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.