maiamartin

I wasn't going to like this book; in fact I wasn't even going to read it. A love affair b/t boy of 15 and woman of 30-something? No thanks. I'm thankful, though, that I read some reviews and realized there was more here. And more I found, as on I read. It's a good book. Schlink dives into the "anesthesia" of the age, how, overcome by appaling sights, we tend ironically towards ennui. We get bored with them, like the judges, lawyers, audience at the Nuremburg trials. Schlink nails it here in a very specific context. As I see it, the crux, the rub is in the abstract: the relationship b/t the "kid" (Michael) and Hanna never becomes REAL. Sure it's real in the physical sense, but all that leaves him w/ is guilt--on all its personal and social (post-WWII) levels. Real in the psychological sense, real in the spiritual sense is never achieved in Michael's life b/c, well, I'm not sure. I could say it's b/c he's only looking for, as I see it, answers: how to "deal with" Hanna? How to answer the questions he has? But that assessment might overly simplify a well-written and engaging novel, which this is.

2022-11-14 14:19