The reader / Bernhard Schlink ; translated from the German by Carol Brown Janeway
- Bib ID:
- 1897135
- Format:
- Book
- Author:
- Schlink, Bernhard
- Uniform Title:
- Vorleser. English
- Edition:
- 1st American ed.
- Description:
-
- New York : Pantheon Books, c1997
- 218 p. ; 20 cm.
- ISBN:
- 0679442790
- Summary:
-
The Reader is both a literary surprise and a moral challenge: a riveting, provocative, and deeply moving novel about a young boy's erotic awakening in a passionate, clandestine love affair with an older woman, and what happens to them both when the secrets in her past are revealed. Fifteen-year-old Michael Berg becomes ill on the way home from school. A woman takes care of him. Later, the boy arrives at her home with a bunch of flowers to thank her. And then comes back again. Hanna is the first woman he has ever desired. But there is something slightly off-key about her. His questions about her family and her life go unanswered. One day Hanna simply disappears. Michael's life goes on, but he can't forget her.
Years later, as a law student observing a trial in Germany, Michael is shocked to realize that the person in the dock is Hanna. The woman he had loved so passionately is a criminal. Much about her behavior during the trial makes no sense. But then, suddenly and terribly, it does - Hanna is not only obliged to answer for a horrible crime, she is also desperately concealing an even deeper secret. As the past erupts into the present - both Michael's past with Hanna, and the past of Germany itself - Michael must accept that he will never be free of either of them.
- Subject:
- Other authors/contributors:
- Janeway, Carol Brown
- Copyright:
-
In Copyright
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Copyright status was determined using the following information:
- Material type:
- Literary Dramatic Musical
- Published status:
- Published
- Publication date:
- 1997
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