Have you ever read a book, watched a film or heard a song that you can't stop thinking about?
Well I have. The Reader.
It was just after Christmas this year, when I noticed this film, not even knowing then it was actually a novel. I saw a preview on the TV and instantly it snapped up my attention. I had no idea what it was about, but the haunting music, the intensity between the characters and the idea of an illicit affair typically made me want to know more.
But between going back to work and trying to blog and write, I forgot about it, until I heard a trailer on Radio 2. I took out my laptop and typed in "The Reader", and there it was, a film review by some Journalist from The Guardian (who absolutely hated it by the way, and this made me want to see it more).
I was surprised to find it was nothing like what I thought it was about, (I won't go into it here), but now I REALLY wanted to watch it. Trailing through my other Google searches I stumbled across the novel by Bernhard Schlink, and since The Reader was now lodged deeply in my brain, I couldn't wait to watch the film, I wanted the book as well.
Thanks to Amazon, it was in my hands within 2 days, and since going to watch the film was drawing close, I put myself under great pressure to finish the novel before seeing the movie, and achieved it in just 24 hours, and not just beacuse I had to finish it, but beacsue I was ABSOLUTELY obsessed; I had to know happened, it was a compulsion.
The intimacy, the longing, the ache, the pain was very real to me, and still is. I remain haunted by the sorrow. I'm not sure I've ever read a book that had such an affect on me, both personally and in my writing.
I had no apprehension in going to watch the film once finishing the novel. I was happy to leave it in the hands of the lovely Kate Winslet and the deadly handsome Ralph Fiennes; I trusted them and I was right to.
I cried quite a bit through the movie, Big Fella squeezing my hand. Luckily I'd brought tissues knowing I was going to get upset. I'm happy to say the movie stayed true to the novel, changing the bits that wouldn't have portrayed well on screen, and I loved Kate and Ralph in it, but I have to say, it was the young Michael Berg, German actor David Kross who totally stole the film for me.
I felt his pain the whole way through. Whether it was during his affair with the older woman Hanna, or during the court case where she is being tried for war crimes; he was brillaint at portraying the emotions written by the narrator in the novel; he was cast perfectly, making the story all the more real to me, one of the reasons why I am now so haunted.
I won't kid you, it wasn't a happy film, and neither was the book, but I adored both, they had something about them that touched me right inside, I don't know what, how or why, and I've given up analysing it, but it is assisting in producing some intense and dark writing of my own, something I occasionally tap into, but then abandon it in favour of something happier.
Now I don't want to do that. I want to capture the intensity I feel when thinking about The Reader, both the book and film, and put it on paper (or my laptop obviously).
This was never meant to be a film/book review, I'm far too bias for that, just as I won't urge you to go and see/read it (although you should!), but I feel it's come into my life at a point I really need it; there's alot of change and planning going on, and I need something to fall back on when it all gets a bit much.
Myself, I'm reading the novel again, already picking out bits I missed the first time, and OK, I see David Kross in my mind's eye as the narrator, but why should I complain about that; I'm just mad about the boy.
Anyway, in true Karen Roderick style, I said to Big Fella when we left the cinema last week, "I wish I could write a book like that," and he smiled and said, "how do you know you haven't already?"
That's love for you...
Hugs
Karen xx
