“We solved the problem of hiding things, but not how to cope with what we found and how to integrate it into our collective biography. There is the problem of loving and admiring these people yet knowing what they have done. Can one do this?”
–The Reader, Bernhard Schlink
And this is the problem the novel seeks to address. The central story—the story of Michael Berg, the first-person narrator, and a much older woman, Hanna Schmidt—addresses, in microcosm, the mixed feelings of guilt, enlightenment, culpability and self-righteousness of Germany’s second generation following the generation that perpetrated the Holocaust.
Michael meets Hannah when he’s 15 and she is 36. They have a tumultuous affair, and then she disappears. Michael is left feeling guilty, as though he betrayed Hanna, because he had begun pulling away from her. But we’ve also seen from the narrative that in their relationship Hanna was emotionally manipulative and erratic in her behavior . . . not to mention the moral problem of her activity with a young boy.
In Part 2 of the novel, Michael, now a young law student, sees Hanna again. This time she is a defendant in a lawsuit against 5 former SS women guards. As the trial progresses, he realizes that she is illiterate and that her desire to keep her illiteracy a secret is what, in part, guided the series of choices that resulted in her life as an SS officer and, later, the confused woman whom he had known.
He begins reinterpreting their relationship in light of her desire for secrecy. And throughout it all, because of their prior relationship, he finds himself struggling between demonizing Hanna and humanizing her to the point of ignoring her crimes. To love “bad people”—does that make you complicit? (This is the whole question of second generation Germans who had to deal with their parents’ crimes or participation in the Reich—or their apathy.) Or by punishing the parents’ generation is everyone absolved of guilt?
Michael explains, “I wanted simultaneously to understand Hanna’s crime and to condemn it. But it was too terrible for that. When I tried to understand it, I had the feeling I was failing to condemn it as it must be condemned. When I condemned it as it must be condemned, there was no room for understanding.”
The fact that the novel offers a single, sympathetic human face to such a horrible atrocity has also been a subject of criticism. It’s one thing to complicate and maybe sympathize—but to move to pardoning and excusing (or to come close to doing so)?
Frederic Raphael said “no-one could recommend The Reader without having a tin ear for fiction and a blind eye for evil.” And writer and critic Cynthia Ozick claimed that the novel “is the product, conscious or not, of a desire to divert [attention] from the culpability of a normally educated population in a nation famed for Kultur”.
Whatever your verdict might be, it is a thought-provoking and haunting narrative. In addressing the issue of the Holocaust, Schlink also touches upon issues of subjectivity, memory, history, and the ambiguity of language.
Seems to be an interesting take on the issues facing the generation that followed the Nazi’s reign. An ex-SS pedophile doesn’t sound like a character one could easily sympathize with, and I’d be curious to see how the novel addresses her crimes, as well as the fallout experienced by Michael. From what you’ve disclosed of the book’s themes, I can appreciate where the last two quoted critics are coming from. What about you, though? Do you feel the book adequately faces the troubling moral issues it lays before the readers, or do you think more could be done to emphasize the inexcusable nature of her crimes? Or do you believe under certain circumstances Hannah’s actions could be seen as, I dunno, reasonable? Excusable? What do you think?
Comment by Zack — November 2, 2007 @ 4:16 pm |
I wonder which generation has not faced this issues in one way or another. It is easier to criticize when one has not lived the life, not been in the shoes of an individual. I know that I have often been guilty of giving a guilty sentence when I do not know the person’s circumstances or motive and have later softened my stance. Is this not the complicated dilemma of law in society? One can be guilty of a crime yet need grace and understanding?
I teach children who are engulfed by poverty and many times extreme neglect. Their behavior can be less than acceptable at any given moment. The challenge is to love and correct in love in the midst of chaotic behavior which is either a display of what is modeled for them consistently or just a random outburst of pain that is a reaction to the stress they feel. I often fail them yet I see the potential of this precious life and I am furious that I am limited in what I can do, that I do not have the strength or resources to affect the change they need to stop either the poverty or the neglect. There in front of me sits one who may rise above their circumstances or succumb to them, engulfed to the point that they will perpetrate crimes on their own little ones and on society as a whole.
I ramble…you have, however, made me want to read the book.
Comment by Nelda Haney — November 3, 2007 @ 12:11 pm |
What an interesting review! I’ll have to try to get my hands on this one, for the dark days of winter, when reflection on the depth and complexity of the human soul is in order.
Comment by amanda — November 4, 2007 @ 4:11 pm |
Some thoughts in response . . .
Zack, Good question. It’s true that it’s quite a feat that Schlink gets one to sympathize with such a seemingly unsympathetic character.
I don’t know if the book “adequately faces the troubling moral issues it lays before the readers.” And I think this is part of what Schlink is wondering too—how does memory and language, history and retelling do justice to injustice. And can you love a person who does something inexcusable? The book is questioning whether if understanding and facing the crime are mutually exclusive acts.
But, ultimately (and to quit with the academic evasiveness) I don’t think Schlink portrays her actions as “excusable,” and I don’t think the book would work as well if he did. But, nonetheless, as a reader, you sympathize and you understand. And because of that I do understand where Ozick and Raphael are working from. But I think that their critique underlies the quandary that Michael Berg, in the novel, is facing—the uncomfortable tension between condemning and understanding.
And I think there’s a contemporary parallel. It’s a bit reminiscent to me of the “terrorist” acts we see broadcasted across the news. On the level of killing innocent civilians, there is no excuse. No lack of condemnation. However, when looked at in the context of oppression and imperialism, there is a measure of understanding, I think. . . . But then we find ourselves back in the same quandary. . . .
Comment by letterbyletter — November 5, 2007 @ 11:09 am |