(Untitled)

[v_cat]

 Anyone here read  Bernhard Schlink's "The Reader" ?
I've been reading a bit about it, and it seems the first book about the Holocaust in many many years that I actually kind of want to read. I'd love to hear opinions before i do. 

Comments

[airolf]

No, haven't read the book but I'm really considering watching the movie. Especially, if Winslet wins an Oscar.

Have you read Middlesex yet? What did you think?

[v_cat]

yeah i finished Middlesex a while ago and have to say that while it was kinda hard to get through it because it is so dense and the writing style is so dizzying in its movement, I really enjoyed it. It was beautiful and honest and I enjoy writers that fuck with my head a bit. Of course now I have to write a paper about the culturally appropriate way to assess Cal's psychological issues (I was reading the book for class. grad school is very weird).

[airolf]

word. there were so many details and it was quite rich storytelling.

Grad school sounds fun - reading Pulitzer Prize-winning novels for class? Kicks ass.

[dragon_momma]

I really didn't enjoy the book. It is the only "Oprah" book that I have ever read. Very little is about the Holocaust expect for the trial. It is all that personal emotional stuff that Oprah loves to wallow in. The focus of the book is the man and the story of an experience of his youth not about the woman and her experience during the war.

Can't explain any further without telling you what the story is all about. Let me know if you want to know more.

[v_cat]

Well i already spoiled the book for myself which for these sorts of books isn't a big deal so you can say anything you like...
What interested me about it was that it seems like it deals with the attitudes of a younger generation of germans on the holocaust. I've heard more than i can stand about the horrors of it for the Jews and Queers, the difficulties of the Russians, the guilt of Americans, and so forth, but i have never heard a German talk about it.

[dragon_momma]

There really isn't much about the young man's attitude towards the Holocaust. Its all about his teen age sexual affair with an older woman. When he is older he learns that she is being tried as a participant in the Holocaust. She is being accused of picking the women who will go to their death. But he knows from his affair with her that she loves literature but can not read and what she was doing was picking women to read to her. He can save her but she doesn't want anyone to know she can't read and would rather be found guilty.

Not an interesting love story, the characters were not compelling, just a lot of the anxieties of a young man in the midst of an forbidden affair.

Definitely wasn't my cup of tea