Remember that bargain bin where I picked up Lady Chatterley’s lover? Right next door was The Book Thief, the number one book on Dymocks 101 of 2016, an international bestseller, for just $4. It seemed pretty reasonable, so I took it quick and smart!
The Book Thief – Markus Zusak – Keeping up with the penguins
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This is one of those books on my reading list that I’ve heard a lot about but haven’t heard much about. Before I picked it up, I was pretty sure it was going to be a movie starring some unheard of people, but with a gun to my head I couldn’t tell you the first thing about the story. Even so, the EXTRAORDINARY INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER #1 is probably nothing to sneeze at, so I had pretty high expectations.
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I won’t lie: it starts off pretty rough. It turns out to be narrated by Death (how postmodern!). Death tells us we’re in Nazi Germany, it’s freezing cold, a child dies on a train and his mother and sister have to quickly bury him in Woop Woop before proceeding to place the remaining child with a foster family. Liesel—the still-living child who turns out to be the protagonist—is going crazy. He steals a book from the gravedigger, even though he can’t read at all. Clearly, this story will not entertain anyone involved.
It builds to a blistering pace fairly quickly, but the writing style takes some getting used to – lots of short, snappy sentences that are packed with meaningTM. Some of it was actually quite nice, but I couldn’t shake the suspicion that Zusak was just trying too hard.
He stuffed the Book Thief with misery and unfortunate events. The foster family is no Brady Bunch, and just as Liesel starts to settle in, they also start hiding a Jew in the basement, feeding him leftovers, and secretly emptying paint cans outside. For a minute it looked like the foster kid was being labeled as the “bad guy” (no, that would be Hitler), but I liked her the most. She told everyone to lick her ass if they disagreed with her, among other expletives.
Liesel develops a close relationship with her foster father (Hans), who begins to teach her to read. There’s one particularly poignant scene where she finds out her mother was captured by the Nazis for being a communist and Hans slaps her for saying in public that she hates Hitler. The story continues in much the same vein: people die, people are sent to concentration camps, children steal food to eat, and places are bombed. Zusak fully guides us through how much the Nazis vacuumed up.
The post-death narrative is a cute joke, but otherwise The Book Thief is a super familiar narrative. I think we’re all well aware that the Nazis were horrible and literacy is important and there really wasn’t anything new or groundbreaking. I don’t think I got anything out of The Book Thief (apart from the great storytelling technique) that I didn’t get from reading Diary of a Young Girl when I was twelve. Follow: https://mymorningtea.in/
In this context, however, we should keep in mind that The Book Thief – despite its heavy subject matter – is young adult fiction. That said, it’s not too laborious an adult read, which makes for a nice change of pace. I’d say The Book Thief is great for someone at the upper end of the Young Adult age bracket who is just starting to learn about World War II…or anyone who wants to feel smart without having to work too hard. 😉
