This novel first appeared on my radar when my friend Allen sent me an email saying he couldn't put it down. Relegated to the bottom of my behemoth inbox, I found it again after the holidays only to discover that this was indeed the same book that was recently produced for a motion picture audience, and staring Kate Winslet (Insert obsessive comment).
Typically I loathe the book to movie translation which tends to lose the detail that accompanies a richly drawn linguistic image. A few exceptions are the Harry Potter books (which perhaps actually might be better than the books minus the whole act of reading part) and Bridget Jones' Diary. But I found myself wanting to both see and read the interpretations of The Reader.
Schlink's plot is decidedly simple; the telling of the story is from the point of view of a German lawyer, who does not absolve the Germans of their holocaust but rather acknowledges it pointedly as if he too tries to understand the purpose of the actions. The language, which often determines the quality of a book, at least for me, hovers above the page touching down lightly with profundity now and then. It is a short book and although I raced through it during my evening metro rides, I couldn't help but feel it moved at a solid pace.
If I have issues with the book they are in the narration--both past and present at once. The loss of the years when Hannah is, we'll say "unavailable, are also a loss for the reader as her uncertainty, her quick anger are fascinating to unravel. If its goal is to have one of those "you'll wish you could read about this but I'm only going to let you infer" moments, it didn't work. I wanted to understand more about Hannah or the narrator. I wanted to have some part of their interaction embrace continuity beyond the initial rush. But the reasons for the narrator and Hannah's first encounter aren't ones which can be explained, it just happened. The war...just happened. Aging...just happened.
It will not be a stretch to bring Kate Winslet to this role...she IS Hannah. The narrator, however, will prove a more difficult feat for Ralph Finnes--the narrator is almost empty in his recollection and offers for explanation--he serves nearly as a bucket and less as a substantial well.
The ending has a slight twist, but it's quiet and necessary.
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All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence you know.
All my life I've looked at words as though I were seeing them for the first time
1 comment:
Harry Potter movies better than the books??? No way! Some of the movies I don't even like, and so much foreshadowing is lost because they can't fit it into the movies (and they didn't know the details would be important later when they made the books).
For me, the only time the movie(s) were better than the book(s) was Lord of the Rings. I thought the books were rather boring, and the way it was divided between 2 plots, by the time one plot became interested (after 200 pages of reading about green fields), they'd switch to the other storyline. I loved how they lined up the two plots in the movies.
Thought I'd share my opinion! :)
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