, the two start having sex- "I was afraid: of touching, of kissing, afraid I woudn't please or satisfy her. But when we had held each other for a while, when I had smelled her smell and felt her warmth and her strength, everything fell into place. I explored her body with my hands and mouth, our mouths met, and then she was on top of me, looking into my eyes until I came and closed my eyes tight and tried to control myself and then screamed so loud that she had to cover my mouth with her hand to smother the sound."
Michael is swept up by his infatuation with Hanna, but can't help noticing certain oddities in her behaviour- she is emotionally closed, often curt, has wild fits of temper, and bouts of insecurity. Their relationship seems strengthened when Michael starts reading to her, oft-times before they have sex.
As their relationship continues building, Michael becomes more involved in school life and the social element it provides. But to Michael's detriment, and our surprise, Hanna goes missing towards the end of part one. The book informs us- "Next day she was gone... The days went by and I felt sick. I took pains to make sure my parents and my brothers and sisters noticed nothing. I joined in the conversation at table a little, ate a little, and when I had to throw up, I managed to make it to the toilet. I went to school and to the swimming pool. I spent my afternoons there in an out-of-the-way place where no one would look for me. My body yearned for Hanna..."
In part two, Michael is older, and now a law student sitting in on the case of six female Nazi guards accused of varying degrees of atrocities. Suffice it to say, Hanna is one of them. "When I saw Hanna again, it was in a courtroom" the novel informs us. Michael again becomes obsessed with Hanna, this time with the idea of what she is being tried for and the inconsistencies of her testimony.
Part 3 deals with the post-trial proceedings- Hanna has been condemned, and Michael is now much older, having gone through a failed marriage. The two keep in contact via a chain of recorded tapes, planning Hanna's eventual release from prison.
At a concise 217 pages in paperback, The Reader is a quick read. Written in the first person narrative, Schlink is adept at conveying the emotions that Michael, in his three phases of life, experience. In the first third, we experience a vibrant Michael, excited at the prospects of the newness of his relationship with Hanna. But with every pang of doubt and utter longing, we feel it too. In the second section, we are faced with Michael's disillusionment at how he, and by extension us as readers, never took the time to fully notice who the woman Hanna truly was before it is too late.
Probably the most interesting and engaging part of the novel is the way the text deals with Nazis, the second World War, and the generation who came after the war- Germany's baby boomers, if you will. While there is a plethora of literature and history written about the Jews, and the Poles and other outcasts in the second World War, anthropologists and historians agree that there isn't much from the point-of-view of the Germans. This could be the silence of shame that many Germans experience about their part in the war, or what they perceive to be the guilt of their fore-parents. The post-war history of Germany is fascinating for this very same reason, with this text revealing a sliver of the complexity of emotion and reasoning from a character who is passionate about the wrongs perpetuated by his country, while at the same time battling with his ignorance of one of the perpetrators.
The novel's take on the Holocaust is doubly unusual among Holocaust fiction, as it not only develops a narrative between the time of its events and wartime events, but posits a perpetrator, instead of a victim, smack in the middle of the text's proceedings. In doing so, Schlink ruminates on how generations after the Third Reich have struggled to come to terms with the crimes of the Nazis. But while he does that, Schlink himself complicates things even further by the mere characterization of Hanna. Are we supposed to feel empathy for her? Should we condemn her for her actions? Should we be interested in her as a person? And if so, what would that be saying of ourselves? A strong version of this plays out in a scene where the student Michael is taking a taxi to a concentration camp during the trial, in hopes of getting some insight into the trial. The driver, an older man, questions him about the motivation of those who carried out the killings, before offering an answer of his own-

"... executioners don't hate the people they execute, and they execute them all the same. Because they're ordered to? You think they do it because they're ordered to? And you think that i'm talking about orders and obedience, that the guards in the camps were under orders and had to obey? No, i'm not talking about orders and obedience. An executioner is not under orders. He's doing his work, he doesn't hate the people he executes, he's not taking revenge on them, he's not killing them because they're in his way or threatening him or attacking him. They're a matter of such indifference to him that he can kill them as easily as not."

The passage seems callous, but there has to be some modicum of truth there in trying to understand why and how the travesties of the Holocaust happened. Indeed, if we are to be identifying with our protagonist, what should we make of his inability to neither condemn nor understand Hanna's role in what she is being prosecuted for? He asks himself, and the reader,

"What 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 inquire because to make the horrors an object of inquiry 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 what of Michael and Hanna's illegal (immoral?) relationship itself? Should it be seen as just a device for shock, or should it be seen as a microcosm of the pas de deux of older and younger generations in post-war years? And what of the sex? What purpose does it serve?
Schlink's writing is nothing short of masterful, using both the hardboiled tones of the detective novels he is most famous for, and a more poetic approach more suitable for the material he presents. His chapters open quite bluntly, as mentioned above, often using chiasmi to portray the protagonist's confusion. He pulls off a rare feat of presenting an arresting story and book, even while having not fully characterizing his secondary characters; in fact, we aren't even made aware of their names.
Accused of falsifying history, Nazi apologism, and cultural pornography, Schlink has no doubt given us an important work of incendiary power; the fact that 12 years after its publication it is still on best-seller shelves speak to this. Thanks to the text, as well as Jonothan Littell's controversial The Kindly Ones, now is the perfect time for open discussions on the power and role of literature as it relates to the unspeakable crimes perpetuated through-out the Holocaust. Full of rhetoric, profundity and charged with sometimes unbearable eroticism, The Reader is a story of secrets, desire, horror and compassion. It is philosophically elegant, formally beautifully and technically flawless; a haunting contemporary classic.

Questions for discussion

1. Does the novel's denouement offer any sort of absolution?
2, Would the novel be just as effective without the oft graphic sex scenes?
3. What is the significance of the title in relation to Hanna?
4. In our understanding of the text, how best should the characterization of Michael and Hanna's relationship be perceived?