reaction part 3

Part three was the climatic end to The Reader.  Hanna and Michael finally reconnect after all these years, and Hanna learns to read (congratulations).  I was kind of confused about Hanna, I never really felt like I understood Hanna.  She is always bouncing around from being the best thing that happened to Michael, to the worst thing that tore apart all his other relationships and tormented him throughout his life.  I was ok with her suicide.  No sense in keeping someone around who clearly doesn’t want to be alive anymore.  She left her money to a Jewish charity, and made peace with herself.  In her old age, I doubt there would be anything significant she could accomplish anyway.  It’s not like suffering around for the last few years would have changed a bunch of people lives and made the world a better place.  She couldn’t be with Michael, because he was no longer attracted to her physically, and she didn’t have the strength to make a difference in the Jewish community.  I feel that her choice was understandable and tolerable.  This was probably better for Michael as well, because now he is released from her grip, and can focus more on raising his daughter and being a part of her life instead of Hanna’s.  With Hanna’s death comes the ability for Michael to move on and focus more on others, rather than always thinking of her and worrying about trying to reconnect in some way.        

reaction part 2

             In part two, we learn more about Hanna, and why she acts funny around books, and especially notes.  We learn that Hanna is an illiterate Nazi, and she chose her job because she didn’t want to reveal the fact that she was illiterate.  To me, this seems more a move of cowardice than anything else.  Rather than face her worst nightmare, which is easily fixed by learning how to read, she chooses to join up with the worst group of people ever.  She seems, from eyewitness accounts, to have a fascination and sort of love for the sick/weak children in the camp who are soon to be killed.  I attribute this to the reason she took interest in Michael.  She has some sort of love for those who are lesser in some way, and found Michael at a time when he was very weak.  From the story it was very hard to tell whether she was truly preying on the children, or attempting to comfort them before their eventual death.  I think this part was left blurry for a reason.  The eyewitnesses seem to think she was evil, and preyed on the weak for personal enjoyment, while Michael has a totally different view of Hanna within his memories, but memories tend to be much more positive and happy than reality, (positivity effect).  His clear mixed emotions about Hanna’s sentence lead me to believe that his experience with Hanna was both uplifting and traumatizing.  I think his happy memories are covering the truth of what happened between the two of them.  I feel that his guilt for loving Hanna is more about her past, which was unknown to him at the time.  If he knew that she was a Nazi guard that let a bunch of women and children burn to death in a church, he would have thought twice before going back to her house the second time.     

Part 1 Reaction

            The relationship between Hanna and Michael is strange, not only because of the huge age difference, but also due to the bi-polar tendencies that Hanna has.  I think this relationship was spawned more from her manipulation over him, when he was in a weaker and lonelier state than ever.  His sickness caused him to be isolated from his friends, family, and left him to his own devices in a bed for months.  This lack of interaction caused him to be a little more careless when it comes to relationships.  He was desperate to connect with someone, and she was more than willing to be that person and fill the void in his heart.  She is a strange person, and I don’t trust her one bit.  When he leaves a note for her one afternoon, upon his return she smacks him in the face with a belt, drawing blood.  I don’t know about you, but that is totally crazy and more than 100% percent unwarranted.  Michael’s psychological dependence on her draws him back to her, no matter how horribly she treats him.  His love for her seems to become more of a physical need that he has to cope with.  I think his life would have been, more normal if he had never met Hanna in the first place.  Then there are times when she is very kind and provides Michael with a sense of new found confidence, which never hurts in life.  She leaves Michael torn between his love for her kind side, but worry that he was manipulated into loving her.  He is left feeling guilty for loving her, and I think that is exactly why she is not the nicest person and is kind of a creepy weirdo.       

