Part 3

In part 3, Michael still feels numb regarding the whole situation with Hanna but also feels like he can have other kinds of feelings and in a way closes his story with her. Although he marries Gertrude and has children with her, it is evident that Michael will never feel the same love and passion for any other woman as he did for Hanna. Michael’s issues concerning sleep, emotions, and relationships are essentially a product of his relationship with Hanna. After she abandoned him, he was unable to feel total happiness again and was wounded for the rest of his life. He was clearly too young to be able to deal with such neglect and greatly suffered after what he thought was “the love of his life” left him without an explanation.  Although it could be seen as sweet that Michael sends Hanna tapes of himself reading out loud, I find it kind of pathetic that he hasn’t been strong enough to block her out of his life. Instead of trying to break out of this depression that’s been causing him to lose sleep, he makes it worse by associating himself with her.

Hanna and Michael’s reencounter is rather different than what I had imagined. Hanna is excited to see Michael, but his emotionless reaction threw me off and reminded me that he is no longer the love-struck, naïve child that he was at the beginning of their relationship. It is clear in this scene that Michael will never be the passionate and lively man that he was when his and Hanna’s relationship was at its peak. At this point, the age difference between the two is also very obvious. While Michael is still in his younger years, Hanna is an old woman and no longer posses the sexy, mysterious, intriguing qualities that once attracted Michael.

I couldn’t understand why Hanna killed herself. Was it because she realized that her and Michael would never be together? Did she feel that she was a burden on his life and find it worthless to go out into the real world? Nonetheless, Michael remains untouched by the situation. Despite his lack of sadness considering her suicide, Michael speaks to the author who wrote about Hanna and still cares about her memory. How can he be so numb when it comes to Hanna, but still care about her so much? He is finally able to let go of her after her death and in a way finds peace after living a long life of depression and detachment.

I enjoyed the reader, but also found it incredibly sad. It is still somewhat unclear to me whether or not Michael confused sex for love, because if it affected him so much then it had to have been somewhat close to love. 

Part 3

Part 3 of the Reader was definitely the most emotional. As i read that Michael had gotten married, i wondered if that was what he actually wanted, or if he just married because of it was part of life. I always thought that the book would somehow come back to Michael and Hanna's relationship, and not just forget her in jail. Not to my surprise, it did, as Michael gets divorced after just a few years and begins to try and contact Hanna in jail. I though at first that sending the cassettes of him reading to her was a good way of communicating, or at leafs making a connection to demonstrate that he still cared for her. However, then I realized that Michael was fighting an inner battle on what to do. He was feeling guilty that he had loved a criminal, and perhaps still does, and now he is trying to get into contact with her again, something that he is definitely questioning himself about inside. Hanna's thank you note is good symbol that she is thankful for what Michael is doing and it is proof that she has learned to write, and most likely read in prison. In y opinion, if Michael truly loved her, he should have started to send written letters to her since the cassettes were now pointless, however, i also understand he was fighting with guilt. It took me by surprise when Hanna killed herself in jail. I believe her suicide messed with Michael's mind even more. He felt guilty for killing her. Would it have saved her if Michael had sent written letters? That is the question I had

Betrayal to the Highest Degree

The last section to this book is definitely the most saddening and emotion-wrenching part since it brings up the two forms of guilt that Michael felt towards knowing Hanna; the first form was the guilt he felt for loving a criminal who had murdered survivors of a concentration camp and the second form of guilt was felt since he had betrayed his criminal lover by ignoring her and leaving her to bear the long years of exile alone and without any form of comfort from the outside world. It is my personal belief that, though he was trying to escape the guilt by sending her cassette tapes but not writing to her, he was wrong to not write at least to provide her with a reason to continue trudging along. Instead, she held on for several years till she realized that he would no longer acknowledge her letters and instead, ignore her success in learning how to read and write which she most likely was doing for Michael out of love. Ironically enough, Michael did actually care how Hanna was faring and had not lost his feelings of love for her even though he admitted publicly that he did. It made me very sad though that it took Hanna's death for Michael to finally admit that he was wrong in ignoring her and had never actually lost his love for her and the fact that he realizes at the end that it was he who caused her to hang herself since she was all alone in the world.

Part 3 Reaction

Like the first two parts of this novel, part three was completely unexpected. Schlink has a way of beating the readers expectations with every part of the novel. That is in part what I think this book is really about, beating expectations. I really like the way he merged the story back with present time towards the end of the novel. From the beginning, it was clear that the story is being told as a memory and that the events are not occurring as time is elapsing but the way the author eased in the real time with the story time worked really well and it made for a great way to end the novel. 

