The two Hannahs

Well, I just finished watching The Reader, starring Kate Winslet and Ralph Fiennes.

It's set in the pre and post WWII era, and centres around the love story between Hannah and Michael. I don't think I can write much about it though. It should be watched; but I think that it is too deep a story to just treat as a normal type of film though. It's not just that it's about a brief affair; it's about human society and the laws that we have; it's about duties and responsibilities; about shame; about forgiveness.

Kate Winslet does an excellent job... you can't think of what the film would've been like if she hadn't been the main character.

I also finished reading "The Man of My Dreams" by Curtis Sittenfield. It too is an interesting story about a young girl named "Hannah" who is trying to find herself. Right now I'm finding the coincidence funny - I just finished reading a book where the chief protagonist is a girl named Hannah and finished watching a film where the same is the case.

Do we want to be adored? Do we want to be loved? Don't we want to be part of someone else's world? Hannah in the book is confused. She has a man who adores her, and yet she thinks:
"He forgave it all, he always thought she was beautiful, he always wanted to be around her. It became so boring! She'd been raised, after all, not to be accomodated but to accomodate, and if she was his world, then his world was small, he was easily satisfied."

I think this sentence said more about Hannah than the whole book put together. She really did suffer from low self esteem.