Ciara's Third Reaction

Though I had seen the movie a few years back, reading the book truly was a different experience, and one I enjoyed thoroughly.  I knew the storyline of the plot, but the third person experience that people are forced to experience while watching a movie often prevents them from really feeling and understanding the characters on a personal level.  The access that Schlink gifts the reader into the nuances of the dynamic characters led to my appreciation for the work of beauty that is The Reader.  Unlike most, I was not as surprised to find out that Hanna committed suicide.  We knew from the beginning of the novel that Hanna was a woman of pride; if she believed that an act of her or even Michael could tarnish her pride, she negated it immediately. Not only was she racked with guilt over her involvement with the death of the people within the church; she knew that when she got out, she would have to depend on Michael to aid her transition into the real world.  In the early days of their relationship, Hanna always wanted to be in control.  When she couldn’t, she would throw a tantrum until Michael apologized, which she always knew he would.  When she left him, it would be easy to assume that she did it so that Michael would be able to have a normal youth, but I also believe it was because she saw herself getting too attached to Michael.  For her to depend on him to survive would have taken a huge toll on her pride.  I also believe that she truly did not believe that she was worth the effort based on her actions and morals, and that her existence would have been a waste of space and an inconvenience; an unwanted burden.  She had nothing and no one to live for, so based on her character, her choice did not come as a surprise to me. I appreciated the ending; I believe the character traits attributed to each character stayed true from start to finish.

Kaylee's Reaction to Part 3

            After finishing part three of The Reader, I can say that it is my favorite book we read this year. Bernhard Schlink creates a beautiful yet disturbing story of an unexpected relationship, while simultaneously providing a boarder image of post war Germany. Michael and Hanna are both complex characters that affect each other immensely throughout the book. Although completely strange, I liked reading of Michael experience of his first romance and his transition into manhood. It tragic that a person’s first love may haunt them for the rest of there life, however it is something that is apart of life I guess. Seeing Gertrud in constant comparison with Hanna made me sad. Michael’s self-proclaimed numbness was just a way to block Hanna’s memories out of his mind, but in the end they could never escape him. Another thing that was Michael was unable to escape was the guilt he felt for being in love with Hanna, the criminal. Almost mid-way through part three, Michael finds reconnection with Hanna through literature and a tape recorder. I think that this was a way for Michael to find peace with Hanna, while revisiting his youth. One thing I found weird, that was later asked by the warden, was why Michael had never written any letters to her. However, it’s really isn’t weird at all because their relationship was based on pure physicality. Through all his memories of Hanna, they are of her body, her smell, her feeling and her actions around him. Their relationship did not hold any bond mentally. And that’s why she did not leave him anything behind either (not even a thank you for spending hundreds of hours reading to her while she was locked up, b*tch). I liked how the book ended because Michael and Hanna were not meant to end up together. They had their time, things changed, and although Michael was ultimately hopeful, Hanna’s death freed him from further expectation and suffering.  

Alex's Reaction to Part 3

     On several occasions throughout part 3 Michael admits to himself that he although he is not responsible for loving his parents, who seemed to have played a role with the Nazi’s, he is in fact responsible for loving Hanna- a direct criminal branching from the Nazi regime. The guilt he feels stems from the idea that he had become ignorant, blinded by love, and therefore had become a criminal himself. Guilt quickly turns into regret when Michael almost wishes he had lived with his generation instead of advancing to Hanna’s. Throughout part 3 we learn that Michael was married, had a child and divorced. He initially kept Hanna a secret to the women he met. It is almost as if he wanted to keep Hanna a secret from himself, denying that the relationship ever happened. He found that later on when he became more open about his past to women, he was unsuccessful, and stopped. 

     Michael is caught between forgetting and wanting to return to his past with Hanna. Although he seeks to avoid the thought of her, when it is awakened, he simply cannot escape it. Michael starts seeking other ways to escape by running away from the responsibility of accepting life. He feels “branded” by his past and feels unable to arrive somewhere in life because Hanna predominated even when she was “out of his life”. 

     Literature, again, connects the two as Michael starts sending Hanna tapes of himself reading. Four years later he hears back from Hanna, who still refers to him as “kid”, even though he is clearly not anymore. We learn that Hanna has had no other contact with the outside world besides Michael for 18 years, therefore Michael is responsible for situating her back into society. He, however, puts off the confrontation with Hanna until the week she is released. It is almost as if he wants her to remain unattainable, but what else could be holding him back? 