I did not particularly appreciate that Michael had to end up a failure in the emotional sense, it would have been nice to have seen him find some company to live out the rest of his life with but I understand why the author had to make it that way. It is only to ad credibility to the story that Michael had to end up alone and traumatized by the sexual abuse he received as a teenager. I do not understand why he decided to start sending her the recordings of books. After all the pain she caused not only to him but to the people that she took hostage during the holocaust; I personally do not believe she deserved the joy of knowing that someone was thinking about her. Michael should have let her rot in prison alone and miserable after everything she had down. Hanna should have never had the satisfaction of knowing that someone cared for her because she never truly cared for him, she only used him as she saw fit. I especially did not like the fact that Michael was willing to help her get on her feet once she was finally released. In the end, I believe that she got what she deserved and I do believe that finally, justice was served. 

Part Three

Part three was perhaps the most depressing and most unsatisfying section of the novel. I struggle to contain my annoyance while reading Michael constant obsession with the past and his inability to let it go. Hanna basically ruins Michael’s life, and his ability to love other people because of a one-year relationship consisting of controlling sex and reading aloud. Michael initial numbness to all feeling, caused by his guilt for betraying Hanna, and her abrupt disappearance, followed him throughout the course of his young life. Every relationship afterward he compared to his failed relationship with Hanna, and no one could life up to the image of her.

I also found it relatively sad that his daughter, who he obviously noticed craved love and attention from her parents, was sent off to boarding school after Michael’s divorce. He thought more about the life he could have had with Hanna then the relationship he should have with his daughter. Hanna probably is that she ignored her past because she was ashamed of it and lived completely in the present. Until she came face to face with Michael, and felt for the first time what she had done to him and the opportunity for them to forgive and forgot was over.    

The end

Wendell Pfeffer

4/6/14

            Again like I expected once I reached part three the story changed drastically. Hannah was in prison and meanwhile Michael was trying to accept the fact that she was a member of the SS. Hannah spent eighteen years due to her involvement and inability to open the doors of the people trapped inside the church. I thought after reading part two that Michael’s feelings towards Hannah were gone due to the time they spent apart, but I was wrong. Michael kept obsessing over the same ideas and problems he had with Hannah since when they were young. For example - whether or not she actually loved him, why she was with him and if it was his fault that Hannah left him. In addition everything he did related back to Hannah. To be honest it was getting quite annoying; I understand that they shared good moments when they were young but to keep obsessing over them many years later is strange. Personally if I were with a girl and broke up with her a year later I would forget about the relationship we had. With Michael it’s a completely different story.

 I liked the idea of Hannah in part one, but in part two and three I didn’t. Even though Michael’s thoughts towards Hannah are annoying to the reader it did benefit him in many ways. When Michael was a kid Hannah gave him confidence, helped him overcome his sickness, gave him love, company and inspired him to work hard in school. When Michael grew up and became an adult Hannah inspired him to pursue his passion and that is writing. I think towards the end of the novel the reason to why Michael ever even committed to helping her when she was in prison and about to get out was because he wanted to pay her back for all the positive things Hannah did for him in his life.

Part 3

Honestly, the book wasn't so bad. It was pretty boring and not a lot of action went on, but a lot of interesting ideas that occur in many people's lives today are present in the novel as a whole. The idea that one relationship at a very young age can shape the way we end up living our life. Hanna single handedly controls Michael's life as soon as they first begin their relationship. It's like she controls his subconscious mind all throughout the second part, even though he rarely sees her. Michael is controlled by the guilt and separation from Hanna. When he finds out that she was actually a horrible person and killed innocent people, he can't do anything besides decide to take himself out of her life, which is what any normal person would do. But because of his early relationship with her, he can't forget about her, and his life is controlled by this. It's a great example of how a single relationship with someone outside our families can control and mold our minds into feeling certain ways for our entire lives. Michael is going to be forced to live his life with the idea that his first lover was a murderer of a lot of innocent souls, something not easily taken down. The person that Michael sees as most dangerous is oddly also seen as the most important person to his psyche. Sometimes those that make the biggest impact in our lives (whether a good impact or bad impact) is the one who stands out most in our life, and I think Schlink is trying to portray that idea throughout the novel.