(Bernhard Schlink)
Bernhard Schlink was born in Bielefeld (Germany) in 1944. You judge. For his way of writing, it shows. As can be read
on the back,
The reader is a very winning novel. Has been awarded in Italy, France and Germany. Pity that literary prizes are not guarantees of unquestionable quality.
With a first-person narrator tells the story in the past, the novel is short, about two hundred pages. It is divided into three parts that follow a chronological order. The chapters dealing with just a couple of pages, making it very comfortable to read.
Schlink's writing is correct, just that. Right to an expert, I mean. It is very expressive, uncommunicative, cold. Looking back I can not remember a single metaphor, which gives little idea of \u200b\u200bfeeling it conveys.
In the first part, I find nothing remarkable. No way to tell, neither the language, as I say, not history itself, show something new or original in form or in the background. Schlink misses an opportunity to prepare the ground to soften the reader, to make you feel the feelings of the protagonist, a teenager. If adolescents feel ... Being a teenager is exude sensitivity, sentimentality, fear, tears, love, desire, sadness, happiness, laziness, nervousness, curiosity, daring, naivete, ignorance, sexuality ... And to say if over sex with a woman Thirty-something.
The author observes only tell the story from the viewpoint of a narrator Once adult. And the result is more like a report than a novel.
In the second part, the novel shows a slight inflection point, which starts an upward trend if only for the short turn which gives the story. Moreover, Schlink, is still as stingy as the first part, to the point where the protagonist keeps relationships, even with its university partners. So the protagonist's psychological profile is shown only through reflections and not through their relationship with others. Only focuses the attention of history towards the two protagonists.
To make matters worse, the plot twists are a couple of rights, which the author does not want, or show unable to hide until required. Become visible long before they uncover in the narrative.
Between the second and the third appears most interesting part of the book. Using the main character, Schlink, a brief reflection on the ongoing review that makes the German people of its immediate past. Reflection necessary for a country that is representative of the economic and social progress achieved since the Second World War.
In the third part only greed should be noted again this sentimental writer. At one point in the novel, the protagonist cries.
While director spoke, I was kneeling looking at the pictures and notes and stifling tears. When I turned around and sat on the bed, he said,
"I was so eager that you write ... just received correspondence from you, and when handing out the mail asked:" Is there no letter for me? "(... )
I went back to silence. Could not talk, just babble and mourn. Schlink can not show tears, unable to convey the emotion of the moment. As a writer has to tell us what the narrator, the protagonist himself, the novel and mild tears. All very cool.