Title: The Book Thief
Author: Markus Zusak
Published: 14th March 2006 (UK)
Dates read: 8th September 2015 - 22nd September 2015.
Rating: 5/5
"The best word shakers were those who understood the true power of words. They were always able to climb the highest. One such word shaker was a small skinny girl. She was renowned as the best of her region because she knew how powerless a person could be WITHOUT words. She had desire. She was hungry for them."
Where to begin with this wonderful book? I will begin with admitting that The Book Thief took me two attempts to read, and an aeroplane journey from Italy to England to get into. However, after the initial push I couldn't put it down!
The Book Thief tells the story of Liesel and her childhood throughout the duration of Nazi Germany. She arrives at her foster parents house aged nine on Himmel Street, her parents having been taken away accused of communism to the much dreaded Concentration Camps, which would become so infamous. The first distinctive feature that sets this book apart from so many other WWII books is the fact it is narrated by Death, a feature I will be the first to admit which threw me at first. However, the further through the book I progressed I stopped finding this a confusing feature and instead found it actually an incredibly clever and insightful move on Zusak's behalf. WWII like most wars is riddled by the presence of death and suffering, and to have Death narrate, for me, further adds to the haunting nature of the book and of course WWII itself. You, as the reader, are therefore reading from both Liesel's perspective, and Death's. The second contradistinctive feature was the perspective of the novel itself. Most WWII fiction concentrates on the plight of the Jews and their suffering, or perhaps even the Nazi perspective. The Book Thief takes an entirely different objectivity by focusing on the life of a German child, who isn't entirely convinced by the Third Reich beliefs and propaganda and a town which isn't benefiting economically and therefore are suffering under hardship too. Whilst the issue of the Holocaust is explored through the character of Max, as it is can hardly be a WWII novel without this dimension, it is not the forefront of the novel and instead provides a backbone to the storyline (a beautiful storyline nonetheless). Furthermore, it defines the takeover of Hitler in a different way, it alludes to the power of words and their meaning, describing how Hitler took over the world with words, and not with force. I felt this was a very important lesson in general, about the power of words, the effect they can have, and how you can't always believe their meaning. The Book Thief takes a fresh perspective on WWII and Nazi Germany undeniably.. Finally, the prose of The Book Thief also makes it incredibly distinctive. It doesn't follow the standard novel text, but deviates including the handwritten stories written to Liesel from Max and drawings, which are so detailed to the fact that you can see the pages of 'Mein Kampf' showing through as described in the book. For me, this added to the beauty of the book and the importance of imagination. Furthermore, Death interrupts the book with little snippets of text throughout the book, relating to the story, for example dictionary definitions after Liesel receives a dictionary defining emotions parallel to the context of the storyline. I know many who have read this disliked this feature, feeling it interrupted the storyline, but I felt like this set it apart from other books in a wonderful way, so the reader could never forget the omnipresent sense of Death, much like how it must of felt during WWII.
The Book Thief was truly an incredible read, which made me want to start reading from the beginning again the minute I had turned the last page (admittedly through my streaming eyes!), it made me laugh and cry, and Zusak's words sent me into goosebumps at some points in the book, with me sometimes having to close the book and just absorb the beauty of the prose.
