I was given some money (thanks by the way :D) specifically to buy books I wanted to read. This book was one, although technically it comes under the child to adolescent category, was not only a bloody amazing book, but rather mature and I really question whether pre-teens and even young teenagers would be suitable to understand the emotions and the frequent casual references made to events that I don't think many would really know about (i.e Holocaust).
Well, let's give you a summary to start, shall we? The Book Thief is narrated by Death, but the plot revolves around Liesel Meminger (the book thief) in Germany during World War II. On the way to her foster parents house with her mother and brother, her brother dies, and it is at his funeral that she steals her first book. Her illiteracy forms a bond with her new 'Papa' Hans Hubermann when he proceeds to teach her how to read. Liesel comes to understand the power of words. Being able to read them empowers her, but it also empowers others: "Without words, the Führer was nothing." After learning how to read she begins to gather more books. She saves books from book burnings and steals some from the Burgermeister's wife's library. Books became the channel through which a closeness to her 'new' family and a Jewish fistfighter, who is hidden in their basement, is formed. It is essentially a story about a girl's perspective of literally surviving Nazi Germany. You will experience titters and tears, trials and tribulations but it is all worth it.
Through Liesel, who never looses her innocence although gathering an understanding far greater than many an adult, we the readers come to the same understanding. Reading provides an escape for her, wither by stealing the book (an act of revenge often) or actually delving into the depths of the book. She helps other like the Jewish fistfight Max and Ilsa Hermann and Frau Holtzapfel. On this small scale, it seems she is undoing the damaging and dividing words of Hitler and his followers. Max calling her the word shaker, like he termed Hitler, highlights this. She has the mastery of words but used them for good. It provides us with an eloquent contrast, especially ironic when he whitewashes the words of Mein Kampf to write his story of the word shaker (Liesel).
The words of Death quietly guiding us through the story are sheer mastery. They guide but do not intrude and the insight we gain alongside the quips and jokes and irony... truly... it is beautifully and delicately written.
There is no judgement towards the end, only acceptance. There is no explanation by Death. That is not his role. He accepts the past and so must we. The narration of Death turns our perception of death upside down. He is not heartless, cruel and uncompromising. He cares and avoids human contact for fear of getting attached. He sees deaths in terms of colours 'coloured' by emotions. He carries off the souls carefully and lovingly. It perverts our typecasting of death. We face the possibility of our death, or at least I did. If death was like this, I would not mind. In the end, he is mainly the cleaner, the janitor, the housekeeper of the world; he is just tidying up after the mess the humans made:"Forget the scythe, God damn it, I needed a broom or a mop."
Well, I think you can guess I enjoyed this book and made me pause for thought. Perhaps too deep. Read it if you ever get a chance. Just make sure you don't have to do anything important in the mean time because Death will get its claws into you and ensure your hooked with hints at what the future holds chapters before it actually occurs making you read on until you know how it happens!
For now, adieu...
Well, let's give you a summary to start, shall we? The Book Thief is narrated by Death, but the plot revolves around Liesel Meminger (the book thief) in Germany during World War II. On the way to her foster parents house with her mother and brother, her brother dies, and it is at his funeral that she steals her first book. Her illiteracy forms a bond with her new 'Papa' Hans Hubermann when he proceeds to teach her how to read. Liesel comes to understand the power of words. Being able to read them empowers her, but it also empowers others: "Without words, the Führer was nothing." After learning how to read she begins to gather more books. She saves books from book burnings and steals some from the Burgermeister's wife's library. Books became the channel through which a closeness to her 'new' family and a Jewish fistfighter, who is hidden in their basement, is formed. It is essentially a story about a girl's perspective of literally surviving Nazi Germany. You will experience titters and tears, trials and tribulations but it is all worth it.
Through Liesel, who never looses her innocence although gathering an understanding far greater than many an adult, we the readers come to the same understanding. Reading provides an escape for her, wither by stealing the book (an act of revenge often) or actually delving into the depths of the book. She helps other like the Jewish fistfight Max and Ilsa Hermann and Frau Holtzapfel. On this small scale, it seems she is undoing the damaging and dividing words of Hitler and his followers. Max calling her the word shaker, like he termed Hitler, highlights this. She has the mastery of words but used them for good. It provides us with an eloquent contrast, especially ironic when he whitewashes the words of Mein Kampf to write his story of the word shaker (Liesel).
The words of Death quietly guiding us through the story are sheer mastery. They guide but do not intrude and the insight we gain alongside the quips and jokes and irony... truly... it is beautifully and delicately written.
There is no judgement towards the end, only acceptance. There is no explanation by Death. That is not his role. He accepts the past and so must we. The narration of Death turns our perception of death upside down. He is not heartless, cruel and uncompromising. He cares and avoids human contact for fear of getting attached. He sees deaths in terms of colours 'coloured' by emotions. He carries off the souls carefully and lovingly. It perverts our typecasting of death. We face the possibility of our death, or at least I did. If death was like this, I would not mind. In the end, he is mainly the cleaner, the janitor, the housekeeper of the world; he is just tidying up after the mess the humans made:"Forget the scythe, God damn it, I needed a broom or a mop."
Well, I think you can guess I enjoyed this book and made me pause for thought. Perhaps too deep. Read it if you ever get a chance. Just make sure you don't have to do anything important in the mean time because Death will get its claws into you and ensure your hooked with hints at what the future holds chapters before it actually occurs making you read on until you know how it happens!
For now, adieu...
2 comments:
Thanks for the suggestion. I'll put it on my reading list. This connects, doesn't it, with your previous post. If we have no books, we have no history. Which is part of what Hitler was trying to do. There is an interesting sci-fi book by Ray Bradbury called
'Fahrenheit 451' - which is the temperature at which paper burns - in a future world ruled by a regime like Orwell's Big Brother. Book readers were outcasts, persecuted and living on the margins. Without books, no questions asked, so history is 'written' by the victors. Churchill's remark was flippant - but it has a point, and the point is about the importance of readers and historians being free to question and test what the 'victors' or the establishment say. Thank goodness that, apart from Churchill's, most political memoirs are so dire no-one gives them the least credence. Prescott's?
haha! so true... thank God no one really read Prescott's, or at least took him seriously! And finally, us historians have a use!! We can analyse and criticise the remarks made by those victors and those in power and evaluate the worth of their statements.
Yes, the book does tie in with the previous post about history, who writes it, who controls it, etc and how Hitler was trying to control it. I wonder whether that is why I wrote the blog? I wrote it immediately after I had finished the book... *ponders*
wooo I will deifnitely have to read fahrenheit 451- sounds good; I like Orwell and sci-fi, so it sounds like the combination should work!!
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