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A young man and an older woman have a torrid love affair, until she disappears one day without a trace. Ten years later, he's in law school, watching a trial, and there she is: charged with Nazi war crimes! Yes, she does have a secret, but it's not what you think. Excellent!
Recommended by Dianah, Powell's City of Books

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Average customer rating based on 3 comments:

Zicky, January 2, 2010 (view all comments by Zicky)
I couldn't put this book down! it totally changed my feelings about relationships (and age differences) and the irrationality of people's actions during wartime.

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OneMansView, December 24, 2008 (view all comments by OneMansView)
Absorbing and Cautionary (4.5*s)

Like any fifteen-year-old boy would be, Michael Berg was essentially overwhelmed with the icy good looks of thirty-six-year-old Hanna. Their multi-month affair was intense, awakening, and to some degree exploitative; however, there was a certain reserve and sharpness about Hanna that Michael could never penetrate. Her sudden departure and her memory haunted him for years, but he was completely unprepared for the devastating impact of seeing Hanna as a defendant in a war crimes trial, which he was observing as an assignment for a law school seminar.

The facts that Hanna was a Nazi concentration camp guard and that she was one of several guards charged with overseeing female prisoners who burned to death in a locked cathedral after an allied bombing raid are not in dispute. At this point the questions are many: had he years before not seen or simply ignored a propensity for cruelty, could a person in her position realistically defy orders, what is the complicity and culpability of the entire German society relating to Nazi atrocities, and do laws and legal process actually lead to justice? Beyond these reflections, Michael had to decide whether he should make contact with her and in what way.

Michael finds no easy answers and is quite equivocal in the manner in which he should now relate to Hanna. It is the discovery of a secret, an unusual shortcoming, of Hanna’s that permits him to at least partially understand her past actions and to embark on a course of action that was perhaps all that circumstance allowed.

The book is structured as a book within a book with Michael finally capturing the history and his thoughts of his long association with Hanna. Perhaps the reader will want to question what Hanna or Michael could have done differently, but they, as in life, only get one chance. The book proceeds reasonably well considering the frequent reflection and the author’s tendency for a somewhat difficult writing style. It is definitely an absorbing and cautionary tale

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Markin, December 28, 2007 (view all comments by Markin)
Much enjoyed. The ways it plays with one's moral sense was well crafted.

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Product Details

ISBN:

9780375707971

Author:

Schlink, Bernhard

Publisher:

Vintage Books USA

Translator:

Janeway, Carol Brown

Author:

Janeway, Carol Brown

Author:

Various

Location:

New York :

Subject:

General

Subject:

Literary

Subject:

Fiction

Subject:

World war, 1939-1945

Subject:

Germany

Subject:

Romance

Subject:

Legal

Subject:

War crime trials

Subject:

World War, 19

Subject:

Man-woman relationships

Subject:

Psychological fiction

Subject:

Literature-A to Z

Copyright:

c199

Edition Description:

Trade paper

Series:

Vintage International

Series Volume:

98-499

Publication Date:

19990331

Binding:

TRADE PAPER

Grade Level:

General/trade

Language:

English

Illustrations:

Y

Pages:

224

Dimensions:

8.05x5.27x.59 in. .46 lbs.