Part 3

                Overall, I did enjoy The Reader. Bernhard Schlink offered a complex and unexpected relationship between two seemingly random strangers. While I still cannot fully understand or accept Michael’s relationship with Hanna, I think I now have a little bit of a better grasp having read the final portion of the story. One thing that I had been confused about since Part 2 was why Michael had never defended Hanna by explaining that she could not read. He always claimed to love her, so I found it a bit odd that he would not help her avoid jail by providing information that would probably help her. However, I think I understand it a bit more clearly now; he was hurt and he didn’t want to get attached to her again. Hanna was the first person that Michael ever claimed to love, so her sudden departure permanently scarred him. I think that Michael did not want to get hurt once again because of Hanna, so he tried to remove himself emotionally from the situation, which could also explain his robot-like behavior in court.

                The debate between whether or not Michael confused sex for love is one that I still cannot decide completely on, but I do believe he cared about her, and I think he always will. Michael may not have truly loved Hanna, but there is a tremendous amount of evidence to show that he cares for her. One of the most notable occurrences is his sending of audio cassettes so that Hanna can hear him reading. Hanna’s illiteracy is clearly one of the things she is most insecure about, so the fact that Michael sent her recordings of him reading to her would surely mean a lot to her. Even though he was so hurt by Hanna’s departure, Michael still cared about her. His constant comparisons of other women to Hanna further prove that he cares too much about her to forget about her completely. On another topic, I did enjoy the comparison of Hanna’s involvement in the Holocaust to her relationship with Michael. I think this was a very unique way of providing some historical presence in an otherwise unique love story. In addition, I believe that this background gives the reader a better perception about the dynamic of Michael and Hanna’s relationship. 

Pt. 3

                I must say I thoroughly enjoyed this novel, and I must admit that although I felt more pressured by the sudden short amount of time we were given to read the novel, it allowed me to read it at a more leisurely pace without much pause in between, which I believe ruins the flow of thought and the overall experience of reading a novel, especially one with this much weight.

                The novel was touching, and once you got used to the stark awkwardness of the sexual relations between Hanna and the young Michael, the story really begins to unfold. I fell in love with the overall theme of reading, and how it played different roles in the story. When Michael read to Hanna, he was building a frail yet true relationship with her, developing himself as a person, and helping her learn how to read, better herself, and overcome some of her shame, despite her eventual suicide. The Reader is an unconventional love story, using an idea much like the one found in Lolita, but unlike it, the novel leaves us knowing that the love and effort put into such love was not entirely wrong, and not entirely in vain.

                There were many negative outcomes of Michael’s involvement with Hannah; Michael came of age much too soon, much to quickly, with a woman much older than he was, and as a result of it, he becomes intertwined in her life and questionable past.  His premature sexual awakening acted as a shackle at first, but once he seemed to break free, he still bore the marks left from the chains, which carried on through his future relationships.

                The complexity of both Hanna and Michael’s characters are what make the novel so successful. It is a very raw, real novel, because all of its contents could very well have happened, and the examples of cause-and-effect portrayed in the novel are also very real as well. But I cannot say I disapprove of the relationship Michael had with Hanna, and this is also due to their complex characters. It is very easy to say that the relationship was taboo, disgusting, and harbored more negative outcomes than positive, but the more I read into it, the more I cannot help that emotions are, more often than not, too strong to be controlled or held down by common sense. Love and lust are powerful feelings, especially when felt for the first time, and in the end of it all, Michael, though crushed, though still following after the ghost of what once was his relationship with Hanna, still felt a sliver of mutual love, and I believe that was enough to make it valid.

Part 3 Post

         After finishing the book, I have a slightly different opinion towards Michael’s actions after and during Hanna’s trials. It seems that he exposed himself and others to such horrible images not just so that he may feel some sort of relief from what he thought was his families wrongdoing, but it also acted as a way for him to shut down his emotional responses and stop feeling the pain that Hanna had brought to his life. This can be seen in how he basically does not have any emotion toward Hanna during the time he decides to get her out of prison, he acts almost mechanically and does not try to get too attached. Also, he does not allow himself to become emotionally attached to anyone else after his relationship with Hanna as if he is afraid that the same sort of one sided emotional attachment will happen and he does not want to relive the pain he felt when Hanna disappeared. There is also another interesting thought going through my mind as I was finishing this book, and that was to think of this from Hanna’s perspective and just how much pain he may have caused her when she was in prison. This might have also had quite an effect on Michael as he was probably aware that he was being distant with her, but he was so emotionally numb at that point that it did not affect him very much. The whole parallel between the holocaust and the relationship between Michael and Hanna is kind of interesting in how it affected the development of the characters and the way in which they basically switch positions in terms of emotional harm and emotional openness. At first, Michael is the one who is very emotional about the relationship and feels the most about it whereas Hanna is very void of emotion, as is attributed to her relationship with Michael and how she acted in the concentration camps. But, in the end of the story, Michael has developed a very unemotional mask under which he hides from the pain of their relationship while Hanna has begun to look forward to finally meeting Michael again and is basically crushed when she realizes he no longer holds the same emotional bond that he once did with her.

