Cover Description: When Fifteen-year-old Michael Berg falls ill on his way home from school, he is rescued by Hanna, a woman twice his age. In time she becomes his lover, enthralling him with her passion, but puzzling him with her odd silences. Then she disappears.
Michael next sees Hanna when she is on trial for a hideous crime, refusing to defend herself. As he watches, he begins to realize that Hanna may be guarding a secret she considers more shameful than murder.
Confession time, I broke the golden rule here - The Reader
is a very famous movie that was nominated for a few awards and received a lot of praise. I watched the movie before I read the book, so a few of the OMG scenes in the book I already knew about. However I will say the movie is very true to the book. Like most movies you lose something in translation (at least that is what I call it) because you cannot get inside an actors head like you can get inside the narrators head in a book. The Reader is haunting, literally. After I watched the movie I had to read the book just to see if the book could possibly disturb me more than the movie, it did. I have read countless books about WWII, specifically from the Jewish perspective regarding the crimes they endured by the hands of the Germans. This is the first novel that was written by a German after the war and tells a story from a German perspective. I do not want to give anything away but it was interesting to read about a young man dealing with the aftermath of what the Germans/Nazis did during the 30's and 40's and the Allies won in 1945.
The main character Micheal Berg is a German boy who was a child during the war, now coming into adulthood and dealing with the fallout and truths of what his countryman (friends, parents, teachers etc) did to the Jewish population. Including his much older lover and what role she played in the Holocaust.
A haunting novel and movie - I recommend both.
No comments:
Post a Comment