What is Moral Responsibility?

I read The Reader by German author Bernhard Schlink while I was in Mexico during Spring Break. It's not exactly a vacation read, but I enjoyed it all the same. It's a very different sort of book from what I've been reading lately, which have mostly been mysteries and thrillers (love those!). Since Kate Winslet won an Oscar for her role as Hannah Schmitz in the movie version of The Reader, though, I thought that this novel translated from the German was worth a look. It's the story of Michael Berg, a teenage boy in the years following World War II, who begins an affair with an older woman (Hannah Schmitz, the Kate Winslet role). The affair is very erotic and exciting, but soon begins to have a dark side when Hannah avoids questions about her past and shows some troubling sides to her personality. And then, one day, she is gone. Michael does not see her again for years, after he has been married, had a child, and then divorced. The circumstances in which he sees Hannah again force Michael himself as well as the reader to ask certain moral questions about the nature of responsibility, guilt, redemption and forgiveness. These questions are not easy to answer, particularly when dealing with a subject like the Holocaust, which is the time period after which The Reader takes place. I liked this book and felt that it was an important read because it filled a gap in my own consciousness and provided food for my own thought and personal moral development. It's not a technically difficult book to read, as it is fairly slim and straightforward, but the themes are certainly sophisticated and require a patient, thoughtful mind. 3 1/2 out of 4 Bananas.

The Book Thief

It's been a month of Markus Zusak. I finished *The Book Thief* a few weeks ago and am now reading his *I Am the Messenger*. I was startled at the night-and-day differences between the voice of *The Book Thief* vs. *I Am the Messenger*, but I'll save that for the next post. This post will be devoted solely to *The Book Thief*: an honor I think it surely deserves.

I actually didn't like *The Book Thief* very much at first; in fact, not until I was well over halfway through the book did I experience a massive shift from ambivalence to awe. I almost didn't type that last sentence because I don't want to sway potential readers away from giving it a try, but I also want to assure them that, even if it takes a while to get into, it's well worth the effort.

OK, I can't believe I've typed all that and still haven't described the book. Sorry. It takes place in Hitler's Germany, with chapters alternating between first and third person narration. The third person narration tells the story of Liesel Meminger, a little girl who is adopted by a German couple after her mother becomes unable to care for her. The novel's title comes from Liesel's habit of stealing books and the importance that each title has in her life. The first person narration is by Death. You heard me right. Death is the narrator. In the author section at the end of the book, Markus Zusak explains how he originally had given Death a cruel persona, but changed his mind and instead made Death a sympathetic narrator. This device is what made the book so shattering to me. The idea of Death being tormented by all of his "work" during the Holocaust years is really haunting; in fact, at one point Death explains that he is "haunted by humans." Beautifully tragic, no?

The other element of *The Book Thief* that I loved was Zusak's use of figurative language. He combines metaphors and switches up images and descriptions to create new ways of explaining and looking at feelings, events, and objects. He also uses colors to lend additional meaning and feeling to events and people (hello, F. Scott Fitzgerald!).

Anyway, my point to all this is: Read it. Love it? Think it's too contrived? Let me know!

4 out of 4 Bananas

Abraham Lincoln Illinois High School Book Award 2010 Nominee