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3.65 AVERAGE
3.65 AVERAGE
Before I read this book I had seen some scenes of the movie. The movie didn't impress me at all. The book on the other hand is great. Intriguing characters, interesting plot. Most important to me is that it shows how it was like to live at the time. I read it in German and found it easy to understand it. It is clearly on of the best books in German literature. I won't write about the plot because a lot of users I already done it and can't add anzthing new to it.
I'm not really sure why this book is considered one of the best books of all time and managed to make into the big 1001 list. Most of the time, even if I don't like a book, I tend to understand why someone else picked it. In this case, I'm rather clueless. Is it, perhaps, that people see in it some message about humanity when Hanna won't purchase her freedom with the secret she has kept hidden for years? Is it the vivid sexual tale of a teenage boy with an older woman? Are we supposed to be shocked by it?
The novel starts with a romance when fifteen year old Michael finds himself ill on the way home from school and is taken in by a woman twice his age. They begin an affair which is described by numerous critics as "erotic". This was the first hurdle my enjoyment came up against. When I was fifteen with raging hormones and an extremely good-looking history teacher, I would probably have been able to appreciate the eroticism of such an opportunity - to have an illicit affair with someone much older and experienced. But that's just a bunch of teenage fantasies that would never have become realities. Now, it creeps me out. I couldn't see it as a love story, I saw it as being about an adult who takes advantage of a child (all very ironic when I think about my first interpretation of Lolita, but I guess I grew up somewhat).
It has been suggested that we are expected to draw parallels between Hanna's secret and the behaviour of most German people during the second world war, that is why Schlink deliberately set the novel in this fragile post-war period. But I'm really not a fan of stories that are one big metaphor for something else... or no, maybe it isn't so much that I don't like that, but more that it has to be done in a manner which I find appealing and it has to be obvious. I refuse to believe in metaphors that have been proposed by some random critic and then jumped on by everyone else. I'm trying not to give away Hanna's secret in case there are people who haven't worked it out straight away, but I wasn't buying into this metaphor.
This combined with the author's sparse tone quickly distanced me from the novel. I just prefer interesting and complex characters, an engaging plot, relationships I care about... I prefer all this over metaphor. In the end, metaphor is subjective and if I can't see it myself without someone else suggesting it to me then I believe either the author failed to make their metaphorical point clearly enough or the metaphor itself doesn't exist.
The novel starts with a romance when fifteen year old Michael finds himself ill on the way home from school and is taken in by a woman twice his age. They begin an affair which is described by numerous critics as "erotic". This was the first hurdle my enjoyment came up against. When I was fifteen with raging hormones and an extremely good-looking history teacher, I would probably have been able to appreciate the eroticism of such an opportunity - to have an illicit affair with someone much older and experienced. But that's just a bunch of teenage fantasies that would never have become realities. Now, it creeps me out. I couldn't see it as a love story, I saw it as being about an adult who takes advantage of a child (all very ironic when I think about my first interpretation of Lolita, but I guess I grew up somewhat).
It has been suggested that we are expected to draw parallels between Hanna's secret and the behaviour of most German people during the second world war, that is why Schlink deliberately set the novel in this fragile post-war period. But I'm really not a fan of stories that are one big metaphor for something else... or no, maybe it isn't so much that I don't like that, but more that it has to be done in a manner which I find appealing and it has to be obvious. I refuse to believe in metaphors that have been proposed by some random critic and then jumped on by everyone else. I'm trying not to give away Hanna's secret in case there are people who haven't worked it out straight away, but I wasn't buying into this metaphor.
This combined with the author's sparse tone quickly distanced me from the novel. I just prefer interesting and complex characters, an engaging plot, relationships I care about... I prefer all this over metaphor. In the end, metaphor is subjective and if I can't see it myself without someone else suggesting it to me then I believe either the author failed to make their metaphorical point clearly enough or the metaphor itself doesn't exist.
historical fiction, classic, world war 2, holocaust, romance
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
dark
reflective
sad
medium-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
i HATE an age gap relationship. so i wasn't sure how i would feel about this book, but i did enjoy reading it. i appreciated at the end how the Holocaust survivor daughter pointed out how Hanna ruined Michael by basically taking over his life. I was sad that she killed herself, but honestly it did make sense.
challenging
emotional
fast-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
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
This is one of those books that makes you think and they are certainly not the most comfortable of thoughts. It's quite impressive how many themes this author managed to squeeze in such a short novel. From what I gather, there has been some disagreement about what the actual main theme is supposed to be, with some fans even disagreeing with the author himself.
It is hard to properly review this book without giving much away, all I can say is that it really leans itself to introspection. It is definitely a tale worth reading and a gripping one at that. The only downside I found was that the author sometimes got a little too wrapped up in his own introspections on the page and thus slowed the story down. But that's about all the negative I can say about it. This is the sort of novel that can lead to hours of debate and conversation between the people who read it.
It is hard to properly review this book without giving much away, all I can say is that it really leans itself to introspection. It is definitely a tale worth reading and a gripping one at that. The only downside I found was that the author sometimes got a little too wrapped up in his own introspections on the page and thus slowed the story down. But that's about all the negative I can say about it. This is the sort of novel that can lead to hours of debate and conversation between the people who read it.
Technically, I listened to this book on the flight to Rome. It was really fabulous, and had I actually read this in book format, I probably would have given it 5 stars.
emotional
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes