#9: The Reader, Bernhard Schlink

I seriously disliked this book, but I'm not terribly surprised - I avoid Oprah's choices like the plague. But it was our book club selection this month, so I read The Reader anyway. It infuriated me so much that upon completion, I searched the Web for other people's reviews - I just couldn't believe that everyone else loved this book. (It turns out, they didn't - popular reviews on sites like Amazon and Good Reads are mixed.) Oh, and by the way, serious spoilers ahead.

In a nutshell, The Reader is a first-person narrative by a German man named Michael Berg. At age 15, he contracts hepatitis and when he falls ill on the street, he meets an older woman named Hanna. They begin an affair. In between the nookie, Michael reads to her (hence, the title of the book). But Hanna always remains mysterious and refuses to talk about her past. Eventually, Michael grows up and grows out of the affair, and it coincides with Hanna's sudden flight from the town. Less than ten years later, Michael discovers all of Hanna's secrets when, as a law student, he attends the trial of five women accused of being Nazi concentration camp guards. Michael figures out that Hanna can't read and because of it, she's accepted more blame than she's due; although Michael considers telling the judge, he chickens out in the end. Hanna is sentenced to prison for life. I won't ruin the rest of the book; these details are enough to talk about what I want to discuss.

Michael's conclusion at the end of the book is meant to represent the "truth," and that's mostly what I object to...this ridiculous, one-sided, bullshit "truth." I did read a couple of reviews that suggested that perhaps Schlink intends the reader to see Michael's own culpability but after thinking that over, I have to dismiss it. It's always hard to tell where the line between writer and narrator ends, but Michael never has a moment of clarity, not a second of doubt. He's still blaming Hanna on the last pages. And since this is sort of Schlink's fictionalized autobiography, it also makes me think that he's presenting here his own meditation and conclusion on the question of German guilt.

Basically, in trying to figure out how - as part of the first generation of post-war Germans - to see the Holocaust, Michael settles on blame. He blames everyone: the generation before his, his parents, Hanna. And he's ultimately unsatisfied because no one seems as sorry as he thinks they ought to be. He's so self-righteous - and mid-book, clearly enjoys playing the martyr - that he never sees how he's contributed to the situation.

At the trial, when the other defendents realize that Hanna's digging herself into a hole with her honesty, they gang up on her and turn her into the scapegoat. The book implies, I think, that Hanna fell into her role as a guard (because she was running away from a situation where she'd have to admit her illiteracy) whereas these other defendents are actually bad people at heart (because they're still acting rotten, trying to evade responsibility). The big moral question, supposedly, is how we deal with our kind feelings toward Hanna, who admittedly worked as a guard at Auschwitz. But why aren't we ever asked to judge Michael's actions? He vacillates for pages about whether or not to go to the judge with this inside information, and finally does, saying: "I did go to the presiding judge after all. I couldn't make myself visit Hanna. But neither could I endure doing nothing." There's such a self-congratulatory tone to the sentences. The only problem? He doesn't actually tell the judge about Hanna. He goes there, sure, but he does NOTHING, because he's afraid to rock the boat and jeopardize his own situation. And that makes him no different than the millions of Germans during World War II who did nothing in resistance because they were afraid of the potential consequences to themselves. You could say Michael's dilemma is minor in comparison, but he was never presented with the big question in his lifetime - this is his moral test and he fails. Actually, he fails it every time. And in the context of the trial, it actually does have some consequence - Hanna gets a life sentence and the other women, who deserved more, only get a few years. Michael helps them get away with murder, in all senses of the phrase.

Instead, Michael wallows in this pseudo-guilt, agonizing over whether he's a bad person because he loves a bad person. Seriously? It's just so overwrought and melodramatic. Which is sort of amazing in a book that uses almost no description. Rather, The Reader is a book filled with vague, contradictory prose that intends to ask these big questions, but kinda just meanders around them instead. Since I've already written an epic, I'll let someone else's review take over...I laughed out loud when I found it, since clearly she and I folded down the exact same pages with the intent of making the point. So, for more on The Reader's stilted prose, click here: http://www.caribousmom.com/2008/08/16/the-reader-book-review/

Anyway, moving on: I'm about halfway through my second trip through Eat, Pray, Love. I've been reading it with a more critical eye, just to try and see it through the haters' eyes, but what can I say, I still love it.