Jailbait, anyone?

Schlink’s The Reader as read and watched

Bernard Schlink’s The Reader recently completed the predictable best-seller life cycle as it morphed from a hit book into a must-see movie. As a stubborn believer that the book is always better, I’m ashamed to admit that in this instance I saw the movie first. Alas, I was compelled to pursue Schlink’s original novel in the hopes of having a few key questions answered, such as, is this taking place in 1900, or 1980? Was Hanna hit over the head as a child? And, why is adult Berg (played by the amazing Ralph Fiennes) being such a baby? Thankfully, the book filled in a few holes.

Both versions begin with our young hero, Michael Berg (David Kross), a fifteen-year-old German schoolboy, puking on his future ladylove’s doorstep. Hanna Schmitz (Kate Winslett), a stern woman of 36, comes to the rescue, briskly washing away the mess and escorting him home. Months pass in which Michael is sick with hepatitis, but upon his recovery he visits Hanna to thank her. Michael loses his virginity to Hanna soon after, and they develop a daily routine: they wash (Hanna is a clean-freak), they make love, and then Michael reads aloud to Hanna, beginning what will become a lifelong romance for them both.

A year or two later Hanna ends the affair by simply disappearing, not to be seen by Michael for years. Their lives cross again when Michael, now a law student, becomes interested in a trial investigating Nazi crimes. Hanna is one of the accused. At this point, Michael finally puts two and two together and discovers that Hanna took her S.S. guard job to hide that she is illiterate. Her admittance to this fact could save her from a life in prison, however her pride, and Michael’s unwillingness to reveal her secret, land Hanna in the bighouse.

Frustratingly, Michael stagnates and spends his time after college and the trial comparing every woman he meets to Hanna, eventually having a child, getting divorced, and then spending his time recording books on tape to send to Frau Schmitz in prison. His lack of personal growth is distracting and confusing. Sure, he met some woman who he loved when he was fifteen and they broke up. Sad, tragic, yeah, yeah.

Get over it.

In both versions I wasn’t buying the picture of love that Michael and Hanna painted—and it doesn’t help that their affair begins with statutory rape. Hanna is selfish, harsh, and she uses Michael in ways only a young, inexperienced man would allow. Michael’s obsessive behavior is forgivable in the beginning of film and book, but as time passes, his apathetic self-pity doesn’t come across as tortured or believable—it’s angsty and annoying.

Hanna’s role only becomes marginally likeable during the time she’s standing trial and tells only the truth (except for that little part that she can’t read or write). She becomes frustrated during the questioning of her motives for joining the Nazi party, finally breaking down and asking the judge, “What would you do?” While this does provoke a moment of pity for Hanna, the supposed bad guy, I wonder if this emotion is warranted.

Plenty of movies and books in recent times have asked the viewer to understand the difficult position in which some Nazis were put, but haven’t we felt sorry for them enough? Sure, they suffered during WWII, but not even close to the proximity of what their prisoners experienced. It is somewhat admirable to see Hanna take responsibility for her crimes, but she only does so because to her, coming out as illiterate is more shameful. She would rather go to prison for horrifying crimes against humanity, rather than admit she is unable to read and write. Not feeling the pity.

As far as contrasts between book and movie, there was one major difference that I spied. During the movie, Michael’s relationship with his daughter is apparently fraught with tension, and the two plus hour film allows the audience only a small glimpse as to why. The director may have had good reason for punching up the importance of Michael’s daughter, but it only added confusion. I was left wondering what happened in their history, and gave their relationship more importance than it was due. I had hoped that the book would develop this piece, however, it took the opposite route and barely discussed the daughter. There was no problematic relationship. There were no issues to be resolved. The director chose to invent more drama, which had no place in the book, and ended up developing it poorly. Rather a bad choice I think.

