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3.65 AVERAGE
3.65 AVERAGE
emotional
informative
sad
tense
medium-paced
challenging
dark
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
Beautiful! It's one of those books you read and you are amazed by the simplicity and the strength of the emotions that overwhelm you with every new chapter. It is sad in a way but also very revealing and so very very true. I would recommend it to everyone.
challenging
reflective
sad
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Save yourself the waste of time, read the grade saver review. Big fat DNF.
I felt no connection to the characters, the plot, or the setting. It was tedious, and quite frankly, I'm very confused as to why this book was seen as scandalous???
I felt no connection to the characters, the plot, or the setting. It was tedious, and quite frankly, I'm very confused as to why this book was seen as scandalous???
Where, oh where, were the horny illiterate war criminals when I was a nubile bike-riding bookish lad?
I only intended to skim this, having seen the movie years ago, but I read the whole thing in one sitting. It's written so simply that it feels almost telepathic. There's a different feeling, since the story is told as the recollections of an old man, Michael. The movie removes the narration, so the earlier scenes don't have the pall of the future hanging about them.
Half of it could have been pulled straight from my boyhood fantasies of older women, half is an exploration of the younger generation's struggle with the crimes of the older, and straddling the two is the figure of Hanna, the illiterate woman. She fuses the shame of illiteracy, Michael's shame at having to hide her from others, the guilt of the Nazi era, and the shame of the succeeding generation. She dominates the retrospective of Michael's life, eclipsing his parents, siblings, wife, and child. If she could confront her shame earlier, she could perhaps have lived a better life. Some of their segments together are so sweet - reading to her in bed, going on a bike trip to another town in spring. I could feel perfectly his pride when she first asks if he's in college. Her worst behaviour to him is rooted in her shame and her need to hide her illiteracy. As much as he sometimes couldn't understand her, she too couldn't see how enamoured he was of her - he would've seen the chance to help her read as a gift. Perhaps things wouldn't have lasted, but they needn't have ended so badly. So too with taking on a greater share of guilt than she deserved.
The final few scene presents an odd twist. Travelling to New York to present Hanna's bequest to the survivor of her crime (quite a trek for someone who couldn't even visit her in prison!), he admits to their sexual relationship, prompting the woman to call Hanna brutal, which he shrugs off. Never in the book does Michael give the sense that he sees himself as her victim - at least not in that way. Victimized by her abandonment, yes, by their time together, no. As an adult man I can see two sides of it. On the one hand, in his place, I would've jumped at the chance to do what he did. I don't know if every man has such crushes in his boyhood, but it's fairly common. I can also recognize that any woman who would willingly have sex with a 15 year old boy wouldn't be a good woman. Hanna's poor treatment of Michael is rooted in a kind of immaturity, the inability to face her shame. Yet the pain of her abandonment really has nothing to do with age. It would be as painful if she were 15 rather than twice that.
While the succeeding generation of the perpetrators surely deserves as much of a chance to process the past as the victims and their descendants, The Reader is an odd, erotic-grotesque way to do so. Is it in good taste? Probably not. Did it captivate me for a moment that lasted a couple hours? Yes.
I only intended to skim this, having seen the movie years ago, but I read the whole thing in one sitting. It's written so simply that it feels almost telepathic. There's a different feeling, since the story is told as the recollections of an old man, Michael. The movie removes the narration, so the earlier scenes don't have the pall of the future hanging about them.
Half of it could have been pulled straight from my boyhood fantasies of older women, half is an exploration of the younger generation's struggle with the crimes of the older, and straddling the two is the figure of Hanna, the illiterate woman. She fuses the shame of illiteracy, Michael's shame at having to hide her from others, the guilt of the Nazi era, and the shame of the succeeding generation. She dominates the retrospective of Michael's life, eclipsing his parents, siblings, wife, and child. If she could confront her shame earlier, she could perhaps have lived a better life. Some of their segments together are so sweet - reading to her in bed, going on a bike trip to another town in spring. I could feel perfectly his pride when she first asks if he's in college. Her worst behaviour to him is rooted in her shame and her need to hide her illiteracy. As much as he sometimes couldn't understand her, she too couldn't see how enamoured he was of her - he would've seen the chance to help her read as a gift. Perhaps things wouldn't have lasted, but they needn't have ended so badly. So too with taking on a greater share of guilt than she deserved.
Spoiler
Much is mired in the ambiguity of life. Michael can never know how responsible he is for her suicide, nor her motive for condemning her female readers to death, why her shame was rooted so deeply, how she grew up illiterate, not even if the last time he saw her before her trial was really, truly, her. Did she even really believe he was 17?The final few scene presents an odd twist. Travelling to New York to present Hanna's bequest to the survivor of her crime (quite a trek for someone who couldn't even visit her in prison!), he admits to their sexual relationship, prompting the woman to call Hanna brutal, which he shrugs off. Never in the book does Michael give the sense that he sees himself as her victim - at least not in that way. Victimized by her abandonment, yes, by their time together, no. As an adult man I can see two sides of it. On the one hand, in his place, I would've jumped at the chance to do what he did. I don't know if every man has such crushes in his boyhood, but it's fairly common. I can also recognize that any woman who would willingly have sex with a 15 year old boy wouldn't be a good woman. Hanna's poor treatment of Michael is rooted in a kind of immaturity, the inability to face her shame. Yet the pain of her abandonment really has nothing to do with age. It would be as painful if she were 15 rather than twice that.
While the succeeding generation of the perpetrators surely deserves as much of a chance to process the past as the victims and their descendants, The Reader is an odd, erotic-grotesque way to do so. Is it in good taste? Probably not. Did it captivate me for a moment that lasted a couple hours? Yes.
I am not sure how I feel about this book, it was one that makes you think long after you have finished it. Something in life comes up or happens and it brings this book to mind and you wonder. The story was disturbing a lot of the time and makes you wonder about the damage that is being done to the boy but then you look at the time in which the book is set and think that people were taking what they could to make like at least bearable. A different look at a common occurrence.
I dimly, dimly remember reading this in book group (the same place Jen read it, I'm guessing). Dark and thought provoking.
emotional
reflective
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
reflective
sad
fast-paced