This book became more popular after it was turned into a movie starring Kate Winslet and Ralph Fiennes. It tells the story of a 15-year-old boy called Michael who begins an affair with a train conductor in her 30s. This relationship is to change the course of Michael's philosophy on life and leads him to have unmeaningful relationships and a fear of abandonment for the rest of his life. I've never seen the movie, so I can't draw any comparisons between the book and the movie. I will say though, that the main reason why the movie is not as good most of the time is that books have so much more scope to go in depth. Despite this - and I can't be sure if this is a translation issue or something else - the characters in this book are never explored in much depth. All that we get from Michael is more of the same - his personality doesn't seem to develop throughout the book much either. The same is true of Hanna, who we only can interpret from her actions as a German officer.
The plot of this book has an amazing idea, in that analysis of both the intricacies of youthful experiences as well as the actions of Nazi war criminals were possible. Despite this, the book did not quite live up to my expectations in terms of how these subjects could be explored. The book seemed largely detached at times and a story that could have provoked emotion (as I imagine the movie did) seemed cold and disconnected. Something about the way the story was told just didn't quite ring true to me.
Overall this book has a mighty interesting plot and poses lots of intricate questions. It is a good book to get one thinking, but despite this it seems to lack an element of storytelling.
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