The Reader by Bernhard Schlink

Published 1995 · 44,969 words · about 5 hours at an average pace · literary fiction, historical fiction, Holocaust literature, German postwar fiction

How hard is The Reader to read?

The Reader scores 69 out of 100 for difficulty on ReadingRate, making it quite demanding. The score is a weighted composite of nine measures: four of how hard the prose is to parse, five of how hard the meaning is to extract.

Vocabulary: 60 out of 100
The Reader employs a sophisticated literary vocabulary, featuring words like 'mesmerizing,' 'plethora,' 'architrave,' 'equanimity,' 'disquisitions,' 'peremptory,' and 'chimera.' While not overly archaic or specialized, the word choice elevates the text beyond common contemporary fiction, demanding a slightly broader lexicon from the reader. This places it above 'The Great Gatsby' but below dense works like 'Gravity's Rainbow' or 'Ulysses.'
Sentence structure: 68 out of 100
The narrative frequently utilizes long, complex sentences with multiple clauses, often employing extensive subordination to explore intricate thoughts and emotional states. For instance, sentences describing Michael's internal monologues or the trial proceedings can span several lines, requiring sustained attention to follow the grammatical structure. This complexity is higher than 'The Great Gatsby' but less extreme than the multi-page sentences found in 'Absalom, Absalom!'.
Abstraction: 70 out of 100
The book moves beyond concrete narrative to deeply explore philosophical and moral dilemmas, particularly concerning guilt, responsibility, and the nature of justice in the aftermath of the Holocaust. Michael's internal debates about Hanna's illiteracy versus her crimes, and his father's philosophical discussions on dignity and freedom, elevate the text to a significant level of abstraction. This is more abstract than 'The Great Gatsby's' social observation, approaching the philosophical depth of 'Brothers Karamazov' without being purely theoretical.
Information density: 65 out of 100
The text packs a considerable number of concepts and emotional nuances into its prose, requiring careful attention to fully grasp the layers of meaning. Chapters often condense significant periods of time and complex psychological developments, such as Michael's evolving feelings towards Hanna or the intricate legal and moral arguments of the trial. This density surpasses that of a typical plot-driven novel, demanding a more deliberate reading pace.
Narrative indirection: 75 out of 100
The novel is narrated by Michael, reflecting on his past, which introduces a layer of subjective interpretation and memory's fallibility, as he explicitly states, 'I also wonder if my memory of happiness is even true.' Hanna's core motivations, particularly her illiteracy and its impact on her actions at the trial, are never directly articulated by her but inferred by Michael and the reader, requiring significant interpretive effort. This places the burden of understanding on the reader to assemble meaning from Michael's observations and internal debates, similar to the inference required in 'Lolita' or 'Pedro Paramo'.
Symbolic density: 70 out of 100
The act of 'reading aloud' is a pervasive and multi-layered symbol, representing intimacy, power dynamics, education, and ultimately, Michael's attempt at atonement and understanding. Michael's recurring 'numbness' serves as a potent symbol for the psychological impact of trauma and the difficulty of confronting the past, explicitly linked to survivor literature. The tea tin, initially a simple object, becomes symbolic of lost innocence and the brutal realities of the camps, making the book more symbolically dense than 'The Great Gatsby' but less so than 'Moby-Dick'.
Ironic distance: 72 out of 100
The older Michael, as narrator, maintains a critical distance from his younger, often naive self, reflecting on his 'arrogant superiority' and 'perpetual overconfidence or insecurity.' This self-critique, along with his questioning of his generation's 'swaggering self-righteousness' regarding the Nazi past, creates a significant gap between the immediate narrative and the author's implied commentary. The judge's 'irritated expression' is explicitly identified as a 'mask,' highlighting the ironic tension between appearance and reality, akin to the complex unreliable charm in 'Lolita'.
Resolution withholding: 70 out of 100
While Hanna's illiteracy is revealed, the ultimate 'why' behind her choices—especially her preference for criminal exposure over illiteracy exposure, and her suicide—remains open to Michael's and the reader's interpretation, as he explicitly states, 'I could not resolve this. I wanted to pose myself both tasks—understanding and condemnation. But it was impossible to do both.' Michael's profound internal struggle with guilt and betrayal is never fully resolved, emphasizing the ongoing, unclosed nature of the book's central moral and psychological dilemmas. This withholding of definitive answers goes beyond a simple open ending, making it more resistant to closure than 'The Great Gatsby'.
Structural complexity: 65 out of 100
The narrative employs a non-linear chronology, with Michael reflecting retrospectively on his youth with Hanna, his university years during the trial, and his later adult life, structured into distinct parts. Frequent flashbacks and flashforwards interweave past events with present reflections, and the narrator explicitly questions his own memories and interpretations, adding a layer of unreliability. While not as fragmented as 'Flights' or 'Infinite Jest', the constant temporal shifts and the narrator's self-aware reflections on memory create a more complex structure than a straightforward chronological epic like 'War and Peace'.

