When I condemned it as it must be condemned, there was no room for understanding… it was impossible to do both.”
“I wanted simultaneously to understand Hanna’s crime and to condemn it… When I tried to understand it, I had the feeling I was failing to condemn it as it must be condemned. The moral burden that Michael faces is heavy, seemingly unresolvable and yet born by the collective psyche: This is not a Holocaust novel, but rather, an incisive depiction of psychological dilemma confronting a new, post-war generation in Germany. Hidden behind the romantic facade is a story that deals with a deeply complex set of moral issues the love affair between a 30 some year-old woman and a 15 year-old boy is only the initial spark. The story wraps up with a heart-wrenching ending. Michael, now a lawyer, is still haunted by his past and the residual emotional ambivalence upon the release of Hanna from prison. The last part of the book is in the present day. Her only statement of defence is wrapped in one sentence: “What would you have done?” She asked the judge. As Michael is awash by torrents of conflicting emotions while watching the trial, he is aghast at a personal secret Hanna refuses to reveal, one which could have saved her from a lengthy prison term.
Hanna turns out to be a guard at a concentration camp during the Holocaust.
The purpose of the reader by bernhard schlink trial#
Every time they meet, Hanna makes sure Michael reads to her literature from Homer to Chekhov.Īfter a while, Hanna disappears, and not until Michael becomes a law student does he see her again, this time in a post-war trial of Nazi criminals. Thus sparks the sexual encounter and later love affair between the two. 15 year-old Michael Berg gets sick on his way home from school and is helped by a woman, Hanna Schmitz. The first part takes place in the 1950’s. Selected as a New York Times Notable Book and a Los Angeles Times Book of the Year, the novel’s 218 pages are packed densely with poignant images and thought-provoking moral questions. Thus the poignant acknowledgement from Kate Winslet as she received her Oscar Best Actress Award. Their untimely death sadly altered the scene somewhat, even though they were still named as producers when the Awards Season arrived. Anthony Minghella (Cold Mountain, 2003) was said to be the original director of the film adaptation, with his friend Sydney Pollack ( Sketches of Frank Gehry, 2005) producing. It was first published in 1995 in Europe and the English translation came out two years later. The Reader is the highly acclaimed novel by German writer Bernhard Schlink.
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