Book review: The Reader

This is a book review of the book "The Reader" by Bernhard Schlink.
It's coming soon to theatre near you as a movie of the same name staring Kate Winslet.
I have no idea what made her want to do this movie. It's sort of like the Nichole Kidman movie "Birth" in that they both follow love affairs dealing with boy child and grown woman. I know some people really went off the deep about "Birth" but I enjoyed it. It's a tragedy that I thought was really successful. Kidman is the loyal devoted wife even after death and the boy is the one who is chasing Kidman after being so moved by reading her love letters. Being so devoted Kidman has to investigate the kid's claims to being her reincarnated husband but eventually it's revealed that the kid just read some letters. It's what Kidman doesn't discover about her husband that moves the viewer. Maybe watch that instead of "The Reader".

Ok back to "The Reader"... This book is all about weird boy having simply lustful and abusive relationship with some german lady. Seriously, he doesn't know her name and there's a remark from the woman about why should he care what her name is?
I think it's supposed to make you question the idea of people who participated with the Nazi party being thoroughly evil or immoral. I'm not sure. It's possible that the author was attempting to make the woman (who you find out was a Nazi who is sent to trial for some of her actions) sympathetic to the audience. As if maybe her actions were just logical conclusions and her intent wasn't evil. I think she remarks in the book "Well what else could I have done?".
Maybe the point is supposed to be that everyone involved was trapped in their role and evil "just happened".
Maybe that's the point of the underage love affair too? "It just happened. Oops"
I could not really relate to a lot of this because the relationships are so unlike what my own relationships are and it just seemed like the characters were living in a vacuum of immorality. So yeah, I guess it's no wonder that these things "just happened" since the people had no sense of morality to begin with. Maybe that is the point. You need to have religious convictions and a solid foundation of what is moral to succeed in life, otherwise you can expect a lot of things to "just happen" to you and in the end you can expect end up just as happy and well adjusted as these main characters.