The Reader ~ Bernhard Schlink (4 of 26)

There are certain books which have an impact on one, without one being able to put one's finger exactly on the reason why. 'The Reader' by Bernhard Schlink is such a book. The experience of reading this book was like taking a train ride through a pleasant landscape: you mosey along comfortably, enjoying the view and the climate, settled and relaxed. The journey is comfortable enough without being anything out of the ordinary. Then suddenly, the train enters a section of the countryside which is breathtaking in its beauty, and you are jolted out of your somnolence. You sit up and watch, your nose glued to the window, watching with rapt attention. You are unaware of the journey's passing, of temporal time, so engrossed are you in the present experience. The tale of 15-year-old Michael Berg (the first-person narrator) and thirty-something Hanna Schmidt, a tram conductor in post WW-2 Germany is pretty sordid in the beginning; having collapsed from hepatitis in front of her house, he is taken care of and helped home by her. Michael's thank-you visit to Hanna after convalescing, however, becomes a voyeuristic session and it's not long before they are lovers. It is an adolescent's fantasy come true, a bit like Lolita in reverse. The tale takes on a different twist once Michael starts reading to Hanna. Apparently, she can't get enough of his stories. So their sexual escapades are now connected to prolonged reading sessions which each one of them enjoys. But Hanna still remains an enigma to Michael with her erratic behaviour, an enigma which becomes all the more inexplicable when she disappears on the threshold of her promotion as tram driver. The next time he sees her, she is in the dock. Hanna is charged as a Nazi war criminal, a guard of a small concentration camp near Cracow, a satellite camp for Auschwitz. She is accused, along with others, of causing the death of a group of camp inmates by locking them up in a burning church. As a law student, Michael is covering her trial. Hanna's strange, self-destructive behaviour in the courtroom as well as her unusual acts as the camp guard (providing vulnerable young inmates with special status in the camp, to read books to her, until they were sent to Auschwitz to their death) intrigue him. One day, linking it to their sex-cum-reading sessions, he makes a startling discovery about his one-time lover... Later on, Michael is a disillusioned middle-aged man, with a failed marriage and a colourless life. He finds that he cannot exorcise Hanna from his psyche. At the end of his tether, he hits upon a unique solution: Michael finds solace for himself, as well as redemption for Hanna, through his old medium - that of reading. *** Ultimately, what is this book about? Is it about paedophilia, or an adolescent fantasy? Is it about Nazism, and man's cruelty towards man? Is it the tale of a Germany coming to terms with its Nazi past, disguised as a coming-of-age story? I, personally, would like to see it as an allegory on the redemptive power of storytelling. In all cultures, bards enjoyed a special, revered status - in India, it approaches the divine (think of Vyasa and Valmiki). Here, Hanna's sins - both the carnal as well as the homicidal - are linked with getting stories read to her; so, unusually, is her redemption in the last part of the book. Hanna Schmidt is a masterly creation. In the short span of 200+ pages, the author has brought to life an engrossing character who remains a puzzle until the very end. This is one holocaust story which does not take the trodden path.

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Bernhard Schlink’s The Reader is a novel that defies easy categorisation. Though framed initially as a clandestine romance between a teenage boy and an enigmatic older woman, the narrative soon widens into an unflinching examination of guilt, complicity, and the moral inheritance of post‑war Germany. It is a book that leaves an imprint not through dramatic proclamation, but through a quiet, accumulating weight—difficult to pinpoint, yet impossible to ignore.

The story begins with Michael Berg, a 15‑year‑old schoolboy who collapses from hepatitis outside the home of Hanna Schmitz, a woman in her thirties working as a tram conductor. What begins as an act of caretaking soon transforms into an intense, secretive affair. Michael, still forming his identity, is swept into a relationship marked as much by ritual—bathing, lovemaking, and reading aloud—as by emotional ambiguity. Hanna is alternately tender, distant, authoritarian, and evasive. While she takes possession of him with unquestioned authority, she also demands stories: she wants to be read to. This act becomes the axis on which their relationship turns, imbuing their intimacy with a strangely literary texture.

