The Reader, cont'd

In reading this book I found my self alternately compelled and uncompelled by the story. In the end I found it to be a beautiful and tragic story. I really wish I had never seen the movie. I should say more, and did in my journal, but I don't feel like writing much right now.

#96: The Reader

The Reader

by Bernhard Schlink

After reading David Copperfield, which took some time, the pages of The Reader seems half empty. I started it last night and I'm about 100 pages into it. This text makes me appreciate how many words were crammed onto the pages of the former.

I like the book so far, but I wouldn't say its anything spectacular. Sadly I saw the movie sometime last year, so I know what happens. Though the story itself isn't the most compelling as yet, there have been quite a few lines I have really liked.

pg. 16

"-a seductiveness that had nothing to do with breasts and hips and legs, but was an invitation to forget the world in the recesses of the body."

pg. 19

"If looking at someone with desire was as bad as satisfying the desire, if having an active fantasy was as bad as the act you were fantasizing--then why not the satisfaction and the act itself?"

I agree with this insight. I have never understood those who criminalize sex and thoughts of a sexual nature. If thinking about sex and masturbating are a sin, along with having sex, why not just go on and do it?

The narrator expresses a lot of feelings that are very familiar to me. If Hanna does something to upset him, his natural reaction is to confront her. In this confrontation she usually becomes hostile, getting upset at him for being upset. In the end he ends up apologizing to her for upsetting her. I can't count the times I have experience this. I am sure there is some great psycho analysis behind it, but I'm not going to go there.

pg. 49

"In the weeks that followed I didn't fight at all. If she threatened, I instantly and unconditionally surrendered. I tool all the blame. I admitted mistakes I hadn't made, intentions I'd never had."

Those of us who need closure and confront issues rather than ignoring them are powerless in the hands of a person like Hanna. We can't win. Michael is a lot like me in that he can't just accept that something hurt him and push it into the back of his mind. He needs to know why Hanna did what she did, he needs to understand her motives. Hanna is a closed book. By keeping so much hidden and shirking Michael's questions, she leaves him no other choice but to give in to her or walk away.