Nazi Germany. 1939. A small girl called Liesel, and a whole lot of love, friendship, sorrow and death. The novel The Book Thief, by Markus Zusak, is narrated by Death, which brings in a new perspective. Liesel is a nine-year old girl living on Himmel Street with a foster family. Her brother has died in front of her eyes on the way to Himmel Street, while her parents have been taken away to a concentration camp. Liesel has nightmares every night about the death of his brother, and Hans Hubermann (a.k.a. Papa) comes along every night to comfort her. They start reading the first book that Liesel stole, from one of the gravediggers at her brother’s funeral, The Gravediggers Handbook. As each night passes with some vocabulary lessons, one day a Jew which has escaped from Stuttgard arrives at Himmel Street and knocks on their door. Since Papa, Hans Hubermann, has promised the Jew’s mother to help, the Hubermann family take this “jew fist-fighter”, Max, to their basement and look after him. Everything goes perfectly until one day, when a death march to a concentration camp passes from Himmel Street. Papa brakes into the line and gives one of the Jews a piece of bread, which leads into him being punished and causes Max, the “jew fist-fighter” to leave home. Later in that month, Hans Hubermann gets sent away to the army. After a while he returns, Himmel Street gets bombed and the novel ends with an ironic twist. The Book Thief has incredible descriptions scattered here and there, among love, hate,friendship and death, which makes this novel a piece of literature that everyone should read.
The character descriptions that made every page sparkle are one of the highlights of this book. The author describes Papa as a tall, gentle men with metallic-grey, silver eyes. Papa also plays the accordion, and according to Liesel, “He makes the accordion breathe.”Towards the end of the book, Liesel imagines Papa playing the accordion, and the author describes him as the following: “He stood and strapped it on in the alps of broken houses. There were silver eyes. There was a cigarette slouched on his lips. He even made a mistake and laughed in lovely hindsight.” The metaphors spread everywhere and the use of literary devices make this passage unforgetable. “The alps of the broken houses”, “cigarette slouched on his lips” are just a few. The phrase “silver eyes” is repeated multiple times throughout the novel, but is never seems to bore the reader. On the other hand, Rosa Hubermann has “cardboard lips”, and she has a fiery attitude, mostly to the people she loves. Max Vandenburg is “the struggler”, the “jewish fist-fighter”. Another example of spectacular description is, “From a Himmel Street window, he wrote, the stars set fire to my eyes.” The quote pretty much explains itself. These are the lines that Max Vandenburg wrote, after seeing the stars again after a long period of time spent in the basement. Could this phrase get any better?
The storyline and characters being so close to reality makes this novel even more stunning. The friendship between Liesel and Rudy Steiner, the boy who lives next door, is like a piece of chocolate, it sweetens the bitter-sweet taste of the novel. The two best friends, eat, sleep, steal and live together. They have a very strong bond in between; they were together through thick and thin, war and peace, happiness and sorrow. Rudy helps Liesel to steal books from the Mayor’s library, and they later find out that the wife of the Mayor has been leaving the window of the library open on purpose. When Liesel was delivering Mama’s laundry for the Mayor, the wife of the Mayor would always invite her into the library and Liesel would read books there. The Mayor decided to end Mama’s service of laundry, but that didn’t stop Liesel from reading. She kept going back there with Rudy steal books. Also the events going on in the background are one of the bases of the novel. The war, Liesel’s school, issues with Max, Papa’s children coming home are only some of the underlying events in the novel that makes it seem more close to us. One important message that the novel tells us is that all German’s aren’t “bad”, as supported in almost all novels about the Second World War. Even the angry Rosa Hubermann that opposes every thought of her husband doesn’t oppose the thought of hiding a Jew.
One last thing about the novel I find very original is the chapter names, and that at the beginning of every chapter there is a list of what the chapter includes. Also, throughout the story the author has some bulletpoints that are sometimes very amusing, and sometimes very thought-provoking. These small points made by Death, or by the author, can express lots of ideas in a short sentence. They are the “acid” in the book, which make this novel unique, and for me, one of my favorite ones.
Markus Zusak has succeded in writing a unique, one-of-a-kind novel that will leave its impression on you for a long time. This page-turner, with its character descriptions, developing and close to reality story-line and its small bullet points, question & answers scattered here and there, and the love, friendship and death binded so tight, is a must-read and will make many eyes brim. One last thing I can say is that, The Book Thief stole my heart.
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