Yet Hanna’s opacity deepens the longer Michael knows her. Just as their connection seems to stabilise, she abruptly disappears. Michael’s attempts to understand her withdrawal fail, and her loss leaves him emotionally disoriented, shaping his relationships and self-perception for years to come.

The novel’s second movement ruptures any illusion of romantic nostalgia. As a law student, Michael attends a trial of former concentration camp guards—and sees Hanna among the accused. She is implicated in the deaths of hundreds of women, locked in a burning church during an evacuation march. Her behaviour in court puzzles Michael: she accepts responsibility too readily, refuses to defend herself, and even volunteers to take the blame for a written report she clearly did not author. Only then does Michael realise the truth—Hanna is illiterate, a hidden shame that governed her life decisions, including her entry into the SS.

This revelation forces Michael into a devastating moral quandary. He alone recognises how her illiteracy influenced both her personal cruelties and her wartime choices. He also knows he could reveal this fact and reduce her sentence. But his uncertainty—about justice, dignity, guilt, and whether he has the right to intervene—paralyses him. Hanna is sentenced to life in prison.

Over the years, Michael attempts to live a normal life, but the psychological imprint of Hanna—and of his young self’s complicity—remains. He becomes emotionally withdrawn, his marriage collapses, and he exists in a state of muted detachment. Finally, he turns again to the medium that once connected them: he records himself reading books and sends the tapes to Hanna in prison. Through these recordings, Hanna learns to read, slowly moving from dependence to self‑determination. Michael’s gesture becomes a symbolic attempt at redemption—for Hanna, perhaps for himself, and perhaps for a generation facing the enormity of its inherited past.

The novel closes on morally complex terrain. Hanna’s literacy and long imprisonment do not erase her crimes, nor do they provide Michael relief from his internal conflict. Instead, Schlink presses the reader to consider not simply who is guilty, but to what degree, and how a society should confront those whose actions are inextricably bound up in historical atrocity, personal weakness, and structural coercion.

Ultimately, The Reader is far more than a story of forbidden love or wartime guilt. It is an allegory of the power of storytelling—its ability to connect, to wound, and to redeem. Hanna’s relationship to stories frames both her sins and the small measure of grace she achieves. Schlink positions reading as an act that can humanise, illuminate, and liberate, even as it uncovers painful truths.

Few literary works capture the psychological landscape of post‑Holocaust Germany as intimately as The Reader. Through its layered narrative, Schlink raises enduring questions: How do we judge those shaped by oppressive systems? How do we love those who have done the unforgivable? And how does a generation come to terms with the shadows cast by its predecessors?

In the end, The Reader resists resolution. Instead, it leaves us with the haunting sense that moral clarity is elusive, that love can coexist with horror, and that stories—read, heard, or remembered—can be both burden and balm.

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✨ Book of the Month: The Reader — Bernhard Schlink ✨

A haunting love story that becomes a moral reckoning.
Michael, 15, falls for the mysterious Hanna — a woman who later stands trial as a former concentration‑camp guard. Their secret past forces him to confront guilt, complicity, and the weight of a nation’s history.

What begins as desire becomes a lifelong question:
How do we love someone capable of the unforgivable?

A powerful tale of shame, silence, and the strange salvation found in storytelling. 

The Striking Feature

The most striking feature of The Reader is how a simple, intimate act — reading aloud — becomes the emotional, moral, and symbolic core of the entire story.

It starts as a ritual of love between Michael and Hanna, becomes the clue to Hanna’s secret (her illiteracy), and ultimately turns into the only bridge connecting them years later when Michael sends her tapes from afar.

Reading is transformed from an erotic ritual → to a revelation → to a form of redemption.

Why the Title Matters

The title The Reader works on multiple levels:

Michael is “the reader” — literally reading to Hanna, but also figuratively trying to read and interpret her morally.

Hanna is also “the reader” — or rather, the one who cannot read. Her illiteracy drives her life choices, her shame, her wartime actions, and her silence in court.

The novel itself forces us to become “readers” — confronting uncomfortable truths about guilt, responsibility, and the legacy of a nation.

In the end, the title reflects the novel’s central idea:

Reading — and the inability to read — shapes identity, morality, power, love, and forgiveness.

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