This is one book that I really enjoyed in a while. The story
is rather simple and to the point.
SHORT SUMMARY
(Spoiler Alert)
It begins with a
young boy of fifteen by the name of Michael Berg who is struggling to pick
himself up after leaving his home due to scarlet fever. He is consequently
aided by Hanna Schmitz and then we see Michael going back to her 3 months later
to thank her for help. What may seem like an innocuous gesture, soon turn into
a lust-filled interactions between the two even though Hanna was 36 years old. They
continue to have an affair over the summer up until a point when Michael knew
he was betraying Hanna in a very unorthodox manner. However their joy-filled
intimacy was only matched with the out of place yet heart-warming act of Michael
reading out aloud to her books and novels that he likes to read or are assigned
for his school work.
Hanna disappears abruptly after witnessing Michael in the
pool with his friends even though he was supposed to be at her place. However the
disappearance could also be traced back to her immediate reaction to a
promotion that she received at work.
Few years passed by and then we see Michael is studying to
become a lawyer and was at a trail for observation, only to find out that Hanna
was one of the several defendants. The defendants were accused of working as
guards for the Nazi Regimes’ SS group and allowed 300 Jewish women to die in a
church that they (the defendants) kept locked during a fire. Hanna’s attitude
to the whole trial may seem hard to grasp but it’s what she eventually does in
order to hide a secret that makes one think how far one can go to keep a secret
hidden.
(Spoiler alert)
She was in fact an illiterate and was going to great depths
in order to keep it buried as a secret. When the trial came to a point that
required Hanna to do a hand-writing test, she willingly accepted defeat and was
sentenced to life in prison whereas rest of the defendants got 4 years and few
months. Michael witnessed all these up front and suffered a lot of dilemma as to
whether he should tell the judge about her short-coming or whether he should
make Hanna realize how much of the big mistake she was making.
As time passed, Michael learned to move on by marrying and
having a daughter. Or at least he imagined that life would go on now that Hanna was out of his life. However
a divorce followed right after the birth of his daughter and his tormenting
feeling towards Hanna kept growing. He found much relief with the act of
recording whatever he enjoyed or thought Hanna would enjoy in cassettes and started to sent her all these recordings in the prison she was at. The most amazing and hopeful part of the book then unfolds with a
small note that Michael received from Hanna. The note seems like it went
through a war but it still showed how far Hanna came to facing her biggest
secret in life. She was no longer an illiterate.
Her plead for clemency was accepted after 18
years and we see that all parties involved are preparing for her eventual entry
to real world. But when Michael lays his eyes on the much older Hanna, sparks
never flew and it felt like Hanna too understood what Michael might have been
feeling at that very precise moment. They have a pleasant conversation and they
bid farewell.
Michael calls the day before her release to confirm
everything only to find out next day that she committed suicide. The warden
shows the will to Michael and explains how Hanna dearly wished for him to write
something, anything.
REVIEW:
This story at first instant may seem like a great tragedy.
Even the protagonist contemplates with the whole notion of what is better?
Being late, too late or never? While I felt helpless when I read about how
Hanna desired for Michael to write back to her during her stay at the prison, at the least she overcame one
of her biggest obstacle in life with high determination. It is better late than
never after all. But then we get the harrowing sensation of how Michael never
did what he should have done on so many instances. Maybe he should have
apologized for the betrayal that he felt he was causing back in the summer when
they had the affair. He never did. Or maybe tell the judge & everyone in
the court about the grave secret that Hanna was hiding and hopefully would have
eliminated all the evidences against her. He never did. Or maybe he should have
taped his own voice something other than reading novels. He never did. Or maybe
he could have written something to her that she so dearly hoped for. But he
never did.
From what I get from this marvellous book is that you should
not just let things pass by in the hopes that it will somehow work out in the
end. Do not let it go by only to regret at a later point in time. Better face
it now and be witness to what could actually have been rather than pondering
over possible outcomes.
I’ll end with a beautiful quote from the book.
“What a sad story, I thought for so long. Not that I now
think it was happy. But I think it is true, and thus the question of whether it
is sad or happy has no meaning whatever.”
At least it was all true to Michael and that is what he
really has that he can hold onto.
Rating: 10/10
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