What's Elizabeth Reading? ...Markus Zusak

Thank you, Markus Zusak, for writing The Book Thief.

This is a special book.  It's difficult to talk about this book in a blog post, but I will do my best.  ...I was assigned this book by my Young Adult Lit. professor, and I told myself I would finish it Friday, reading 110 pages a day (I planned to read the bulk of it in five days).  I finished it today -- Thursday -- because I didn't want to stop.  Every day I read, I read more than 110 pages a day.  I was almost to the point of telling myself to stop reading each day so I could enjoy it the next day, too.  The Book Thief might be one of my favorite books now.  Definitely something I will reread.  I'm almost tempted to reread it right now.

I've already said that The Book Thief was about World War II.  Actually, I believe I said it was about the Holocaust, but I was wrong.  It is about Himmel Street (Heaven Street) in Molching, Germany during WWII.

This book made me smile, and it made me cry.  But the crying was like smiling, somehow.

In an attempt to explain what makes this book so ... wise.  I stop at this word because I want to explain my use of it.  I searched through my vocabulary for a word to describe how I feel about this book, but soon turned to a thesaurus for help.  Just as I typed in the closest word I could think of ("beautiful"), I thought of this one.  In the Bible, "wise" is used to describe the men who crafted the tabernacle that the Israelites took with them through the wilderness.  It does not denote street-smarts so much as a true knowledge begotten by research, experience, and inspiration.  I feel like, in that sense, Zusak was wise when he wrote this story.

So, in an attempt to explain what makes this book so wise (I could also use the word "sublime"), here is a short, incomplete list of attributes that make The Book Thief stand out.

Death tells the story.  A quote will help me explain why this is more than an interesting approach:

On June 23, 1942, there was a group of French Jews in a German prison, on Polish soil. The first person I took was close to the door, his mind racing, then reduced to pacing, then slowing down, slowing down....

Please believe me when I tell you that I picked up each soul that day as if it were newly born.  I even kissed a few weary, poisoned cheeks.  I listened to their last, gasping cries.  Their vanishing words.  I watched their love visions and freed them from their fear.

I took them all away, and if there was a time I needed distraction, this was it.   In complete desolation, I looked at the world above.  I watched the sky as it turned from silver to gray to the color of rain.  Even the clouds were trying to get away. (pg. 350)

 I have read more than one book about war, and more than one about WWII and the Holocaust, in particular.  This is the first time I have seen this approach, and I love that it shows exactly what happened.  It doesn't hide how ugly the scenes are, but it does show them in a hopeful light: death is freedom.  Death takes them away from all of this, and he isn't unfeeling about it.  The reader is not left with a feeling of hopelessness.  At the same time, Zusak does not shove a particular religion at the reader.  It is a miraculous balancing act.

The story is given through the eyes of a child.  While Death narrates, he gets his information from Liesel, who is a pre-teen through most of the novel.  You might argue that that means she isn't a child; the point of view is childlike, though.  Death discusses colors like Liesel would.  He talks about how she feels after stealing books.  I can't quite describe it.  Thing is, there is horror involved in war that only a child can see, and there is shelter to be found in childhood that adults cannot reach.  The reader is given this lens, and it transforms a story about war.  Because it isn't about war.  It is about boxing, learning to read, carrying laundry, and a host of other things.  War swallows the story, envelopes it, and watches it pass by.

The descriptions in this book are unique. Five random examples, taken from five random pages as I flip open the book while writing this, will hopefully show you what I mean.  Because brilliant descriptions saturate the book.

Her throat was barren now.  No words for miles. (pg. 263)

Liesel was sure her mother carried the memory of him, slung over her shoulder.  She dropped him.  She saw his feet and legs and body slap the platform. (pg. 25) 

Every minute, every hour, there was worry, or more to the point, paranoia.  Criminal activity will do that to a person, especially a child.  They envision a prolific assortment of caughtoutedness.  Some examples: People jumping out of alleys.  Schoolteachers suddenly being aware of every sin you've ever committed.  Police showing up at the door each time a leaf turns or a distant gate slams shut. (pg. 129)

Silver eyes were pelted then. (pg. 395)

The feather was lovely and trapped, in the door hinges of the church on Munich Street.  It poked itself crookedly out and Liesel hurried over to rescue it.  The fibers were combed flat on the left, but the right side was made of delicate edges and sections of jagged triangles.  There was no other way of describing it.  (pg. 321-322)

Most of the characters die, but Death gives us a heads-up.  It is terrible, but we are prepared.  I sometimes wonder whether we could take life better, whether it would be easier, if we were told how the story of our life will end.  I guess it would depend on your temperament.  For this book, it lessened the blow.  Helpful if you are a younger reader, and it also adds depth and meaning to the story.  What each character does with the little time remaining to them becomes so much more important to the reader.  Being told of the deaths in advance also made me feel like these deaths belonged to the story, not as if they just happened.  They fit, they belonged, they were natural -- but that did not make them any less sad.
 
I do not expect to see any of these characters walking around in Germany.  That is not one of the strengths of this book.  I do not feel as if the characters are living and breathing within its pages.  I feel like this could be a true story, though.  Can you tell the difference?  I can tell it is fiction, but I feel like it tells the story a lot of German children might have lived at this time.  I have to wonder if Zusak has German ties.

I hereby admit that I have never read The Diary of Anne Frank -- but then, I've never wanted to.  But of all the war stories I have ever read, Zusak's has been by far the best.

By the way -- I looked it up, and The Book Thief is being made into a movie.  I'm scared they won't do a good job, but I know this could make a great movie if it was done right.