The Reader = An Odd Rarity Even for Literary Fiction

Praised by Oprah’s Book Club, Bernhard Schlink’s The Reader is arguably a loveable and unlovable book of literary fiction. The story itself is unbearable, cold, and just like the numbness Bernhard describes the main character feeling about Hanna eventually, there is a detachment about the way he writes. It is like you are supposed to really feel the distance, the long-ago, far-away, historical space between you and the book. There was a whole lot of historical information, vague as they may be in their abstract poetic depictions. Often very philosophical, as the MC’s father was said to be.

The Opening

Unlike most literary fiction I’ve read, here I was welcomed amicably into Bernhard’s tale. The crisp, snippy chapters easily grip you, the perspective honest and real. A young boy, sick in Germany, a strange stranger who is cold but nurturing. A woman much older and very different from even other women her age, almost like a wild animal, yet she is somehow graceful. It appeared to me that Hanna was perhaps simple. Not dumb, but she was just awkward and didn’t care much about the outer world. Only when it came to shame of being unable to… well, I don’t want to ruin it for you.

I Felt Sad for Hanna

As the story unfolds you will realize shame is one of those things…
Those painful though rarely spoken of, it is real. And people do bad things to
escape feeling it. It is almost as heavy as sadness, and I should think as equally
painful, because it attacks the person’s sense of self. It came as a surprise
that Hanna would feel it for something out of her control yet not feel any way
about how people observed her otherwise. She had no qualms about being in vogue
with her time. She carried herself almost like the hunchback and when I thought
of her that’s who I saw.

“Not that she was particularly heavy. It was
more as if she has withdrawn into her own body, and left it to itself and its
own quiet rhythms, unbothered by any input from her mind…”

My Verdict

3.5 stars because I was unsure of how to feel by this novel. It was
great unbiased philosophy if that’s what you are looking for, because Bernhard Schlink
doesn’t impose anything on you. It was freeing but at times I was, in my reader
brain, (no-pun intended) left lost and scattered, clutching for something to hold
on to. Anything.

I loved and yet was repulsed by Hanna, an unsuspecting villain, who is
also a…victim?

In either case this was a nostalgic, painful, and sharp as glass read about star-crossed lovers, life in it’s unapologetic plainness, the Holocaust, and death. Read with lots of tea and sunshine. Though it is written well, good Lord, this one is Holocaust-depressing.

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