     Hanna is no longer the mirage in the desert that he had been thinking about for over 18 years. She had aged and lost her “smell”. The 18 spent in jail held her back mentally while Michael was moving forward in life, however the memory of Hanna always found ways of holding him back. 

The mentioning of Hanna’s suicide is shockingly direct. As the book comes to a close Michael mentions that he is still haunted by the guilt he feels from denial and betrayal, but enraged by her suicide, which he feels she did to spite him. 

I loved The Reader. This is definitely my favorite book I have read this year. 

Sharon's 3rd Post

All in all, I enjoyed reading “The Reader” immensely. In Part I, I was not too sure what direction the book was headed, but the introduction of topics such as post-Holocaust feelings, ethical dilemmas and Hanna’s illiteracy made for an extremely compelling read. That being said, I did not expect Hanna’s suicide in Part III at all; it had seemed to me that she was finally beginning to embrace her secret by attempting to learn to read, and thus had no reason for wanting to end her life. I understand how the guilt must have overwhelmed her; it is one thing to send off people to their deaths, but another to hear about the experience from their own perspectives. Yet it puzzles me why she did it right after being released after waiting for so long in prison. In fact, the warden mentioned Hanna, at one point, suddenly completely disregarded her appearances and interactions with other women, yet it was not to be seen as giving up, but rather redefining herself -I began to think she had persevered through the knowledge with the toughness she’d always displayed. This detail also struck me as touching upon the idea of change; for years, it seemed that Michael had lived in the past because everything he did went back to his relationship with Hanna. He even notes how her voice is still young despite her physical appearance. For this reason, I think Part III was the one I found to be most interesting –besides elaborating upon the surprising intensity of the novel’s title, it also created a sort of balance at the end, or an “at peace” moment. 

Isa's Part 3 Reaction

I found The Reader very moving and incredibly intense for such a simple book. The character's and the complex emotions that drove them stayed with me. I found the third part of the novel to be emotionally hard to swallow. I'm not sure if it was the author's intention, but I sympathized with Hanna. Even knowing the horrible acts she had committed, I felt bad with her and in her interactions with Michael. I found myself wishing that Michael would have written her personally when he sent her the tapes. Michael suffered as well if not more. He was irrevocably damaged by this woman, and his interactions with other women are non-entities to him. Though Hanna's suicide affected me, I wasn't entirely surprised. She had such a strong nature and I think her realization of what she had truly done was too much for her to handle. To live with that guilt, I feel,  was almost an insult to herself and the lofty dignity she held herself too. And through her interaction with Michael, hopefully she realized the pain she had caused him as well.
Michael's meeting with the survivor's daughter was surprisingly poignant. It was ironic how two people, however differently, were both so damaged by Hanna's actions. They both shared in common the sense that this woman had changed their lives forever.

Keri's Part Three Reaction

 The novel "The Reader", by Bernhard Schlink, is basically a detailed account of the sex lives of two star crossed lovers. Society frowns upon their being together because of the age difference of twenty one years. This should be frowned upon. A fifteen year old teenaged boy does not have the life experience nor the emotional faculties to handle a thirty six year old woman. This is shown in this novel. They have several misunderstandings. Honestly, their relationship creeps me out and scares me at the same time. When he goes so far into detail, I almost want to stop reading entirely. Some of the things they do are not even characteristic of what people the same age would do in one of those relationships. For example, when Michael returns to Hanna to make up for staring at her while she undressed, she basically molests him.The only difference between this and molestation is that he consents to it. This does not make it any less weird. This story completely changes around in Part Two. It becomes less about the relationship and more about the Holocaust, the Nazis, and those affected by it. Since I am Jewish, this part obviously affected me. It helped me truly see the amount of ignorance in the guards and officials. I felt uncomfortable whilst reading it. I would imagine that others feel the same way. 
When Michael went on the trial just to be a part of it and ignored Hanna, I could tell that he was yearning for her even though he avidly claimed otherwise. She was probably afraid to appear with him in an intimate way in front of the general public again.  Both people were subconsciously aware of what was going on at the time. 
One last thing that I'd like to bring up is the fact that Hanna yearned for a fifteen year old and is illiterate. I think her illiteracy shows that she lacks certain skills that would come with not having that part of the brain working well. I believe that this is the sort of problem that would lead to this type of relationship. It makes no sense to me. It does not match up in my head why Hanna could do this to a young person. It takes away innocence and ultimately has altered Michael's life. It is just convoluted and weird. When he sees her in trial, the emotions come flooding back because of this. When he saw Hanna's tomb stone at the end, it was emotional. This last part had a lot to do with law history.

