The power of words
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Markus Zusak's The Book Thief is a book to be read, relished, recommended and remembered (and attempted to be reviewed). One blurb says it is “a haunting tale that will steal your heart”. I think this young-adult book will also chill your heart, warm it, wrench it and melt it.
Letting Death be the narrator. Zusak gives us a story about the First World War in which the characters, by being so characteristically themselves, endear themselves to us. We have Liesel, the protagonist, an innocent sensitive young girl; her loveable, accordion-playing foster father, and her seemingly harsh foster mother; there's Rudy, an adorable young boy, a true friend, and Max Vandenburg, a charismatic young Jew. The mayor's wife, too, is an interesting person who, appreciating Liesel's love of books, befriends her.
The story, set in Nazi Germany, has a unique plot – in familiar surroundings (familiar because of all the facts and fiction we gave read about this extremely difficult and significant time in history, the Holocaust). We get caught up in the dramatic unfolding of events in a simple girl's life as she confronts monumental changes. The people whose lives she becomes a part of, and who, in turn, grow to mean everything to her, form the framework of this immensely enjoyable book.
Liesel Memminger is illiterate but is attracted to books and turns into a book aficionado – resorting to stealing books when and where possible. (How this love comes about is an awe-inspiring story in itself). Her foster father, Hans Hubermann, teaches her to read; it starts off by being “their secret”.
As the years pass, the touching incidents in and around Liesel's life bring to light the tremendous capacity that humans have for enduring hardships. The depth of human goodness also manifests itself in various ways. The most striking example is when the Hubermanns not only hide a Jew in their basement, but also loom after him with love and care – knowing full well the perils they are inviting.
The various relationships and the moving ways in which these relationships blossom will make even the most cynical among us want to believe in the power of positive emotions.
Death, who talks of being extremely busy in these war-ridden times, does not just come and snatch people's lives away. As he tells us about his job, he seems to have varying feelings for his victims and even analyses them. He says Liesel is “a girl with a mountain to climb”. His comments about human beings are startling: “I am always finding human beings at their best and worst. I see their ugly and their beauty, and I wonder how the same thing can be both”. Death's last words are, “I am haunted by humans”.
Liesel is only nine years old when her mother takes her and six-year-old brother to Munich to hand them over to foster parents. The brother dies on the train. Thus begins Liesel's journey into the unknown. Every step of this journey has been described in a way that does not cease to fascinate.
Worse days come, dangers multiply. But Liesel's love of reading becomes stronger as she learns to adapt to her new world. She discovers the joy that written words bring, and receives warmth and compassion even from unlikely sources. Alongside all this, of course, exist the constant tension, fear and atrocities caused by the Nazis. If we are appalled by these cruelties (described on some pages), we are also made to feel good due to the kindness and understanding shown by some people (on other pages). The book, is, indeed, a page-turner!
Markus Zusak has produced a novel that encompasses numerous elements: courage and selflessness in the face of adversity, compassion and heart-felt gratitude, a haunting sense of guilt, the overpowering presence of deprivation, inhuman conduct and above all, the beauty of life.
Another blurb says, “It's the book to pick up for people who love to read”. I feel that it is also the book to pick for people who don't love to read – because it will create that love in them.
Nausheen Rahman, academic and critic, has studied English literature at Dhaka University
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