Overall the film and novel were similar, containing the same highlights and complexities. Schlink’s work is simultaneously beautifully simply and poetic, mixing sections of dialogue and action with Michael’s older and wiser philosophic observations about love, life, and what it means to be part of the generation of Germans dealing with the mess of the Holocaust. Kate Winslett, David Kross, and Ralph Fiennes give compelling and consistent performances, capturing the essence of Schlink’s characters. Despite the confusing timeline (which I have yet to figure out), and occasionally frustrating moments, The Reader flows beautifully and keeps its readers interested in the fate of Michael and Hanna.

Interested? Please don’t make the mistake I did. Go read the book.

I’m famous! (sort of…)

I’m not the type to revel in the spotlight. I’m much more of a hide-in-the-shadows-and-watch-others kind of gal, but for the last year I’ve been working at my college’s marketing department, and the marketing team decided that they wanted to use me as a model/feature person in an article on the new school webpage. Slightly nauseating? Yes. But I’m starting to get excited because the article is up and running!

Check it out here: http://www.naz.edu/now/archive/butterfield.cfm

To see the other pic of me visit the homepage (http://www.naz.edu/) and toggle through the NOW@Naz slideshow–I’m the fourth pic, “Preparation”.

Anansi Boys Part II

Just finished reading Anansi Boys, and I am happy to report that I loved it right up to the end. I think what made me happiest was that there was an epilogue of sorts, but it was a GOOD epilogue, which means that it wasn’t: corny, too perfectly wrapped up, obvious, or trying too hard; and that it was: consistent with the rest of the story (unlike the epilogue to the Harry Potter series, which was disappointing to the greatest degree. Scorpius Malfoy? Are you kidding me???)

Besides the “epilogue” being up to par, I enjoyed how the story really came together at the end. There was planning, and plotting, and lots of interweaving, kind of like a spider’s web (how perfectly convenient!). To be more clear, the end was full of “Aha!” moments, where something that made no sense before suddenly made sense; for example Charlie’s mysterious relationship with his brother, Anansi’s love of karaoke, and the seven-legged spider featured on the cover. Want to know exactly what I’m talking about? Go read the book!

Don’t be scared of it just because it’s in the fantasy section at Barnes & Noble. There’s such a mixing of genres in the story, including fantasy, myth, comedy, romance, and even a touch of horror. What has this taught me? That you can judge a book by its cover, but not by its genre.

What more can I say about Anansi Boys? It’s a lighthearted, happy-ending, grown-up, thoroughly enjoyable read. It won’t shake you to the core, but it will make your heart pound in places, make you laugh in others, and stretch your imagination even after you’ve finished reading.

5 Things I Love About Neil Gaiman’s “Anansi Boys”

Today I’ve fallen prey to yet another author. My friend Kate gave Neil Gaiman’s Anansi Boys to me for a Christmas gift, and does she know her fantasy! I’m about halfway through, and I’ve already discovered at least five things that I adore about this book.

1.) The cover is funky and tasteful. I judge fantasy books by their covers (is it just me, or do the ones with really tacky covers always turn out to be completely heinous?), and this one passes the test. The colors are bright, and there’s a great illustration of a spider that’s made of different animals. Check it out here: http://www.amazon.com/Anansi-Boys-Novel-Neil-Gaiman/dp/0061342394/ref=pd_bbs_sr_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1231382977&sr=8-2

2.) The dedication is to the reader, and it feels so sweet and personable. It also makes me really like Gaiman as a person which is nice, and makes the dedication worth reading.

3.) In this story Gaiman mixes folklore with the plot. The story’s called Anansi Boys because it’s about a man named Fat Charlie Nancy, who, it turns out, is the son of the god Anansi (who, in case you didn’t know was a spider, which is why there’s a spider on the cover). When Charlie’s father dies, he finds out from an old neighbor that he has a brother who inherited Anansi’s god-powers and all that good stuff. Charlie meets his brother and all sorts of shenanigans ensue. Mixed in with the story are a collection of mythic mini-stories that are about Anansi and days before people, when the world was inhabited only by gods and beasts. The stories feel like almost like fables or old nursery tales, but Gaiman adds his own stylistic twist. It results in all of these little stories that are about storytelling, so the book is really about stories. The first few pages are a pretty good example — there’s an excerpt at the above link.

