The Reader (1998) (edit title/settings)

Ridiculously Simplified Synopsis edit see section history

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Summary edit see section history

Characters edit see section history

• Hanna Schmitz: An older woman who has a relationship with Michael.
• Michael Berg: the narrator and protagonist
• Mr. Berg: Michael's father who is a professor of philosophy and an author
• Mrs. Berg: Michael's mother who only figures briefly in the novel.
• The Reader: A young man coming of age in post-WWII Germany comes to grips with the legacy of a woman twice his age who had been his lover.
• Gertrud: Michael's wife
• Julia: Michael's daughter

Quotes edit see section history

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• “I...I mean...what would you have done.”

  Hanna

• “Why? Why does what was beautiful suddenly shatter in hindsight because it concealed dark truths? Why does the memory of years of happy marriage turn to gall when our partner is revealed to have had a lover all those years? Because such a situation makes it impossible to be happy? But we were happy! Sometimes the memory of happiness cannot stay true because it ended unhappily. Because happiness is only real if it lasts forever? Because things always end painfully if they contained pain, conscious or unconscious, all along? But what is unconscious, unrecognized pain?”

  Narrator

• “But I think that it is true and thus the question of whether or not it is sad or happy has no meaning whatsoever.”

  Michael

• “"With the letter in my pocket, I drove to the cemetery,to Hanna's grave. It was the first and only time i stood there."”

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• There’s no need to talk, because the truth of what one says lies in what one does.

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• The tectonic layers of our lives rest so tightly one on top of the other that we always come up against earlier events in later ones, not as matter that has been fully formed and pushed aside, but absolutely present and alive.

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• “But with adults I see absolutely no justification for setting other people’s views of what is good for them above their own ideas of what is good for themselves.”

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• But behavior does not merely enact whatever has already been thought through and decided. It has its own sources, and is my behavior, quite independently, just as my thoughts are my thoughts, and my decisions my decisions.

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• But love of our parents is the only love for which we are not responsible.

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• I thought that if the right time gets missed, if one has refused or been refused something for too long, it’s too late, even if it is finally tackled with energy and received with joy. Or is there no such thing as “too late”? Is there only “late,” and is “late” always better than “never”? I don’t know.

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• Why? Why does what was beautiful suddenly shatter in hindsight because it concealed dark truths? Why does the memory of years of happy marriage turn to gall when our partner is revealed to have had a lover all those years? Because such a situation makes it impossible to be happy? But we were happy! Sometimes the memory of happiness cannot stay true because it ended unhappily. Because happiness is only real if it lasts forever? Because things always end painfully if they contained pain, conscious or unconscious, all along? But what is unconscious, unrecognized pain?

  Highlighted by 85 Kindle customers

• Is this what sadness is all about? Is it what comes over us when beautiful memories shatter in hindsight because the remembered happiness fed not just on actual circumstances but on a promise that was not kept?

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• They’re a matter of such indifference to him that he can kill them as easily as not.”

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• chimera, I began playing with a different image of the course of legal history. In this one it still has a purpose, but the goal it finally attains, after countless disruptions, confusions, and delusions, is the beginning, its own original starting point, which once reached must be set off from again.

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Setting & Locations edit see section history

• Auschwitz
• New York

First Sentence edit see section history

Themes & Symbolism edit see section history

• literacy: Describe this theme.

Series & Lists edit see section history

Preceded by Jewel, and followed by The Pilot's Wife.

Preceded by The Rings of Saturn, and followed by A Fine Balance.

Authors & Contributors edit see section history

1. Bernhard Schlink (Author)

Other Contributors:

1. Carol Janeway (Translator) - English
2. Campbell Scott (Narrator)
3. Susan Baumgartner (Translator)
4. Andreja Blažič Klemenc (Translator)
5. Fátima Freire De Andrade (Translator)

First Edition edit see section history

Awards edit see section history

• International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award (Finalist, 1999, Shortlist)
• Exclusive Books Boeke Prize (1999)

Classification edit see section history

• Library of Congress: Add the Library of Congress Classification.
• Dewey: 833.914

Notes for Parents edit see section history

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Subjects edit see section history

• Books › Literature & Fiction › Literary
• Books › Literature & Fiction › Contemporary
• Books › Romance › Historical

Movie Connections edit see section history

• The Reader (IMDb)

More Books Like This edit see section history