2. The Reader—Der Vorleser Publication & Translation
Review:
What can be gained or lost as a novel— or other artistic work—is translated?
Across time periods?
Across languages?
Across cultures?
What other divides have implications that should be explored as a translated text is created?

3. With Translated Texts, Consider…
How important but difficult is it to translate word and sentence choices with all their associations, implications, and connotations into a different language.
What aspects of meaning can be lost?
What is supposed to be funny in the text? Is it funny to all readers?
Audit how your cultural lenses might impede your understanding of the text.
What are the implications of translating stylistic features such as imagery, rhythm, sound, or figurative expression?
How important is the fact that texts create meaning within a social or cultural context? Does understanding of a cultural, as well as a linguistic, frame of reference affect the way a work is read and how easy is this to translate?
In which ways does the author of the original text remain the author of the translated work? Does the translator become the author through the linguistic choices they make?

4. Der Vorleser (1995) The Reader (1997)
A novel by German law professor and judge Bernhard Schlink, published in Germany in 1995 and in the United States in 1997

5. The Reader—Der Vorleser Publication & Translation
The Reader sold 500,000 copies quickly in Germany.
Ranks 14th in a list of the 100 favorite books of German readers, the second-highest ranking for any contemporary German novel on the list
Translated into over 25 languages
The New York Times, Richard Bernstein called it “arresting, philosophically elegant, (and) morally complex.”

6. Vergangenheitsbewältigung the struggle to come to terms with the past
Genres
Vergangenheitsbewältigung the struggle to come to terms with the past
Bildungsroman
Bildung = education
Roman = novel
Bildungsroman = coming of age novel, literally “novel of education”
A parable is a didactic story in prose or verse.
A parable is different from a fable because it uses human characters rather than animals.

7. “Rhabarberbarbara” video
German is known for its extra-long compound words.
When Mark Twain complained that some German words were "so long they have a perspective," he was thinking of words like Freundschaftsbezeigungen (demonstrations of friendship) and Generalstaatsverordnetenversammlungen (general states representatives meetings).
Long German words were in the news in 2013 when many sources reported that Germany had "lost its longest word" because the European Union removed a law from its books called (*ahem*): Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsauf­gabenübertragungsgesetz (the law for the delegation of monitoring beef labeling).
But Germany had not in fact lost its longest word, because the process for forming these words is an active, productive part of the language, and the potential exists for creating words even longer, if so needed, in the moment.
Here’s an example of how that process works…

8.
Rhabarberbarbara

9. Eszett
The letter ß (also known as sharp S, German: eszett or scharfes S) is a letter in the German alphabet.
It is the only German letter that is not part of the basic Latin alphabet.
The letter is pronounced [s] (like the "s" in "see").
The ß character is not used in any other languages.

10. Part II: Six Years Later Part III: Eighteen Years Later
Tripartite Structure
Part I: 1958
Michael Berg is 15
Auschwitz liberated
Part II: Six Years Later
Part III: Eighteen Years Later

11. Point of View
Part I: 1958
Michael Berg is 15
To what extent does Schlink give us a reliable or unreliable narrator in the novel’s exposition?

12. Historical Context--Acronyms
West Germany
GDR: German Democratic Republic
DDR: Deutsche Demokratische Republik
NAZI = abbreviation for “Nationalsozialismus”
German for “National Socialism”
Do you have any questions about the history or the historical context of this novel?

13. POV & Chapter 1
What is the point of view Schlink uses in the novel? Define it and provide an example.
Use adjectives to describe the narrative voice and author’s writing style.
What images stand out to you from your reading homework?
Contrast the sights and sounds outside the narrator’s apartment in Chapter 1 and outside the building described in the flashback later in the chapter. What do the contrasting sights and sounds reveal about the two neighborhoods and the people who live there?

14. Chapter 2
How does Schlink use the descriptions of the building, the renovated one and the old building, to introduce the contrast between the present and the past?
List the characteristics of the recurring dream the narrator has about the building. What could the dream signify?

15. Chapter 1-5
Discuss the imagery Schlink uses to introduce the relationship between Frau Hanna Schmitz (she won't have a name until chapter eight) and Michael Berg?
What about Hanna’s characterization makes her sympathetic? What does not?
To what extent are you critical of her? Forgiving?
vomit
saw screaming
illness
coal--his life is colored by this affair

16. How does Schlink depict this relationship and why?
Part I of The Reader concerns itself with a sexual affair.
How does Schlink depict this relationship and why?
How does Schlink choose diction to describe this affair?
Keep in mind Schlink’s purpose: For example, does the depiction make you uncomfortable? If so, how and why? What could be Schlink’s purpose in making you feel uncomfortable?

17. Chapter 3
Comment on Frau Schmitz: what is she like and how do you know?
Consider verbs Schlink associates with her, the description of her building and her apartment, and her actions and words.
What is interesting about the narrator’s memory of her at the end of the chapter?

