The Book Thief- Markus Zusak
The Book Thief- review
Markus Zusak
Rating:
4/5
The short
version: A book which completely deserves its reputation.
This
review will contain spoilers.
If you
have somehow never heard of The Book
Thief, it’s about Liesel, a young girl growing up in Nazi Germany, and the
humanity she experiences along the way. Her books take on an emotional
significance to her life, and she also becomes friends with a fugitive Jew. It’s
also narrated by Death. That should tell you quite a lot about the book; it’s
creative, but in no way cheerful.
For me,
one of the most refreshing things about this book was its focus on the ordinary
people of Germany who suffered because of the war. Liesel is blonde-haired and blue-eyed,
the perfect Aryan, and yet being the perfect Aryan doesn’t stop her from suffering
during the war. Her story is also a parallel to that of Max, the Jew hidden by
Liesel’s foster parents in their cellar. Both of their lives are saved by the
cellar, both of them find solace in books, and both of them are trapped by the
Nazi regime. That parallel is a compelling way to show the suffering caused by
hatred and war, and a reminder that violence isn’t worth the cost.
The
friendship between Max and Liesel also shows the importance of remaining kind
and brave in horrible circumstances. I really admired Liesel’s character
development in this regard; she changes from a girl who mistrusts everyone and
is haunted by her past to someone who will take a beating in order to help a
friend, as she does for Max towards the end of the book. This is one of the
ways in which using a child as the central character is effective for Zusak; her
realisation that being kind can have power, even if it can’t change a situation,
would have felt unbelievable if it was experienced by an adult.
In fact, Zusak
manages to tread a fine line between despair and hope. This is a book which
ends with a lot of death, and that is hinted at from the very start. As Death’s
hints about the fate of Himmel Street become more obvious, the reader begins to
treasure every note of Hans’ accordion or every time Rosa swears at the people
she loves. It would be easy to focus on their eventual fates, killed in a badly
targeted air raid, and use them as proof that love and kindness and bravery
make no difference in the end. After all, they die in the same way as a woman
who insists that any customers in her shop salute Hitler. But in fact, it does
make a difference. It saves a man’s life, and it means that Liesel turns into someone
who understands the power her words and her love have.
There is a
lot of detail in The Book Thief to
comprehend. Zusak employs dictionary definitions and very elaborate language (“the
cloud is a tightrope”) to emphasise his point. So this isn’t a book to read if you’re
looking for something light and easy to understand.
But it is
worth it if you’re looking for something that will reaffirm the magic of words
and the importance of treating other humans with decency.
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