ABSTRACT
Weisberg argues that The Reader does not, in fact, explore the tension between judging and understanding vis-à-vis Hanna's character and deeds. The novel, viewed from Weisberg's prism, invites us to feel sympathy for Schlink, for he has inherited the 'language' that was debased by the Third Reich – the unspeakable legacy of death. It is as though Schlink's persona wishes to revive through Hanna the Goethe, the Kleist, the Keller and the other writers whose medium he now adopts to tell her story. Schlink's persona is too much the detached lawyer to display overtly the anguish Schlink himself must feel. After all, Schlink's persona – Michael – does consistently engage with the horrific past of a transgressor. Even before that past is revealed, she has beaten him, literally and figuratively. Michael's dominant mood at the end of the novel combines shame and numbness and abjures the passionate if negative irony of other such protagonists.