18. What is so entrancing to the narrator about Frau Schmitz?
Chapter 4
What is so entrancing to the narrator about Frau Schmitz?
Discuss how Schlink conveys the effect Hanna has on Michael.
Consider the narrator’s reflections about her effect on him as well as techniques Schlink uses.

19. The motif of books is introduced in this chapter. Where and how?
Comment on Schlink’s use of the second person in this chapter (you) …see paragraph 3. What is the effect of this choice? What do you think his purpose is?

20. Chapter 5
“Desires, memories, fears, passions form labyrinths in which we lose and find and then lose ourselves again”(18).
Discuss Chapter 5 in light of the above quotation. How is the notion of a moral dilemma, and the relationship between thought and behavior presented in this chapter? How is morality like a labyrinth?

21. Chapter 8-11 Discussion Questions
What does your group make of this relationship? Who is in charge? How does Schlink indicate who has power in this relationship?
When does Schlink portray Michael as childlike and when does Schlink portray Michael as wise in Part I? How does this connect to the use of Michael’s younger and older narrative voice strands?
Discuss several examples of when Schlink has Michael’s youthful lack of experience causes him to misunderstand his relationship with Hannah.
To what extent are you sympathetic for Hannah? When are you critical of her behavior and why?
What is the effect of all the allusions Schlink uses in these chapters on Michael’s characterization?
How does Schlink further the motif of books in chapters 8-11?
How does Schlink use rhetorical questions in Part I? Does Schlink give the younger Michael or the older, reflective narrative voice of Michael more rhetorical questions? Why? Effect?
What is the Christian significance of Easter? What is the effect of Schlink choosing to place their biking trip during that holiday?

24. Share your research with your table group:
Researching Schlink’s The Reader—Chapters Essential Question: What does Schlink borrow in this historical fiction novel?
Share your research with your table group:
Your historical context and how it relates to the novel
Your literary allusion and how it relates to the novel
Verbally cite your sources to increase your ethos
Note-takers: In your comp book, record your now more- comprehensive understanding of the vital historical context in part I and seek to understand the significance of the allusions in part II using several sources, because “nothing is simply one thing” (Woolf).

25. Part I Analysis Discussion Use quotations to support your ideas.
To what extent does Michael understand or misunderstand his relationship with Hannah in Part I?
What is accurate or inaccurate about his point of view?
What is the effect of the authorial choice to provide this limited perspective?
How does Michael’s bildungsroman develop by the end of Part I—how does Schlink end the affair? Effect?
Speculate: How does your group think Hanna views this relationship and what is accurate or inaccurate about their views? How would she have written part I?
Blame Game: Who failed to protect a teenage Michael from predatory sexual abuse? Assign blame to a variety of factors based on quoted evidence.
How does Schlink develop the following themes/motifs in Part I?
Openness (also nakedness) and Secrecy
Intimacy and Abuse
Disease
Morality and Law and Guilt Individual Consciences

26. Part 2, Chs. 1-5 Large-group Discussion
Begin by sharing your journal entries with the table group, and discussing what Schlink shifts between Part I and Part II (six years later).
1. What horrible thing did the female guards do to merit this trial? How does this affect your opinion of Hannah?
2. How do the callousness/numbness that Michael begins to adopt in his post-Hanna days relate to the numbness he notices in the courtroom?
3. "What should our second generation have done, what should it do with the knowledge of the horrors of the extermination of the Jews" (104). What do you think is the author's opinion regarding this question?
4. What do you think Hanna's lack of emotion during her trial can show about camp guards? About her?
5. What do the law students show that the younger generation feels they need to do about their parents and the Nazi legacy?

27. Please share your journal entries
The Reader Part 2, ch 6-10
Please share your journal entries
Then, identify the ways that Schlink uses language to convey ideas about the privileges of literacy in these chapters.
Explore the significance of Hanna’s question: “What would you have done?” (128)

28. Please share your journal entries
The Reader Part 2, ch 6-10
Please share your journal entries
Explore the significance of Michael’s question: “If Hanna’s motive was fear of exposure—why opt for the horrible exposure as a criminal over the harmless exposure as an illiterate?” (133)

29. Connect to Plato’s Cave
The Reader Part 2, ch 6-10
Connect to Plato’s Cave
“..and the scenery allowed what was truly surprising, what didn't come like a bolt from the blue, but had been growing inside myself, to be recognized and accepted. It happened on a path that climbed steeply up the mountain, crossed the road, passed a spring, and then wound under old, tall, dark trees and out into light underbrush.
Hanna could neither read nor write.” (132)

30. How does Schlink continue the book motif in these chapters?
The Reader Part 2, ch 9-10
How does the realization about Hanna’s illiteracy change Michael’s vision of her life choices?
How does Schlink continue the book motif in these chapters?
To what extent does Hanna’s illiteracy change your perspective on what Schlink is trying to do in the novel?

