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Title: The Reader by Bernhard Schlink, Carol Brown Janeway ISBN: 0-375-70797-2 Publisher: Vintage Books USA Pub. Date: 01 February, 1999 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $11.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.51 (707 reviews)
Rating: 3
Summary: A Little Novel With Big Aspirations
Comment: In the late 1950s, Michael Berg, a fifteen year old German schoolboy, meets and falls in love with an enigmatic working-class woman more than twice his age, thirty-six year old Hanna Schmitz. Thus begins Bernhard Schlink's short, sparely written novel, "The Reader". From there, the plot of this best-selling novel is well known. Berg spends many days with Hanna, reading to her and making love, the mysterious woman becoming the obsession and fulfillment of erotic desire. Then, Hanna suddenly disappears, leaving Berg's life as quickly and mysteriously as she had entered it. Several years later, in the mid-1960s, Berg once again encounters Hanna, this time standing trial for war crimes as a former guard at Auschwitz. His obsession rekindled, Berg's narrative follows Hanna's trial, disclosing her wartime crimes and her "secret", and relating the austere relationship which continued between them during Hanna's years of imprisonment.
"The Reader" is a little novel which has big aspirations, its austere prose and simple plot suggesting to the reader that there is something more, something unsaid, about the engimatic Hanna. Unfortunately, Hanna's ultimate "secret"-her illiteracy-does not bear the weight of Schlink's story, does not adequately explain Hanna's actions. It may become a wonderful television movie, but "The Reader" is not the classic work that, for example, George Steiner's profuse praise suggests. While the first part of the novel, a little erotic fairy tale of the affair between Berg and Hanna, is a concentrated work of spare, lucid prose which "hooks" the reader, the remainder of the book is not nearly so good and never carries the weight of the big questions Schlink wants to raise-questions of guilt and love and the relationship between generations in post-War Germany.
It is certainly worth spending a few short hours with "The Reader", an interesting, if not profound, novel with some very good writing. Just don't expect a modern classic.
Rating: 5
Summary: Brings to the surface interesting issues...
Comment: This book opened up some very interesting questions for me concerning German war guilt, which, as in immediate post-war period of "The Reader," is also very much a part of modern Germany. How does one come to terms with the mistakes of one's forefathers? And how does one begin to speak about the unspeakable? Though it doesn't specifically answer these questions, the book provides an insight into the attitudes of a generation which didn't experience WWII directly, but was nonetheless greatly affected by its legacy. Not surprisingly, this is also Schlink's own generation. Though I read the book in its original German (Der Vorleser), and am consequently unsure as to the effectiveness of the translation, the book was written in a direct style which seemed appropriate to the issues it addressed. I found "The Reader" entertaining, clear, and most of all incredibly interesting in the issues it addresses. Highly recommended.
Rating: 1
Summary: Blechh
Comment: Didn't like this one bit. Slow, dull and predictable, with uninteresting prose and characters. The "surprise twist" toward the end of the book was neither surprising nor much of a twist. Avoid.
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Title: Flights of Love: Stories by Bernhard Schlink, John E. Woods ISBN: 0375725555 Publisher: Vintage Books USA Pub. Date: 12 November, 2002 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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Title: Songs in Ordinary Time by Mary McGarry Morris ISBN: 0140244824 Publisher: Penguin Books Pub. Date: 01 August, 1996 List Price(USD): $13.95 |
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Title: The Rapture of Canaan by Sheri Reynolds ISBN: 0425162443 Publisher: Berkley Publishing Group Pub. Date: 01 April, 1997 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
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Title: A Virtuous Woman by Kaye Gibbons ISBN: 0375703063 Publisher: Vintage Books USA Pub. Date: 01 November, 1997 List Price(USD): $11.00 |
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Title: Where the Heart Is by Billie Letts ISBN: 0446672211 Publisher: Warner Books Pub. Date: 01 June, 1998 List Price(USD): $13.95 |
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