Overall, I have certainly never read a novel like this one in that it addresses a topic that is not really given the light of day in reality. 

Natalies Reaction

I really enjoyed reading The Reader. I think that it explored two very interesting concepts: that of a first love, and the general feelings of the post-war youth in Germany. Clearly Hanna leaves a huge impact on Michael, and although I think she was trying to avoid it I believe that Michael also impacted Hanna’s life. In the second and third part I feel like Michael is constantly trying to prove to himself that he no longer had these same feelings for Hanna, but because she was his first love I do not think that he could have easily lost them and I think they are something that would always clearly be there for him. It’s weird to see how she changes to him. I when he visits her in the prison for the first time, she looks completely different. Even though he clearly is aware that time passes and people age I feel like he still thought that she would remain youthful, but clearly this is not the case as he describes her as “smelling like old woman”. I think that he also changes in her eyes because he is no longer this young boy but he is now a grown man. I think that they were both clinging onto this past and how they both were in the past but that they have grown up and changed. Clearly he still cares about her, or he would have not been sending her those audio recordings of him reading books nor would he have written this book. Despite this and despite what they had before I think they both realized that they were different people back then and are now different people. I think Hanna’s suicide seemed fitting since she realized that things wouldn’t be the same with him but also once she had learnt to read she read books written by the holocaust survivors and I think it all hit her.

Raoul Khouri Reader Part Three

So I just finished part three of the reader and all I have to say is wow. I did not expect Hanna to kill her self. It was a huge shocker, especially because I was hoping for a fake happy ending where her and Michael grow old together. Anyway, I don't really find a point in her suicide. To kill herself is the easy way out, if she was truly searching for absolution from her crimes then I believe she should have lived and lived to repent. This means give money to foundations (like the one in the end of the story). But on another note, I found it cute that Hanna learned how to read and write while in jail and while listening to Michaels tapes. I was recently thinking how life would be like if I was illiterate. I figured that I could not do half of the things I do on a daily basis. I couldn't use the internet (not that she had that at that time but "IM JUST SAYING :P"), I couldn't play video games, I could not read instructions, I couldn't read directions, I could not even read the label on my food. Any way, It would be awful to be illiterate.

Maya's Part 3 Post

      Overall, I liked the book. I thought it had an interesting and unique plot that was different from the rest of the books we have read. I kind of did not expect for Hanna to take her own life. I feel like it was strange that she spent all this time imprisoned and when she was finally given a chance to see the outside, she took the chance away from herself. I don’t know why, but I suspected her to make a bigger comeback in Michael’s life. 

      Now having read part three, I think that the numbness that Michael describes experiencing in part two was never really there. If he was truly as numb as he described himself as being, he would not have gone through the trouble of finding Hanna an apartment, much less continue sending her recordings of himself reading books aloud, an activity that was very intimate and important for them while they were together. I think that had she not committed suicide, Michael would have probably tried to start something with Hanna again. Maybe it would not have been romantic, being that Michael is sort of deterred by her “old” appearance, but some sort of relationship nonetheless. 

       When I think about it, I don’t find this story to be any worse than anything else we’ve read in class. It’s strange that it had to be asked whether people were comfortable reading this or not because you could have asked that very same question before reading any of the books we read. We weren’t asked, “Are you ok with reading about a rape scene?” before The Kite Runner; we weren’t asked, “Are you ok with being told that within you have horrible, evil thoughts that are so disturbing you don’t even admit them to yourself?” before Notes from the Underground. 

