When Michael tells her of the books and plays he has to read for school, Hanna asks him for the first time to read to her. She demands he’ll study harder and quizzes him on what he’s learned. But when Hanna learns Michael might not pass the school year due to his illness, she becomes furious. He can’t stay away from her and so their affair starts. In shame he flees, but only to return the next week. Her name is Hanna Schmitz and Michael realises he is attracted to her when he sees her getting dressed. After three boring months of lying in bed, Michael is allowed to go for short walks again and his mother immediately makes him take some flowers to the lady that helped him. An unknown woman then rushes outside to help him, to clean him up and to make sure he gets home safely. But after a few minutes he can’t walk on anymore and vomits on the sidewalk.
In 1958 Michael is fifteen years old and on the day his hepatitis sets in, he is on his way to school. The book consists of three parts, taking place in 1958, 19, and Michael Berg is the narrator and protagonist of all three parts. But the strength of this book is that it’s also about two rather ordinary German people, who provide an example of how the entire nation was affected by the war. It’s about intimate relationships torn apart by the war crimes of the Second World War.
And I can tell you this book will change the way you look at post-war Germany and the people from different generations who had to deal with those changes taking place. So I tried to learn more about Germany, visited it many times and read The Reader in German for the first time when I was fifteen. This generalisation is what causes such deeply ingrained hate in people. But ever since I was around fifteen years old I wanted to get rid of this sentiment, because I had started to understand how dangerous it can be to view any group of people as a whole as ‘something’. When I was young, I was quite distrustful of all things German and I think in some way I adopted this attitude from my family, part of which was Jewish. Sure, there were some twists here and there, but I’m not trying to sell The Reader on those merits alone. If that bothers you, don’t read it, but this really isn’t that kind of mystery novel with a surprising plot. For this reason this review will contain a lot of spoilers. The Reader is one of the books that had a profound impact on me and that’s not because of the plot, but because of the characters and the problems in a society that are brought to light.
0 kommentar(er)
