The Reader
by
Bernhard Schlink
Read April 2007
Copy borrowed from Ramsey County Public Library, Maplewood branch
Essay written June 27th, 2007
I'm a sucker for German books. I wouldn't go so far as to say "German Literature," necessarily. I don't know where you draw the line. This probably wouldn't qualify as literature. But the point is that I find the whole German condition fascinating. I would very much like to travel there someday.
What I find fascinating is that it's this place where this absolutely evil thing happened in the middle of the last century, and then it was over. A wave of insane hatred swept over the whole place and turned perfectly normal, peaceful citizens into absolute monsters. Due to a few exceptionally powerful monsters at the top. A lot obviously has been written and said about the Nazis and Hitler and the Holocaust and all that so I won't rehash it here.
What fascinates me is that WW2 ended and suddenly life was supposed to go back to normal. I think people were in shock at what had happened. And to top it off they were stuck in the middle of the Cold War, what with the Berlin Wall, Checkpoint Charlie, etc. So I like to read German books from this era of history to try to understand what that must have been like. I'm finding that the answer is too complex for anyone to understand, including the Germans themselves. All of the German books I've read have had different takes on it. Which stands to reason, because people are different.
The Reader wasn't particularly enlightening to me in that aspect, even though it tried to be. It got deep when I wasn't prepared for it. But what do you expect, the writer is a judge.
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