Book Review — The Reader by Bernhard Schlink
‘The Reader’ by Bernhard Schlink is a thought-provoking piece of literature, dealing with the impacts of WWII on post-war generations.
The story centers around Michael Berg, the protagonist of the novel, who at the age of 15, starts a relationship with an older woman named Hanna. During their time together, Hanna would ask Michael to read stories to her until one day, she suddenly disappears. Years later, Michael happens to see Hanna being put on trial for being one of the SS guards who had served at Auschwitz. Unwilling to provide a sample of her handwriting for the trial, Hana admits to being guilty and is sentenced to life in prison, causing Michael to realize that she is actually illiterate and too embarrassed to admit it. Even with her being imprisoned, Michael still can’t help himself from being drawn to her. 18 years after Hanna was sentenced, the judges decide to release her, but on the scheduled day of her release, she commits suicide. As her last wish, she asks Michael to deliver the remainder of her money to a survivor of a crime she had perpetrated. However, the woman refuses the money, asking him to donate it elsewhere
One central theme that the novel deals with is the guilt Michael deals with. He struggles to come to terms with the fact that the same Hanna he had loved was also responsible for the deaths of so many. At the same time, he can’t seem to pull away from her. Whilst struggling with this, Michael also questions whether or not he owes her anything, since he seems to be the only one who knows that Hanna was sentenced to the wrong crime. Even after Hanna commits suicide, he feels as though he must carry out her last wish, despite her past atrocities. Schlink shows how guilt can destroy a person but is still necessary to move on. Without guilt, we would not be able to learn from the past.
Another theme the book circles around is whether or not someone can atone for their crimes, no matter how evil their crimes were. At the end of the book when Michael tries to give Hanna’s money to a survivor as she had wanted, the survivor says, ‘Using it for something to do with the Holocaust would really seem like an absolution to me, and that is something I neither wish nor care to grant.’ This brings into light the question of whether or not everyone deserves forgiveness. Though we know Hanna supposedly felt guilty for her crimes, it is difficult to say whether she deserved to have been forgiven. To forgive her would mean to allow her to live on with her life while the lives she had destroyed were forever lost.
Furthermore, Schlink displays the impacts secrets can have on lives. Starting with Michael and Hanna’s secret relationship, he starts to become distant from his loved ones. When Hanna disappears, Michael is unable to express his emotions, as he had no one to tell. Additionally and perhaps the biggest representation of the impacts of secrets lies in Hanna’s inability to admit to being illiterate. Due to this, she is sentenced to a longer prison term than she might have deserved, while letting others who were actually responsible for the crime get away with it. Though some might sympathize with Hanna, her selfishness allowed others to not have to bear the responsibility for their crimes.
All in all, Bernhard Schlink is an impressive author who manages to capture the nuisances of how the war impacted Germans long after it had ended. His writing, although short and succinct, manages to ask some of the most provoking questions, of whether or not we should feel guilty for others, and of what it means to forgive.
