Book Review: I Fucked a Nazi, or Bernhard Schlink's "The Reader"

I had never heard of this book until I saw previews for the movie and because it has Kate Winslet in it, I mistakenly assumed the story would be really earth-shattering. Adding to my excitement was the "Oprah's Book Club" banner across the top.





Bear in mind the book is written in German, so perhaps something was lost in translation. But I really doubt it and conclude that Oprah put in on her list because it talks about the Holocaust and therefore, it must be important. Similarly, the story involves a thirty-something woman fucking a fifteen year-old boy, therefore it must be shocking and film-worthy and additionally Kate Winslet will have another chance to show her tits.



Ok, summary:
Michael Berg is a fifteen year old kid in post-war Germnay who barfs on the way home from school. Some lady sees him surrounded in puke and grabs him and cleans him up at her apartment. It turns out he has hepatits and when he's better he goes to thank her, accidentally sees her in her slip, gets embarassed and runs away. He then gets bold and horny and goes back to her building and they start fucking and she makes him read to her. Like all the time. They do it every day and even take a four day vacation and the narrator conveniently doesn't "remember what [he] told [his] parents," which is possible but mostly just seems like lazy writing. Anyways, she (Hanna) disappears one day and Michael doesn't see her again until he's in law school and she's on trial for being an Nazi concentration camp guard. Michael's obsessed with her, realizes she's illiterate and sends her tapes of him reading to her in jail. The day before she is supposed to get out, she kills herself and Michael reflects on what kind of person she really was (strong, determined, victimized, Nazi) and how he never loved anyone after her (because she fucked him when he was 15).

Whew, now, the high and low-lights:

• He feels embarassed and guilty when he is at the town pool with his friends and sees Hanna, but does not acknowledge her, probably because he's embarassed to reveal that he's basically doing his mom.
• Hanna makes Jewish concentration camp girls read to her, and Michael rationalizes that it' to make their last month before getting gassed better. Whatever helps you sleep.
• Only two astute and somewhat meaningful pieces in the book: 1)"Or is there no such thing as 'too late'? Is there only 'late' and is 'late' always better than 'never'? I don't know." Yeah, me neither. 2)Something to the effect of "Why does what was beautiful suddenly shatter in hindsight because it concealed dark truths? Why does the memory of years of happy marriage turn to gall when our partner is revealed to have had another lover all those years?" Well, because your partner lied, broke his vows, and fucked someone else.
  

Fascinatingly enough, I found the image of the cover on a website titled fantasicfiction.com which is ironic because the book was shockingly mediocre.