Fashion, book, movie and music addicts!

I don't know about you, but I'm always a bit wary about books being turned into movies. Very often, the book is much better than the movie. That said, I can't help myself and I always end up watching these movies, out of an unfettered curiosity to see how the characters of these beloved tales will be fleshed out on screen. There seems to be a good number of these movies these days --Revolutionary Road, Ink Heart and the Reader are just three of the most recent ones. I'm especially looking forward to the last two as I loved the books.

Even before Hollywood's attentions, The Reader by Bernhard Schlink had long gathered much critical acclaim in its native Germany. Thank goodness for translations, as this is a fine book that deserves a very wide audience.

The story begins when 15 year old Michael Berg falls ill with hepatitis and is helped by the then 36 year old Hanna. After his recovery he returns to thank her and they embark on a passionate affair. Later on she disappears mysteriously from his life. He meets her again when he attends the trial of several women, including Hanna for war crimes during WWII.

In framing the story against the WWII and its aftermath, Schlink poses one of the most difficult questions –what would you do if the person you love is guilty of doing horrific things? There are no easy or definite answers to such a question and it is one that Michael grapples with all his life. And in posing this question, Schlink doesn’t limit the question to the crime to which Hanna is accused of and later incarcerated for. He poses this question to the generation that was present during the war. “Our parents had played a variety of roles in the Third Reich. Several among our fathers had been in the war, two or three of them as officers of the Wehrmacht and one as an officer of the Waffren SS. Some of them held positions as in the judiciary or the local government. We all condemned our parents even if the only charge we could bring was that after 1945 they had tolerated the perpetrators in their midst.” And if this is the case, what should the second generation (the children and their children) do with the knowledge of such crime? Do they stop loving the person? Or are they too condemned because they continue to love this same person?

These are not easy questions to answer and Schlink doesn’t provide easy answers neither for his character nor for us readers. What he has done instead, is to write his novel with great sensitivity and insight that allows for much reflection. The objective is not so much to assign guilt or blame to specific people but to make us understand that there are some crimes especially those born out of hatred and prejudice that transcend the specific perpetrators. And while there aren’t any answers, there is room for the possibility of redemption and even love. Still and all, the end of the novel left me feeling uneasy and I lay awake long after, praying that I never have to find myself faced with this question.