Part 3

Camille Kelleher

            I didn’t really enjoy this book too much. Michael’s narration continued to annoy me throughout the book because he is a sad character who wants the readers to sympathize with him. I think he causes his own self-destruction by surrounding himself with Hanna’s memories and her presence. He doesn’t think too far and visualizes the consequences that his actions may have in the present, so he makes himself suffer even more. Hanna haunts him throughout this entire book and it starts to get old after a while. The idea that her secret of being illiterate led her into unfortunate circumstances is kind of annoying because a lot of people have their own cross to bear in life, and hers is illiteracy. When Michael tries to convince the woman from the church fire to take Hanna’s savings, she replies “Using it for something to do with the Holocaust would really seem like an absolution to me, and that is something I neither wish nor care to grant.”  I think this is the only part in the book when I felt disheartened by the situations described in the book. It amazes my how some people can hold grudges against unfortunate circumstances, especially after a person kills herself when she suffered from her past actions for 18 years. Also, the woman’s opinion is arrogant because there were other women involved in the church fire that could have saved the prisoners. I think Hanna killed herself from her guilty conscience and also because Michael wouldn’t take her back. In the end, I didn’t really enjoy the book too much. One thing that I am left pondering is to what extent did her act of reading books written by Holocaust survivors in prison leave on her mind or perspective of leaving jail. Maybe she felt closer to the prisoners that she saw suffering because she went through a period of turmoil and didn’t feel justified having the chance to live freely again.