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3.65 AVERAGE
3.65 AVERAGE
An interesting perspective on post war Germany. Steamy at time with lots of moral questions.
challenging
dark
informative
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
I read this book long, long ago and then it was chosen for my Movie/Book club at the local library. I had not seen the movie because I wasn't thrilled with the book. I realize this is a book review, but I feel it only fair to mention, and compare, the movie as well now that I have seen it. This is one of those rare instances that the movie was better.
The book is written in a very very linear way. For this particular subject, I feel the movie handled scenes better. By the end of the book we know Michael has been emotionally crippled by what takes place between he and Hanna. The movie lets us know that right up front. If it weren't bad enough that an older woman would seduce a 15 year old boy, the opening scene of the movie alerts us to the fact that there is more what the fuckery to come.
The novel touches on parts of our past we want to forget. Parts we think have no excuse and can never, ever be forgiven. Showing us Hanna's "crimes" in the framework of her seduction of a young boy makes them less forgivable to some and more palatable to others. She is a real person. With feelings, wants, hopes and crushed dreams. She is not some faceless name.
Schlink, like so many others who have written about the Holocaust and its aftermath, shows us that the Nazis were a humongous machine with so, so many cogs and screws that were only working with the whole. They were not making decisions or policy, they were "going along". It's wrong, but when Hanna asks "What should I have done? Should I not have signed up for the SS at Siemens?", we see that it's one step after another, many, many steps that lead to atrocity. Which was the first step? In hindsight we may be able to pinpoint that, but as those steps are taken, it's just one more in a long line of steps.
Schlink could have done a better job at pinpointing those steps. In real life we have only hindsight to go by. A novelist has the ability to use time as he will, bend it if need be, to show us what will eventually be most important. I feel he lost that opportunity. Books are not real life and the ability to show us life "better" should be taken advantage of. Schlink did not do that.
I would give the story here five stars, but since I feel we are rating the book and not just the idea behind the book, I can only give the way that story was told three stars.
The book is written in a very very linear way. For this particular subject, I feel the movie handled scenes better. By the end of the book we know Michael has been emotionally crippled by what takes place between he and Hanna. The movie lets us know that right up front. If it weren't bad enough that an older woman would seduce a 15 year old boy, the opening scene of the movie alerts us to the fact that there is more what the fuckery to come.
The novel touches on parts of our past we want to forget. Parts we think have no excuse and can never, ever be forgiven. Showing us Hanna's "crimes" in the framework of her seduction of a young boy makes them less forgivable to some and more palatable to others. She is a real person. With feelings, wants, hopes and crushed dreams. She is not some faceless name.
Schlink, like so many others who have written about the Holocaust and its aftermath, shows us that the Nazis were a humongous machine with so, so many cogs and screws that were only working with the whole. They were not making decisions or policy, they were "going along". It's wrong, but when Hanna asks "What should I have done? Should I not have signed up for the SS at Siemens?", we see that it's one step after another, many, many steps that lead to atrocity. Which was the first step? In hindsight we may be able to pinpoint that, but as those steps are taken, it's just one more in a long line of steps.
Schlink could have done a better job at pinpointing those steps. In real life we have only hindsight to go by. A novelist has the ability to use time as he will, bend it if need be, to show us what will eventually be most important. I feel he lost that opportunity. Books are not real life and the ability to show us life "better" should be taken advantage of. Schlink did not do that.
I would give the story here five stars, but since I feel we are rating the book and not just the idea behind the book, I can only give the way that story was told three stars.
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
This book worked best for me as a sort of "parable", although I'm not certain to what extent the allegory--if any--was intended. Naive 15 year old Michael Berg is sick on the street and a woman cleans him up and guides him home. Later Michael's mother sends him by to thank the woman with a bouquet, and the pair begin a steamy, illicit (and illegal?) affair, part of their ritual being that Michael reads aloud to the woman, Hanna, until she mysteriously disappears. Years later Michael sits in on a trial for war-crimes and recognizes Hanna as one of the defendants. In terms of allegory, Michael seems to represent an idealistic German people besotted with--yet ignorant of--the alluring, dangerous fascist state and must come to terms with this love affair for the rest of his life. Also fascinating is the take on the postwar German generation who must grow up doubting/questioning the authority of their parents, the generation who allowed the holocaust to happen. For all these lofty themes, Michael's story is (mostly) related in simple, pared-down, stark prose that matches the subject matter well. Michael's occasional digressions into philosophy and law slow things down in the middle. Some of it comes off as authorial self-indulgence, perhaps, but also touches on some important and relevant aspects of guilt and laying blame. It can be difficult at times to identify with the perpetually moping Michael and cold Hanna (whose secret is fairly obvious early on). The ending left me rather cold and numb--the author's intent?--but I actually prefer the way the novel has recently transferred to the screen, especially the semblance of closure the film offers versus the open ending here.
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
Un livre magnifique, qui se lit à voix haute pour en admirer la beauté
Meegelezen in het duits voor tentamen dochter en daarna samen de film gekeken. Interessant om met haar te ontdekken dat ze eigenlijk meer walgde van het leeftijdsverschil in de relatie dan van de oorlogsdaden van Hannah.
Muito desconcertante e, de certa maneira, muito fiel à lavagem cerebral da Segunda Guerra Mundial.
A different take on a coming of age story that involves history and heartbreak. Bernhard tells his story with thought-provoking passages, yet simplicity.