The End

Part three of this novel seems rather ironic throughout. In fact, a lot of irony is portrayed throughout Michael's connection with Gertrund, his correspondence with Hanna, and her eventual suicide. I found it ironic that he chooses to settle down with a wife and a child, but can't seem to actually be emotionally involved in it. I also found it ironic how, while he hated Hanna for her actions, he still wrote and spoke to her regularly as if to want to keep in touch as lovers. I found it ironic how she eventually committed suicide on the day of her release. And finally, I found it ironic how his readings were mainly about the holocaust, and his sending of the tapes made it seem like he's trying to badger her, to make her feel guilty, and to prove to himself that he's better than her.

Overall, I found the book weird. I didn't enjoy it to be honest, but it wasn't a bad read. There were some really racy and extreme topics that were touched on and criticized, but all just topics nonetheless. These types of books are interesting to read for the interactions the main character has with others and the conflict he has over himself.

Part 3 (Carlye Nealon)

            I found this book really interesting.  It was interesting how much Michael and Hanna’s relationship affected Michael throughout his whole life.  He compared everyone to Hanna, which caused his marriage to fail.  He could never stay with one woman because he never felt the same as he did with Hanna when he was fifteen.  On page 173, Michael states, “I wanted to be free of Hanna,” (page 173).  I feel like everything Michael did reminded him of Hanna.  He would never be free of her his whole entire life.

            I enjoyed how Michael would send Hanna cassettes of him reading to her in jail.  This shows how much Michael truly does care about Hanna.  He wanted her to have someone to read to her since he is one of the only people who knew the truth that she could not read.  I was so excited when Michael got the first letter from Hanna because it showed that she is learning to read and write.  This made me happy because it showed that Hanna was not living these years in jail for nothing.  She was putting work into them and not giving up and this lead to her being able to read and write.

            It made me glad that Michael didn’t forget about Hanna in jail and kept reading to her because Michael was the only person Hanna had.  She never had friends and only had Michael because of the way she manipulated him when he was younger.  He couldn’t stay away from her and loved her when he was 15.  I didn’t know what to expect with the prison warden asked Michael to come and help Hanna when she gets out of jail.  They hadn’t seen each other in so long and Michael is now grown up and Hanna was now an old woman.  Their first encounter was awkward because they hadn’t seen each other in so long.
             It was sad to hear that Hanna had died.  I was interested in seeing how Michael and her were going to interact outside in the real world.  I felt bad for Michael because he always blames stuff on himself and obviously blamed this on himself.  I enjoyed this book a lot and it was interesting to see Michael’s development throughout it. 

Part 3

I have to say I felt really bad for Michael in Part 3. Especially when he got married, had kids, and got divorced. The divorce was not only hard for him, but also for his daughter... which I find so sad. I feel like Hanna marked him so deeply that he will never be able to feel towards a woman again. Although he did care about Gertrude, he was never able to be in love with her, which I find sad because it is all Hanna's fault. I was happy about the fact that Michael could find joy in reading once again and started writing, but I still felt sad for him when he realized the only reason why he read aloud was because in his head he was reading to Hanna and he sent her his material. I think when they start sending letters/tapes to each other it kind of gives Michael an inner peace because in some way he has a connection to her, even if not face to face, and she thanked him for it and continued it on so it was an ongoing thing. I found it sad that when he goes to see Hanna when she is released from prison, and she loses her excitement of seeing him because he is not a child anymore... That is what disgusts me about her. What she did to him as a child! I was shocked at Hanna's suicide... But overall I am glad they reconnected and although the ending was sad, at the same time it was good for them to reconnect. Regardless, I always hated Hanna's character because she disgusted me, but the novel was very interesting.

Part 3 Reaction

      As I mentioned in my previous post for Part 2 of the novel, I believe that the author’s approach is one that serves a number of purposes. Firstly, The Reader offers a clear, historical recount of some of the events of the Holocaust. Meanwhile, Schlink also manages to avoid an emphasis on only history by supplying his audience with a love story between a woman in jail and a man who believed he fell in love with her when he was only a teenager. I think that the multifaceted nature of the literary work is key in maintaining the audience’s attention because many readers (including myself) cannot read an entire novel about just history. In regards to the specifics in Part 3, I believe that Hanna’s suicide at the moment of her release is one symbolic of her guilt. After being convicted along with a number of others for causing the deaths of hundreds of Jewish women, the character realizes that she can still try to make up for what happened in her past. In addition, her recently learned ability to read while in prison allows her to learn the truth about the tragedies that resulted from the Holocaust and the fact that the constant murders did not serve a purpose. As we move along, we find that Michael has almost gotten over Hanna in the sense that he is not as obsessive as he used to be in the beginning of the novel. Rather than responding to Hanna’s first letters when she learns how to write, Michael just acts confused and does not really know how to handle the situation. When he finally finds that Hanna has been released, his emotions cannot really be described as full of excitement. Instead, his actions are more indicative of fear of what is to come and how he will grant Hanna’s request to give the money to the lone survivor. Overall, the novel was undoubtedly a great read and I am happy that we were able to read it this year. I also feel as if it will be of great help to have read this book for the AP exam.