The Book Thief, Markus Zusak
I want to like this book. Really. It's got drama and books, the pages are filled with the complexities of human existence. But ... meh.
*** A VERY IMPORTANT NOTE ***
I'm about to tell you something very important. And I will use a wort, or word.
This gimmick is old. Boring. Redundant. Annoying. It makes me want to punch Death in the grapes.
I have to give Zusak credit for taking on a much-visited topic, Germany during World War II, from a less-used position, that of Death. And the core story arc would be compelling if it were readable. But instead we have a stuttering telling of a young girl in a poor home in Germany. She meets people. She cares for people. She helps hide a Jew in the basement. Everyone calls each other asshole. Everyone has nightmares. Everyone dies.
I'm going to attempt to discuss a few key points in an orderly manner, but having had my brain scrambled by this book, I beg your pardon if it comes out jumbled.
First, Death as narrator. This isn't a completely novel approach to storytelling (see what I did there?). At first I actually enjoyed reading the buildup of Nazi Germany from a non-human point of view. But, ugh, the gimmick. The flow is disrupted by those stupid boldface interjections of no value. And for a mostly indifferent persona, death sure uses a lot of indicators of extreme emotion. But to what end? To tell us what he's about to tell us.
Second, the book thief. Ok, let's start with the fact that she only technically steals one book in the whole story. One she picks up after someone drops it. Another she rescues from a pile of smoldering ashes. And, after she steals the one book, the owner starts leaving more for her to "steal." So, she doesn't seem very worthy of this title. And as the story progresses, you learn that Death, too, has picked up a book someone left behind. So he's a book thief too! Oh how clever! Not.
Then, the characters are not well developed. Hans has silver eyes. Rosa is a wardrobe of a woman with a cardboard face (whatever the heck that means). Liesel loves papa. Rudy loves Liesel. Max is a Jew. They are flat and they do incredibly foolish things. I think some of these instances, like giving bread to Jews as they are marched to Dachau, are supposed to illustrate the humanity of the main characters, that they really do love and care and pity the victims of the Holocaust. Except that giving them bread is sure to bring more suffering to the people- beatings or worse. So it seems, to me, that these are essentially selfish acts to alleviate some guilt of not acting sooner. It's certainly no black-and-white dilemma, but Death sure thinks it is. Over and over, acts of love bring more misery and death to the objects of that love. Death is kind of an asshole.
The tempo and chronology was the most troublesome for me. There isn't so much a foreshadowing of events as there is a sentence or two telling you something is going to happen. Then Death backs up (sometimes months) and finally brings you back to the original sentence. Again, it's gimmicky and tiresome. After everyone died, I kept reading and they were alive again. It took a big mental shift to figure out where in time I was. And then I leapt forward again. And literally the entire book is like this because the first sentence is that everyone dies. But the story doesn't end there. Oh no! We have to revisit the deaths a few times before Death finally wraps the whole thing up.
My big question about this novel is- what makes it Young Adult? Yes, Liesel is eight years old when it begins, but that doesn't seem quite enough. Teens these days are unlikely to even know a person who remembers WWII, so the specific story doesn't seem all that relatable. The major tensions of the book are not ones that exist in everyday life, at least not in the same way that other YA books I've read do. Maybe it's just another way to keep the realities of WWII Germany in current conversations. If so, it seems to be doing that. My teenage niece loves this book. I doubt she saw Schindler's List or Life Is Beautiful.
Overall, I'm pretty ambivalent about this novel. It didn't give me a case of the Feels. It wasn't new territory or groundbreaking insight. Nor was it really entertaining. But the context for the target audience and for effort alone, I give The Book Thief 2 Marias.
I'm going to attempt to discuss a few key points in an orderly manner, but having had my brain scrambled by this book, I beg your pardon if it comes out jumbled.
First, Death as narrator. This isn't a completely novel approach to storytelling (see what I did there?). At first I actually enjoyed reading the buildup of Nazi Germany from a non-human point of view. But, ugh, the gimmick. The flow is disrupted by those stupid boldface interjections of no value. And for a mostly indifferent persona, death sure uses a lot of indicators of extreme emotion. But to what end? To tell us what he's about to tell us.
Second, the book thief. Ok, let's start with the fact that she only technically steals one book in the whole story. One she picks up after someone drops it. Another she rescues from a pile of smoldering ashes. And, after she steals the one book, the owner starts leaving more for her to "steal." So, she doesn't seem very worthy of this title. And as the story progresses, you learn that Death, too, has picked up a book someone left behind. So he's a book thief too! Oh how clever! Not.
Then, the characters are not well developed. Hans has silver eyes. Rosa is a wardrobe of a woman with a cardboard face (whatever the heck that means). Liesel loves papa. Rudy loves Liesel. Max is a Jew. They are flat and they do incredibly foolish things. I think some of these instances, like giving bread to Jews as they are marched to Dachau, are supposed to illustrate the humanity of the main characters, that they really do love and care and pity the victims of the Holocaust. Except that giving them bread is sure to bring more suffering to the people- beatings or worse. So it seems, to me, that these are essentially selfish acts to alleviate some guilt of not acting sooner. It's certainly no black-and-white dilemma, but Death sure thinks it is. Over and over, acts of love bring more misery and death to the objects of that love. Death is kind of an asshole.
The tempo and chronology was the most troublesome for me. There isn't so much a foreshadowing of events as there is a sentence or two telling you something is going to happen. Then Death backs up (sometimes months) and finally brings you back to the original sentence. Again, it's gimmicky and tiresome. After everyone died, I kept reading and they were alive again. It took a big mental shift to figure out where in time I was. And then I leapt forward again. And literally the entire book is like this because the first sentence is that everyone dies. But the story doesn't end there. Oh no! We have to revisit the deaths a few times before Death finally wraps the whole thing up.
My big question about this novel is- what makes it Young Adult? Yes, Liesel is eight years old when it begins, but that doesn't seem quite enough. Teens these days are unlikely to even know a person who remembers WWII, so the specific story doesn't seem all that relatable. The major tensions of the book are not ones that exist in everyday life, at least not in the same way that other YA books I've read do. Maybe it's just another way to keep the realities of WWII Germany in current conversations. If so, it seems to be doing that. My teenage niece loves this book. I doubt she saw Schindler's List or Life Is Beautiful.
Overall, I'm pretty ambivalent about this novel. It didn't give me a case of the Feels. It wasn't new territory or groundbreaking insight. Nor was it really entertaining. But the context for the target audience and for effort alone, I give The Book Thief 2 Marias.
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