Book Review: The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
Liesel Meminger is illiterate when she steals her first book, The Grave Digger’s Handbook, at her brother’s funeral. Soon after arriving at her foster parents’ home, she learns how to read and thus begins her journey to book thievery. Upon first glance, the back cover would lead you to believe that this is a simple tale about a girl and her love of literature. The Book Thief is so much more. The novel is set during World War II where death surrounds Liesel and yet, through it all, her relationships keep her alive and her books help bind them
I am haunted by humans. [pg. 550]
There are several aspects of this novel that I fell in love with. The first is death. Death is the narrator of this novel and at first, all of my images of men in black capes with scythes made me really dread death’s words. But Zusak’s death is not dark and full of doom. He is an observer and during World War II, he is very busy. While Liesel’s affair is with literature, Death’s affair is with Liesel. He is fascinated by her story and her persistence.  Death for the most part is very melancholic; he has seen the worst of people and the best. He has seen lives ended too soon and some that ended too late. He is never judging; however, there are certain souls that he is more interested in than others and Liesel is one of them.
…I don’t have much interest in building mystery. Mystery bores me. It chores me. I know what happens and so do you. [pg. 243]
The second piece of this novel that I love is that Death keeps alluding to what will happen without ever really saying it. There are so many novels that I have read (especially Holocaust novels) that never really hint at the ending and then comes the shock at the end; so the suspence in the novel is driven by the fact that you don’t know what the twist is. However, in The Book Thief, the reader can readily deduce that death is a part of the story and there will be death even if we deny it as we read. How can it not be? However, Death does not just give you the answer, he points to what may happen or what will inevitably happen. Then there comes the question, can you handle the ending? Can you admit what you all ready know?
I have hated the words and I have loved them, and I hope I have made them right. [pg. 528]
The last aspect of this novel that I fell in love with was Liesel’s affair with books and the words written in them. We speak words, we read words and yet how many times do we really examine what we are saying and what we are reading. Not very often. Yet, this girl reads these books over and over again. She never really asks why; she knows why, but she is seeking some deeper meaning among these heaps of words that she steals. She is seeking her way among these novels trying to come to grips with the tragedy that surrounds her. Yet in her quest, she finds love and friendship. She comes to find people who are inherently kind and generous. People who take her into their home and love her as they would their own child. That’s the part of this novel that will stay with me; that even though there is danger in kindness, that there is risk with generosity, these characters constantly risk it all.   They risk it all because it is the right thing to do and their hearts and souls cannot allow them to be any less.
The Book Thief will go down as one of my favorite books of all time. The beauty of the language and the characters will stay with me. I cannot forget key moments, people or sentences. The melancholic tone along with the beautiful language keeps echoing in my ears as I write this review. The Book Thief, unlike other novels set during the Holocaust, comes from an outsider and I realized that the Jewish people were not the only ones effected during this war, but there were other people full of kindness that longed to do the right thing when there was no benefit for them to do so.
They were French, they were Jews, and they were you. [pg 350]
Sometimes authors use a novel or screenplay to support a political or social belief. This is no clearly evident with Holocaust books and films. Whenever we stand up to those who deny or minimize the Holocaust, or to those who support genocide we profer a critical message to the world.
We live in an age of vulnerability. Holocaust deniers ply their vitriolic poison everywhere, especially with young people on the Internet. We know from captured German war records that millions of Jews (and others) were systematically exterminated by Nazi Germany – most in gas chambers. Holocaust books and films help to tell the true story of the Shoah, not anti-Semitic historical revision. And, they protect future generations from making the same mistakes.
To learn what it felt like to live through the Holocaust, read “Jacob’s Courage. This is a tender coming of age love story of two young adults living in Salzburg at the time when the Nazi war machine enters Austria. This historical novel presents accurate scenes and situations of Jews in ghettos and concentration camps, with particular attention to Theresienstadt and Auschwitz. It explores the dazzling beauty of passionate love and enduring bravery in a lurid world where the innocent are murdered. From despair, to unforgettable moments of chaste beauty, “Jacob’s Courage” examines a constellation of emotions during a time of incomprehensible brutality.
Many authors feel compelled by their conscience to use their talent to promote moral causes. Holocaust books and movies carry that message globally, in an age when the world needs to be told that genocide is unacceptable. Such authors show the world that religious, racial, ethnic and gender persecution is wrong, that historical revision to promote hatred will not be tolerated and that tolerance is our progeny’s only hope.
There is nothing like an engaging story to motivate people to action and help them become more aware of a political issue. The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns helped me become more aware of the political issues of Afghanistan. I learned about the Holocaust in high school and have been very aware of the issues there.
As for the Holocaust, I believe that many people are aware of what happened. There are many people who deny that the Holocaust every happened; but in it’s place there are millions who believe that it did. There are many novels about the Holocaust that I have really loved and I hope that the memory of the true happenings of the Holocaust never fades.
[...] from Yule Time Reading is loving The Book Thief by Markus Zusak. The beauty of the language and the characters will stay [...]
Thanks for the very good review. I also love “The Book Thief”. The book is very rich. One of the themes is how reading effects lives, shapes them in ways we do not see. By the end of the book I even liked the narrator Death. I urge any one who has not yet read Markus Zusak’s “I Am The Messenger” to also read that book.
I love when authors use books as part of their story. It really adds dimension to the story and draw the reader in because obviously, the reader like books, too. I have now added “I am the Messenger” to my to-read pile. I have heard a lot of great things about it