How The Reader is regarded

The Reader holds a literary regard score of 63 out of 100, weighing its place in the canon, its critical reception, its influence on other writers, and the standing of its author. Regard is measured separately from difficulty: a demanding book is not necessarily an admired one.

Prizes

Where The Reader sits in Northrop Frye's Anatomy of Criticism

Placed by a full reading of the text (92 passages), not from reputation. Each verdict quotes the passage that earned it. On the axis from myth to irony, The Reader scores 73 out of 100. A second mythos, romance, pulls at it with a weight of 0.15. About the map of stories.

Mode: Low Mimetic (shading Ironic)
I had loved her. Not only had I loved her, I had chosen her.
Symbol: Formal
Whatever validity the concept of collective guilt may or may not have, morally and legally—for my generation of students it was a lived reality.
Mythos: Irony iv (Tragic Pathos) (irony iv)
A life made up of advances that were actually frantic retreats and victories that were concealed defeats.
Genre: Confession + Novel
Soon after her death, I decided to write the story of me and Hanna.

Where the story of The Reader takes place

  • Provincial West German city (Heidelberg area), 1958 (1958 to 1959), the main setting
  • Camp near Cracow, death march and burning church, 1944-45 (1944 to 1945)
  • War-crimes trial and seminar, West Germany, 1965-66 (1965 to 1966)
  • Hanna's imprisonment, tapes and release, 1966-c.1984 (1966 to 1984)

5 things that are true of The Reader, with the passage for each

  1. The narrator is fifteen when the story begins and is ill with hepatitis.

    WHEN I was fifteen, I got hepatitis.

  2. Hanna's secret, that she cannot read or write, is revealed to the narrator on a hillside path in the woods.

    Hanna could neither read nor write.

  3. Hanna receives a life sentence, while the other defendants get jail terms.

    Hanna was sentenced to life. The others received terms in jail.

  4. Hanna is about to be released after eighteen years in prison.

    She will then be released quite shortly—after eighteen years in prison.

  5. Hanna hangs herself at daybreak, the day the narrator was due to collect her.

    NEXT MORNING, Hanna was dead. She had hanged herself at daybreak.

Scenes in The Reader that Frye would name

34 sightings of Frye's terms in the text. The strongest:

Anagnorisis, untitled
Hanna could neither read nor write. This is the pivotal discovery. It re-reads Hanna's whole past: the note, the promotion, the report, the favourites.
Pathos, untitled
NEXT MORNING, Hanna was dead. She had hanged herself at daybreak. The protagonist's sacrificial death comes on the eve of release.
Sparagmos, untitled
Most of the women did not suffocate, but burned to death in the brilliant roar of the flames. The burning church is the book's scene of mass bodily destruction.
Pharmakos, untitled
She’s the guilty one, she did it all, and she wanted to use the report to cover it up and drag us into it. The other defendants load their guilt onto Hanna.
Confession, untitled
WHY DOES it make me so sad when I think back to that time? The narrator's sustained introspective interrogation of memory and sadness is confessional.
Hamartia, untitled
She had decided against a promotion at Siemens, and fell into a job as a guard. Hanna's shame-driven choice is the fatal misstep behind her crimes.

Books that share these scenes with The Reader

About the author

Bernhard Schlink