31. Paradox
Schlink has Michael realize during the trial that Hanna’s life was made up of “advances that were actually frantic retreats and victories that were concealed defeats” (134).
YOUR TASK: Make useful notes about specific plot points that could be put in the advances/retreats category and the victories/defeats category.
Paradox: (n)A seemingly absurd or self-contradictory statement or proposition that when investigated or explained may prove to be well founded or true. Ex: “Fair is foul and foul is fair…” or “When the battle’s lost and won…”

32. Holocaust Noun 1: a sacrifice consumed by fire
2: a thorough destruction involving extensive loss of life especially through fire <a nuclear holocaust>
3a often capitalized : the mass slaughter of European civilians and especially Jews by the Nazis during World War II —usually used with the
b : a mass slaughter of people; especially : genocide

34. ELIE WIESEL was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986
ELIE WIESEL was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in The author of more than fifty internationally acclaimed works of fiction and nonfiction, he was Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the Humanities and University Professor at Boston University for forty years. Wiesel died in 2016.
Twenty years after he and his family were deported from Sighet to Auschwitz, Elie Wiesel returned to his town in search of the watch—a bar mitzvah gift—he had buried in his backyard before they left.

35. Why was it difficult for survivors to reveal their story
Why was it difficult for survivors to reveal their story? “What would you have done?” (128)
How would you characterize Weisel’s writing style?
What connections to The Reader did you make while reading?

36. How does Schlink continue the book motif in these chapters?
“What would you have done?” (128)
The Reader Part 2, ch 6-8

37. How does Schlink present the theme of shame in Part II?
“But could Hanna’s shame at being illiterate be sufficient reason for her behavior at the trial or in the camp?” (133)
Is Michael too forgiving of Hanna when he says “She was not pursuing her own interests, but fighting for her own truth, her own justice.” (133)
Is Hanna given a fair trial?
The Reader Part 2, ch 9-12

38. Debate in the legal seminar…
“Was it sufficient that the ordinances under which the camp guards and enforcers were convicted were already on the statute books at the time they committed their crimes? Or was it a question of how the laws were actually interpreted and enforced at the time they committed their crimes, and that they were not applied to them? What is law? Is it what is on the books, or what is actually enacted and obeyed in a society? Or is law what must be enacted and obeyed, whether or not it is on the books, if things are to go right?” (90-91)

39. How does Schlink use nature imagery in this section (and in the book as a whole)?
How and why does Schlink spend so much time articulating Michael’s relationship with his father? Comment on the significance of that choice.
“But with adults I see absolutely no justification for setting other people’s views of what is good for them above their own ideas of what is good for themselves.” (141)
“If one knows what is good for another person who in turn is blind to it, then one must try to open his eyes. One has to leave him the last word, but one must talk to him, to him and not to someone else behind his back.”
The Reader Part 2, ch 9-12

40. First, discuss Michael’s questioning whether Hanna would “have sent [him] to the gas chamber if she hadn’t been able to leave [him], but wanted to get rid of [him].” (Ch 16, p. 158)
Then please share your journal entries to identify the best thinking about the way that Schlink uses language to convey ideas in these chapters.
The Reader Part 2, ch 13-17

41. What is the purpose of Michael’s trip to visit the concentration camp?
Notice that the narrator is narrating 2 visits simultaneously, one at the time of the trial and one later visit. Why?
“…But my awkwardness was not the result of real feeling, but of thinking about the way one is supposed to feel after visiting a concentration camp.” (Ch 15)
The Reader Part 2, ch 13-17

42. “I wanted to pose myself both tasks—understanding and condemnation
“I wanted to pose myself both tasks—understanding and condemnation. But it was impossible to do both.” (ch 15)
What about the incidents related to the visit… while hitchhiking on the trip there and his restlessness the night after?
What is the effect of Schlink’s inclusion of these episodes? What ideas do they emphasize?
The Reader Part 2, ch 13-17

43. What have you noticed about how Schlinck uses nature in the novel
What have you noticed about how Schlinck uses nature in the novel? Find some examples…
As a group: Write a unique, brief, vivid thesis statement that comments on the significance of Schlink’s use of nature imagery in the text.
Why doesn’t Michael say anything to the judge about Hanna’s illiteracy?
Is this inaction in character for him?
Have we seen this from him in the past?
Discuss the resolution in the last chapter Part 2.
The Reader Part 2, ch 13-17

44. At your tables, discuss the following: (Support w/quotes) 1
At your tables, discuss the following: (Support w/quotes) 1. Schlink’s continuation of the illness metaphor in chapter one (168), and how Michael is similar to and distinct from the rest of his generation (171). 2. What is the significance of the streetcar incident (Ch 3)? 3. What is the significance of Michael’s choice to become a researcher of legal history rather than a lawyer or judge? 4. Why does Michael begin reading to Hanna again in Chapter 5? 5. List instances of repetition in the novel. How many things can you think of that happen twice or are repeated in a slightly different iteration? What do you think is going on here?
Part 3, Chs. 1-5

45. Movie
How does the director choose to portray Michael’s reading? What is interesting about the portrayal of both Michael and Hanna here?

46. ‘68 Student Movements
Read the article. What could Michael’s distance from the 1968 Student Movement signify? (168)