Reading her blog made me recall my own reading of the book.I am a slow, methodical reader.
[No kidding! We’ve noticed! Your “Currently Reading” book images stay on your bookpuddle sidebar for like…. months at a time! When do you ever change it? Only on years when Halley’s Comet goes by?]
Hey! Be NICE!
But seriously, it's painfully true. I read slow.
For me to sit down and consume an entire novel in "one go" is something that is quite rare, but that is exactly what happened when I read The Reader.
It is a testament to the writer's ability to keep me entranced and involved with the story that once I started, I could not stop.
The Reader is a first person narration of the life, from fifteen years onward, of one Michael Berg, in post-war Germany. As a fifteen year old he meets the vivacious 36-year old Frau Schmitz (Hanna), and he will never be the same.
Everything about her affects him for a lifetime, in ways that he could never have imagined.
In short pithy chapters and an economic style that never bogs down, Schlink separates the major phases of Michael's involvement with Hanna into three Parts.
Part 1 is where we learn of Michael's sexual initiation and subsequent emotional attachment to Hanna. Serious page-flipping stuff!
In Part 2 we are drawn into a courtroom situation (Michael is a law student) in which he is as shocked as the reader (us) to learn of the horrific nature of Hanna's secrets.
Part 3 outlines the way in which Michael attempts to bury the past, as best he can. But it is not possible. It is not possible. Michael's past is exhumed. There were moments in this section that I found gut-wrenchingly sad, yet, presented in a beautiful way. (How does one say it?) It is brutal. Brutal sad and shockingly so.
I will not go into WHY the book is called The Reader.
That would be saying too much, I think.
I enjoyed this book. You will sink into it quickly. But not as though into quicksand.
You will walk away from it, perhaps with a heavy heart (that is one thing I should say. There is nothing humorous about this book)... your heart may be heavy afterwards, but only because it will carry the weight of knowing that there are beautiful things to be felt towards those who have done even the most atrocious things imaginable.
Love is love.
************
Know you're just kidding about the slow-paced reading...but here's my two cents' anyhow: Reading a huge stack of books is not necessarily the ultimate goal of reading.
ReplyDeleteI would rather have read five meaningful books in my life than plow through three hundred that didn't stay.
I have never been a big fan of Evelyn Wood Speedreading classes.
Too much like notches on a gun.
Names in a black book.
Of course, I most likely feel this way because I am not a fast reader either.
Why do we read? C. S. Lewis said, "We read to know we are not alone."
Sometimes a single book can make you feel this way.
Yes, I wish I could read faster because there are universes of books to chomp down on.
But, if I had to choose, I think I would rather be a close reader than a fast one.
I wonder what your readers think about these two choices.
Bacon said, "Read not to contradict and confute; nor to believe and take for granted; nor to find talk and discourse; but to weigh and consider."
It seems to me that - despite what you call a snail's pace at reading - bookpuddle does a great job of weighing and considering. For a book to make a reader contemplate that "there are beautiful things to be felt towards those who have done even the most atrocious things imaginable."
I want that.
I enjoyed The Reader too. Read it with someone - like you - who could help make it memorable for me.
Keep up the great blogwork, cipriano. Funny, insightful, entertaining.
Hey,
ReplyDeleteI'm not cipriano, but I feel your pain!
How about Kurt Vonnegut, Jr? (More satire than "funny-funny" but good reading - satire. Welcome to the Monkey House is a great collection.)
James Thurber? (old style, but funny stuff....brilliant master of style...and an interesting life to boot.)
Dave Barry's essays. Little gulps of hilarity. He makes me laugh out loud...irreverent, absurd. Lots of collections out there of his stuff.
Bookpuddle's funny stuff always makes me think of Barry.
David Sedaris' Me Talk Pretty One Day.
Funny is hard to recommend. You know what I mean....everyone but us has a weird sense of humor.
I have no idea about your reading tastes. Maybe none of these would suit you.
Sorry about your depressing life.
My vote for funny book?
ReplyDeleteMiguel Street by V.S. Naipaul.