4.) Gaiman’s got style, and a great sense of humor. Here’s a little excerpt that I found amusing (Fat Charlie is visiting his old neighbor and her friends for dinner): “It was sort of like Macbeth, thought Fat Charlie, an hour later, in fact, if the witches in Macbeth had been four little old ladies and if, instead of stirring cauldrons and intoning dread incantaions, they had just welcomed Macbeth in and fed him turkey and rice and peas spread out on white china plates on a red-and-white patterned plastic tablecloth — not to mention sweet potato pudding and spicy cabbage — and encouraged him to take second helpings, and thirds, and then, when Macbeth had declaimed that nay, he was stuffed nigh unto bursting and on his oath could truly eat no more, the witches had pressed upon him their own special island rice pudding and a large slice of Mrs. Bustamonte’s famous pineapple upside-down cake, it would have been exactly like Macbeth” (135-136). This nugget had me chuckling to myself in the waiting room at the doctor’s office. It’s not necessarily a read-in-public kind of book.

5.) As a writer, I really admire Gaiman’s ability to write enormously long sentences that make perfect sense and aren’t hard to follow, like in the example above. Not only are his stories funny and interesting, but he is a GREAT writer.

All in all, this is shaping up to be a pretty good read. I wasn’t sucked into the story right off the bat, but Gaiman’s writing itself was so good I couldn’t stop. If you like modern fantasy, like Susanna Clark’s Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, which I highly recommend, then you’ll probably enjoy this book. Happy Wednesday!

I have a blog?

Hello world, and welcome to my blog!

My name is Heather Butterfield, and I’m a 20-year-old senior at Nazareth College. If you read my “About Me” you’ll see that this blog was started as an outlet for my book-loving brain. Reviews, comments, discussions, and all things books are going to be discussed here along with a few of my other loves (including kittens, crafts, baking, graphic arts, and writing to name a few!).

I’m totally new to the blogging world, so bear with me as I navigate wordpress (which I must say is fabulous — why didn’t I hear about it sooner??) and get used to blogging in general, which it seems, is nearly as addictive as reading and will gradually take up more and more of my time.

Anyway.

On to the book stuff, right? I think that I must start with a shpeal about the greatness that is Diana Gabaldon. A friend recently suggested the Outlander series to me, and for the past month I’ve been reading the first four books in marathons where I only take time to sleep and go to the bathroom. They are WONDERFUL in a way that I certainly did not expect. I would see them at the grocery store and I assumed that they were the kind of cheesey romance-y sort of book that old ladies read (no offense to older ladies). But I cannot even express how wrong I was.

The first book, Outlander, starts in post WWI Scotland, where our main gal Claire Randall is on a second honeymoon with her husband, Frank, an enthusiastic historian. Well what do you know, but Claire accidentally goes through a stone circle/magic time portal and ends up in eighteenth-century Scotland where she meets the stunning Jamie Fraser and they go off on all sorts of mad adventures. The historical references add great authenticity (Gabaldon did her homework), and Claire and Jamie have such great chemistry. My favorite bits are Claire’s medical stories. She was a nurse during the war and eventually becomes a doctor, but she encounters all sorts of sick people in the eighteenth-century and doesn’t have modern medical supplies to heal them. She learns how to use herbs and plants and things and heals people with natural methods, that are completely fascinating. One thing after another happens, and 1,000 pages go by like nothing. If you like historical fiction with a dash of romance, you will adore this series.

The series is supposed to have a total of seven books, but only six have been published so far. The final book, which you can read excerpts from on Diana Gabaldon’s website (http://www.its.caltech.edu/~gatti/gabaldon/excerpts/bone/bone_excerpts.html), is called An Echo in the Bone. Here’s a list of the series in order FYI: Outlander, Dragonfly in Amber, Voyager, Drums of Autumn, The Fiery Cross, and A Breath of Snow and Ashes. I know I’m probably really behind the times as far is this series is concerned, but it deserves to be gushed about.

Happy New Year, and happy reading!