The Reader

I read The Reader by Bernhard Schlink yesterday. I initially became interested in reading this book due to being a fan of Kate Winslet and knowing the movie had been nominated for some awards. The book was dark and a different type than I usually read but I really enjoyed it. The philosophical question about more minor players guilt in their involvement in the Holocaust was fascinating and not something I had thought about before. It is easy to condemn Hitler and persons of higher rank but those who may have taken employment positions in concentration camps to feed their families or out of fear of being targeted themselves by the Third Reich, those decisions are more unclear and the consequences of those decision on those individuals futures are more unclear. All in all a thought provoking read. One of my favorite passages from the book was:

What a sad story, I thought for so long. Not that I now think it was happy. But I think it is true, and thus the question of whether it if sad or happy as no meaning whatever.

At any rate, that's what I think when I just happen to think about it. But if something hurts me, the hurts I suffered back then come back to me, and when I feel guilty, the feelings of guilt return; if I yearn for something today, or feel homesick, I feel the yearnings and homesickness from back then. The tectonic layers of our lives rest so tightly one on top of the other that we always come up against earlier events in later ones, not as a matter that has been fully formed and pushed aside, but absolutely present and alive. I understand this.