Part 3 Alexa Ferrer

This book has impacted me more intensely than any of the books we’ve read all year. Although it was a simple and easy read, something about it really got to me. There is something very hopeless, yet inevitable, about this story that I think happens to the majority of people. While there might by the exception, people who aren’t as emotionally moved by a first love, I think that it is something most people fall victim to. In Michael’s case, due to his personal and historical circumstances, it might have occurred more intensely than how it happens to the rest of us, but the feelings are the same I think. It is scary to think that something that happens so young in our life can impact the rest of our lives to the point that we will never be able to escape it. I’m sure it isn’t as common for people to be as affected by their first love as Michael was, but I think it is still very real and relatable.

            The part that got to me (meaning the moment I started crying) is when he went to visit her at prison for the first time and noticed she smelled like an old woman. Michael spent every year of his life since she left him imagining her and daydreaming about her endlessly. I think he had this idea in this head that if they would cross paths again everything would be better because she is the one. She was the only woman that felt right and was right for him, despite the abusive side of the relationship. I wouldn’t even call it abusive anymore now that I know more about Hanna and what she suffered and went through. I think the saddest part about it all is just when you think there is hope for a happy ending, they both realize it’s not the same. Once there are high hopes in place for something and it leads to a hopeless disappointment, I don’t think there is anything worse than that.  

Part 3 Ryan C

I think Part 3 of The Reader reveals the extent of the emotional damage done on Michael by Hanna, most clearly seen in Michael’s failed marriage with Gertrud. Michael was not able to connect with a person despite being married and having a child; he was too emotionally numb to have a successful relationship, because of his experience with Hanna. I also think that Michael blames Hanna for his condition since he is content with the fact that Hanna is sentenced to life in prison, because he thinks he will never have to deal with her again. Hanna’s lasting impression is also seen when Michael begins to read aloud, at first he thinks to himself, but he realizes it reminds him of reading aloud to Hanna to which he decides to record his reading and send them to Hanna. I think Michal agrees to re-socialize Hanna not because he feels bad about her situation but because part of him wants relive the past and the relationship they had, which is why he is rather disappointed when after her time in prison, Hanna appears aged and not how Michael remembered her when she was in her 30s. Despite being emotionally numb, I think Michael has matured as a person, mostly because he absolves his parents of any wrongdoings he put on them. I think it’s interesting that Michael does not want to be a lawyer, after finishing law school, but deices to be a clerk, to which Gertrud points out is just Michael escaping any type of responsibility. Even though Michael agrees with Gertrud, it also begs the question as to why Michael decides to help Hanna after prison, which entails a great deal of responsibility. All in all, I though The Reader was a good book and I am glad we read it.

Ryan Pearson Part Three

            Part Three of Bernhard Schlink’s The Reader was arguably better than Part Two. I still feel indifferent about the entire book, but this final Part brought closure to Michael Berg, and even the reader. I continued to have an issue feeling an ounce of sympathy for Hanna, given her dirty background. My problem with the story lies in the fact that Michael Berg returned to once again love her, even after understanding her criminal past. While I can’t seem to understand why he refuses to let her go, even recording countless hours of audio books, after witnessing her trial, where she confessed to awful crimes against humanity, I think that his entire heartache can be attributed to the trauma he received as a result of being in such an intimate relationship at such a young age, especially since she took his virginity.

            I actually aligned myself with the way the survivor of the fire responded to Hanna’s will. I do not think that she, nor any other Nazi, deserves a sliver of redemption for the atrocities they committed behind those fences. I was content seeing that the money that was left behind was donated to a Jewish charity. That was the only appropriate way to deal with it. That being said, I imagine that Michael Berg felt snubbed that after waiting 18 years of reading to her in prison, she killed herself on the last day without a formal goodbye. What a heartless, cowardly way to handle her past. That’s just it though, all she ever was, was a coward. She brought Jewish prisoners to read to her before sending them to their death for the obvious reasons, yet also so that het secret would not be revealed. She was cowardly even when she “said goodbye” to Michael Berg the first time, on the pool deck.

            The Reader proved to be a powerful story, yet one without a clear theme. Even at the end of the book, I am merely indifferent about it.

           

Ryan Pearson