Reader

Author: Schlink
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-01-01
Features: The Reader is narrated from the perspective of Michael Berg, who records the personal history of Hanna Schmitz, a female guard in a Nazi concentration camp. At the age of 15, Michael meets 36-year-old Hanna, and they engage in a distorted sexual relationship. Just as their relationship is heating up, Hanna mysteriously disappears, leaving Michael feeling lost. Hanna was an emotionally unstable woman who enjoyed having Michael read literature to her, but otherwise, Michael knew very little about her. It wasn't until Michael entered university and participated in a courtroom internship as a law student that he learned Hanna's true identity during a trial for Nazi concentration camp criminals. If Michael's teenage obsession with Hanna's maternal nature was merely a, then the interrogation of Hanna would shape the rest of his life. The tragedy was revealed unexpectedly. In court, faced with evidence—a crucial report to Nazi superiors—judges demanded that Hanna undergo a handwriting analysis. To avoid revealing her illiteracy, she admitted to writing the report herself, becoming responsible for a Jewish tragedy at the end of World War II and being sentenced to life in prison. Eighteen years later, she was pardoned. Over those 18 years, Michael experienced many changes but continued to follow Hanna in prison, sending her one after another tape recording of his readings of literary classics. Unbeknownst to him, on the day before Hanna's release, she ended her life by hanging herself at dawn.