While you would think the book would be emotional because of the affair and the subject matter of the Holocaust, it’s actually very level. The question is, once Hanna’s secrets are revealed, is it actually more complicated than that, or was she just a selfish, insecure woman? Because she doesn’t talk about her past, it is easy to assume her motives. However, it does seem that Hanna manipulates Michael to keep him under her power. As Hanna becomes frantic and emotional and Michael tries to calm her, it is sometimes easy to forget that he is the teenager. Being with the older woman gives him confidence, and he becomes more and more popular at school. In the book, Michael actually benefits from his relationship with Hanna as well. Simply from their age difference, it is clear that Hanna is taking advantage of Michael, seeking some sort of comfort she is trying to hide from her past and looking for companionship in a world where she is alone. The relationship between Hanna and Michael is difficult to swallow. How can you reconcile that? Are they to blame? Is everyone to blame? Their parents lived side-by-side with murderers. As these young men and women look at their parents, they see people who, while not complicit in the murdering of millions of innocent Jews, tolerated mass killings. Instead, the book is set in Germany, as the generation after the atrocious acts and horrors of the Holocaust is coming of age. Unlike traditional novels on the theme, however, it doesn’t actually take place during the time period of the Holocaust. More than anything else, The Reader is a Holocaust novel. And there is a reason for that – Hanna is a woman with a secret, a secret that does not become clear until many years later. The more he sees her, the more Michael realizes he knows nothing about Hanna. Eventually, Hanna takes Michael as a lover. When he returns to her apartment to express his gratitude, he is mesmerized by how beautiful she is, in her own way. One day, Michael is taken ill outside Hanna’s apartment and she takes him in, cares for him, then sends him on his way.
The Reader is the story of fifteen-year-old Michael Berg and his relationship with Hanna Schmitz, a forty-year-old woman. Book review: Bernhard Schlink's *The Reader*
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