Book Review :: The Reader

Yesterday afternoon I finished The Reader by Bernhard Schlink. After I closed the cover I was at a loss as to what to think about the book. Slowly, over the afternoon, I came appreciate this little book's complexities.

About The Reader:

When he falls ill on his way home from school, fifteen-year-old Michael Berg is rescued by Hanna, a woman twice his age. In time she becomes his lover--then she inexplicably disappears. When Michael next sees her, he is a young law student, and she is on trial for a hideous crime. As he watches her refuse to defend her innocence, Michael gradually realizes that Hanna may be guarding a secret she considers more shameful than murder.

When I think about the experience of reading this book, my strongest impression is that if you are a person who is uncomfortable with ambiguity you may struggle through this novel. If you thrive on certainty – if good and evil are black and white and uncertainty makes you uncomfortable, you may not enjoy The Reader. (I feel like I need to make clear that the moral uncertainties in this book do not have anything to do with the sexual relationship between a teen and a woman the age of his mother. The book very clearly shows the devastation that this relationship brings on the boy over the course of his lifetime.) The ambiguities arise from Hanna's past as an SS guard in a concentration camp and the secret she is willing to keep even though it may cost her life.

The prose is simple and elegant in this novel. The writing is sparse, with short chapters that beg you to keep going. The reading of this book has stayed with me and challenged me to think a little deeper. And, to me, that's what a good book does.