SOURCE: Sansom, Ian. “Doubts about The Reader.” Salmagundi, nos. 124-125 (fall 1999-winter 2000): 3-16.

In the following essay, Sansom objects to the overall critical acceptance of The Reader and offers a negative evaluation of the novel, which he finds morally superficial, trite, and mendacious.

Death by the book is uncommon, but it is not unknown. Printing, for example, was until relatively recently a dangerous trade, and the effects of lead poisoning through the practice known as ‘chewing type’ was said in some cases to have been fatal. Dr Edward Smith, in his report on the Sanitary Conditions of Printers in London for the House of Commons in 1863, noted that compositors seemed to be suffering from “poisoned hands and dropping of the wrists,” and that publisher's readers could most often be found tucked away in dark closets, “not much larger than a full-sized coffin.” The book trade, one might say...