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3.65 AVERAGE
3.65 AVERAGE
emotional
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Post war Germany, when he falls ill on his way home from school, fifteen-year-old Michael Berg is rescued by Hanna, a woman twice his age. In time she becomes his lover-then she inexplicably disappears. When Michael next sees her, he is a young law student, and she is on trial for a hideous crime. As he watches her refuse to defend her innocence, Michael gradually realizes that Hanna may be guarding a secret she considers more shameful than murder.
Post war Germany, when he falls ill on his way home from school, fifteen-year-old Michael Berg is rescued by Hanna, a woman twice his age. In time she becomes his lover-then she inexplicably disappears. When Michael next sees her, he is a young law student, and she is on trial for a hideous crime. As he watches her refuse to defend her innocence, Michael gradually realizes that Hanna may be guarding a secret she considers more shameful than murder.
emotional
tense
medium-paced
emotional
informative
reflective
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
N/A
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
Had to read it in school in 12th grade. Unfortunately somebody spoiled most of the story for me before I even got started reading. I would've liked to figure things out for myself and see how good I'd have been at guessing.
This book deals with Nazi Germany in a subliminal way which is okay (usually this topic annoys me) and focuses more on the characters, not that much on history.
It's a very unique but also disturbing story worth checking out.
This book deals with Nazi Germany in a subliminal way which is okay (usually this topic annoys me) and focuses more on the characters, not that much on history.
It's a very unique but also disturbing story worth checking out.
hopeful
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
Plot:⭐⭐
Characters:⭐⭐
World building:⭐⭐
Writing style:⭐⭐⭐
Der große Altersunterschied der Protagonisten und die Anklage als KZ-Wärterin sind die Punkte die als problematisch aufgeführt werden in diesem Buch. Was ich eher problematisch finde, ist dass der Protagonist trotz der früheren toxischen Beziehung zu Hanna (gibt ihm die Schuld für Dinge für die er nichts kann, schlägt ihn einmal etc.) immerzu an sie denkt und ihr bis zum Schluss hinterherläuft.
Characters:⭐⭐
World building:⭐⭐
Writing style:⭐⭐⭐
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Antisemitism
Moderate: Sexual content
informative
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Didn't like the writing style initially- the translation was perhaps what made it seem stilted. But once the plot and ideas came forth, the issues with the writing faded away. This is a story about a young boy's affair with a much older woman- Hanna. One day, Hanna leaves him and he finds her much later in court, where she is standing trial for being a Nazi guard. At its core, this is a story of guilt in and about the Third Reich, and how Germans struggled to understand or deal with the horrific realities of that time. This is a book about how the narrator is affected by Hanna's betrayal, his own betrayal of her; how he wishes to understand her circumstances and yet does not wish the intensity of his condemnation to diminish due to this attempt to understand. And woven into this tale is another thread of how something can seem insignificant to one person, yet be more precious than freedom itself to another.
I connected with the narrator's descriptions of the numbness he felt in his own life once Hanna left, how life happened around him yet he barely had any memories of those times. How when he sees her in court, he feels as if he was standing outside himself and watching, inwardly feeling nothing. I also loved the description of this numbness and indifference that he sees in the trial participants, as well as his imagination of how his parents' generation including Hanna may have played their roles in the Third Reich. It is this that made it a 4 plus star book for me.
The complexity of what it means to be human, even when one's actions may be evidently wrong. The banality of evil. It is deeply uncomfortable to engage with the idea that one may do wrong but may not be irredeemably wrong just because of it. A very relevant concept in the context of criminal laws and justice, which places all responsibility at the doorstep of supposedly 'evil' individuals like Hanna, and through extreme punishments, pretends to solve problems that don't exclusively lie in the individual domain.
Some of my favourite quotes below:
Why? Why does what was beautiful suddenly shatter in hindsight because it concealed dark truths? Why does the memory of years of happy marriage turn to gall when our partner is revealed to have had a lover all those years? Because such a situation makes it impossible to be happy? But we were happy! Sometimes the memory of happiness cannot stay true because it ended unhappily. Because happiness is only real if it lasts forever?
Is that what makes me sad? The eagerness and belief that filled me then and exacted a pledge from life that life could never fulfill? Sometimes I see the same eagerness and belief in the faces of children and teenagers and the sight brings back the same sadness I feel in remembering myself. Is this what sadness is all about? Is it what comes over us when beautiful memories shatter in hindsight because the remembered happiness fed not just on actual circumstances but on a promise that was not kept.
It wasn’t that I forgot Hanna. But at a certain point the memory of her stopped accompanying me wherever I went. She stayed behind, the way a city stays behind as a train pulls out of the station.
