The Book Thief, by Markus Zusak

The Book Thief, by Markus Zusak

Tomorrow is the 75th Anniversary of Kristallnacht, also known as the ‘Night of Broken Glass.’  Over the course of only two days, in Winter 1938, the SA paramilitary wing of the Nazi Party devastated the German-Jewish community. Businesses were smashed, homes destroyed, and civilians killed. It was a sign of things to come. 

Markus Zusak’s Book Thief, is a stout reminder of such a time, but also how the lives of ordinary Germans were intwined with the fate of their Jewish Neighbors. 

Liesel Meminger is the hero of the novel, and more particularly she is a stealer of stories. After witnessing the death of her younger brother, and being abandoned to foster parents, she increasingly learns to explore the world of family, friendship, and her country, by books and words. They become, a blessing and a curse.

The Book Thief, has a rich tapestry of colourful characters. Hans Hubermann and his wife Rosa Hubermann are the doting family Liesel grows up under. Hans paints, plays the accordion, and rolls cigarettes. Rosa berates and scolds, while being a washer-woman, but underneath she has a soft heart. On the same street, is Liesel’s best friend Rudy Steiner, a boy who wants to run like Jesse Owens. And Hidden in her basement is Max Vandeburg, a Jewish Fist Fighter, who is writing down his life story, and hiding out.

Navigating the perils of adolescence is hard enough, but for Liesel it will involve dealing with the Nazi state. In fact, in time, the whole of her street, will all have to come to terms, with the fate of their country, and its collective actions during the war.

For myself, the novel reminds me of the best work of Dickens. The characters are larger than life, and instantly lovable. The stories they share are timeless, because they are about the most important things in this life: Growing up, the bonds of friendship, family, and the depth and limit of human kindness. 

To me, the most interesting aspect of the novel is the narrator. None other than Death himself! On the surface, the Grip Reaper appears as a kind undertaker, conscripted into a job he hates, and with a boss who has unaccountably vanished! In Nazi Germany his workload is unprecedentedly high. It is busy time, but more to point, Death is haunted by his line of work. As an old friend, who does his duty, he benevolently carries off human beings, from their plight, into eternity, and mourns their loss after they’re gone.

However, in my opinion, there is something shady about this character Death. While he waxes poetically about the loss of life, and the terrible burden he is made to bear, there is something sentimental, even glib, in his manner. Beneath all the beautiful syntax and philosophical musings, Death is a greedy sensualist, who chooses form over substance.  

For example, he has an uncanny ability to talk of individuals as if they were inanimate objects. ‘Rosa Hubermann, looked like a small wardrobe,’ Liesel has ‘wire shins’ and ‘coat hanger arms,’ and Max Vandeburg appears like ‘a struck match.’

 In opposition, he refers to the landscape itself as if it were a human being. The street ‘is shaped like a broken arm [...] These houses were almost like lepers’ and they are, ‘infected sores on the German terrain.’

As much as he is ‘haunted by humans,’ we, should be even more haunted by his appetite for colours. Although he claims to like them all, there are only three he feels intensely. ‘They fall on top of each other. The scribbled signature Black, onto the blinding global White, onto the thick soupy Red.’ In other words, the colours and design of Nazi flag and Swastika!

Zusak’s Book Thief is a timeless tale of the human spirit. It is also told with linguistic flare and creativity. Like Liesel we will be impressed and awed by the power of words. It is a novel which, asks some important questions about responsibility and choice, and carries a hidden depth, which means it can be reread over and over again. More so, than anything else, it shows the innocence of adolescence, and burden of adulthood which all children must inherit.