Memory and History
Photograph of The Reader author, Bernhard Schlink. Taken in March 2018.The Reader takes readers back into history through the lens of young man who falls in love with the mystery of an older woman. The setting of this love story takes places in postwar Germany, specifically the 1960s, right when children started asking, "Daddy, what'd you do in the war?". An era compiled with many different memories and perspective that were absorbed into what one refers to as history. Through the study of history and memory comparison the German term, "Vergangenheitsbewältigung (VGB)", has emerged in literary publishings and is defined as "overcoming the past[24]". The protagonist, Michael Berg, is faced with the predicament where it comes to light that the woman he once loved had an intimate role in the horrid actions of the Holocaust and struggles with his post memory.[25] Questioning morality, comparability, silence, guilt, and shame; the author writes,
At the same time I ask myself, as I had already begun to ask myself back then: What should our second generation have done, what should I do with the knowledge of the horrors of the extermination of the Jews? We should not believe we can comprehend the incomprehensible, we may not compare the incomparable, we may not inquire because to inquire is to make the horrors an object of discussion, even if the horrors themselves are not questioned, instead of accepting them as something the face of which we can only fall silent in revulsion, shame and guilt. Should we only fall silent in revulsion, shame, and guilt? To what purpose?.[26]
Schlink puts readers into Michael's shoes and questions influence memories hold in the remembrance of history. Reflecting upon the responsibilities of the next generation and their interpretation of how things should be remembered and memorialized. An additional form of historical remembrance is the Lieux de mémoire project.[27] A concept that considers the study of remembrance either through memorials and monuments or cities, symbols, and novels like this one and considers their effect on how history is viewed today.