All survivor literature talks about this numbness, in which life’s functions are reduced to a minimum, behavior becomes completely selfish and indifferent to others, and gassing and burning are everyday occurrences. In the rare accounts by perpetrators, too, the gas chambers and ovens become ordinary scenery, the perpetrators reduced to their few functions and exhibiting a mental paralysis and indifference, a dullness that makes them seem drugged or drunk.
You’re right, there was no war, and no reason for hatred. But 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?” He laughed sarcastically. “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.
I wanted simultaneously to understand Hanna’s crime and to condemn it. But it was too terrible for that. When I tried to understand it, I had the feeling I was failing to condemn it as it must be condemned. When I condemned it as it must be condemned, there was no room for understanding. But even as I wanted to understand Hanna, failing to understand her meant betraying her all over again. I could not resolve this. I wanted to pose myself both tasks—understanding and condemnation. But it was impossible to do both.
Parental expectations, from which every generation must free itself, were nullified by the fact that these parents had failed to measure up during the Third Reich, or after it ended. How could those who had committed Nazi crimes or watched them happen or looked away while they were happening or tolerated the criminals among them after 1945 or even accepted them—how could they have anything to say to their children?
...Until finally the rage faded and the questions ceased to matter. Whatever I had done or not done, whatever she had done or not to me—it was the path my life had taken.
What a sad story, I thought for so long. Not that I now think it was happy. But I think it is true, and thus the question of whether it is sad or happy has no meaning whatever.
I connected with the narrator's descriptions of the numbness he felt in his own life once Hanna left, how life happened around him yet he barely had any memories of those times. How when he sees her in court, he feels as if he was standing outside himself and watching, inwardly feeling nothing. I also loved the description of this numbness and indifference that he sees in the trial participants, as well as his imagination of how his parents' generation including Hanna may have played their roles in the Third Reich. It is this that made it a 4 plus star book for me.
The complexity of what it means to be human, even when one's actions may be evidently wrong. The banality of evil. It is deeply uncomfortable to engage with the idea that one may do wrong but may not be irredeemably wrong just because of it. A very relevant concept in the context of criminal laws and justice, which places all responsibility at the doorstep of supposedly 'evil' individuals like Hanna, and through extreme punishments, pretends to solve problems that don't exclusively lie in the individual domain.
Some of my favourite quotes below:
Why? Why does what was beautiful suddenly shatter in hindsight because it concealed dark truths? Why does the memory of years of happy marriage turn to gall when our partner is revealed to have had a lover all those years? Because such a situation makes it impossible to be happy? But we were happy! Sometimes the memory of happiness cannot stay true because it ended unhappily. Because happiness is only real if it lasts forever?
Is that what makes me sad? The eagerness and belief that filled me then and exacted a pledge from life that life could never fulfill? Sometimes I see the same eagerness and belief in the faces of children and teenagers and the sight brings back the same sadness I feel in remembering myself. Is this what sadness is all about? Is it what comes over us when beautiful memories shatter in hindsight because the remembered happiness fed not just on actual circumstances but on a promise that was not kept.
It wasn’t that I forgot Hanna. But at a certain point the memory of her stopped accompanying me wherever I went. She stayed behind, the way a city stays behind as a train pulls out of the station.
All survivor literature talks about this numbness, in which life’s functions are reduced to a minimum, behavior becomes completely selfish and indifferent to others, and gassing and burning are everyday occurrences. In the rare accounts by perpetrators, too, the gas chambers and ovens become ordinary scenery, the perpetrators reduced to their few functions and exhibiting a mental paralysis and indifference, a dullness that makes them seem drugged or drunk.
You’re right, there was no war, and no reason for hatred. But 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?” He laughed sarcastically. “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.
I wanted simultaneously to understand Hanna’s crime and to condemn it. But it was too terrible for that. When I tried to understand it, I had the feeling I was failing to condemn it as it must be condemned. When I condemned it as it must be condemned, there was no room for understanding. But even as I wanted to understand Hanna, failing to understand her meant betraying her all over again. I could not resolve this. I wanted to pose myself both tasks—understanding and condemnation. But it was impossible to do both.
Parental expectations, from which every generation must free itself, were nullified by the fact that these parents had failed to measure up during the Third Reich, or after it ended. How could those who had committed Nazi crimes or watched them happen or looked away while they were happening or tolerated the criminals among them after 1945 or even accepted them—how could they have anything to say to their children?
...Until finally the rage faded and the questions ceased to matter. Whatever I had done or not done, whatever she had done or not to me—it was the path my life had taken.
What a sad story, I thought for so long. Not that I now think it was happy. But I think it is true, and thus the question of whether it is sad or happy has no meaning whatever.
challenging
emotional
reflective
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
A brilliant portrayal of how one life can unravel because of potential embarassment