Tuesday, February 7, 2012

The Book Thief made me ugly cry

I confess, my biggest fear going into this book was that I wouldn't cry. It's worrisome being practically the last person to read something that has made everyone else weep. What if I'm the ONLY person in the world impervious to the trials of a little girl in Nazi Germany? WHAT IF I'M DEAD INSIDE?

I needn't have worried. I cried alright. In my front yard. In the middle of the afternoon. On Super Bowl Sunday. People walking by with boxes of beer and family-size chip bags were treated to the sight of a girl blubbering into the grass.

If you are one of the few who haven't read this one yet, it's about Liesel, a young girl trying to navigate the usual obstacles of youth and the added strain of growing up under Hitler's thundercloud. It's also about the power of words, for good and for evil. Our narrator is Death, which is perfect for a lot of reasons, not least of which that we get passages like this:
"It was a year for the ages, like 79, like 1346, to name just a few. Forget the scythe, Goddamn it, I needed a broom or a mop. And I needed a vacation. . . . They say that war is death's best friend, but I must offer you a different point of view on that one. To me, war is like the new boss who expects the impossible." (pp. 307, 309)

We've all grown up with the knowledge of WWII and the horrors contained therein. We know so much about it, in fact, that the horror has started to lose its sharp edges. It's good to remember that humans are capable of the worst atrocities, and this book does some reminding, but the real value of The Book Thief is in how it puts a human face on events in a way that doesn't seem engineered to make the reader ashamed to be human. Death is a fair narrator, and all sides are represented. And, anyway, the evil acts aren't what makes this book so heartbreaking . . . it's the kind ones.

Now here's an ending that makes me feel better.


SOURCE: Zusak, Markus. (2005). The Book Thief. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.




24 comments:

  1. I read "I am the Messenger" by him. He has a good style of writing. One of the few books I actually enjoyed. _Tylerrat

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  2. Great job on this review by the way

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  3. I might give that one a try, too. His writing style *is* really unique. (Are you getting excited about being an uncle next month?!)

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  4. YEAH, SUCK IT, INTERNET, WE CAN WRITE SERIOUS POSTS TOO.

    But for reals, this has made me conflicted, because Raych haated this book, but other people + you like it and now I just have to read it and boooo because sadness.

    Sophie's Choice did something similar for me in terms of losing all the cultural accoutrements that have attached themselves to WWII and the Nazi party, and making it once again just be about what it was: humans being evil and a recognition that we are capable of this.

    Agh sad books.

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  5. I have maajor issues with this book, because I was all like 'ooh, death, you're a good narrator' but then also 'story, you are overlong and kind of boring, and OH LOOK I'M SOBBING' but it wasn't good crying because of all the heavy handed manipulation. I don't know. 

    Congrats on not being dead inside though! I think we can all be happy about that :)

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  6. Well, you're not the last bookish person in the world to read this book because I haven't yet, either.  Markus Zusak is one of the most adorable writers I've ever talked to and I fully intend to read this book one day (and not just because he's adorable but because this is probably one of those books that everybody should read, but then again, I feel that way about a lot of books and I'm rambling now so just never mind). 

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  7. The whole time I read this I found myself caught between thinking, "I am being manipulated to cry" and just flat-out crying. I don't want to say there's a wrong time to read the novel, but I may have chosen the wrong time - I was teaching at this girls' summer camp and would show up for every lesson with red eyes and a snotty nose. 

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  8. I sometimes felt that way, too...that Zusak was scheming over how to write things to achieve maximum emotional response. But I didn't cry until the VERY end. I held out as long as I could. ; )

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  9. I knew there must be others who hadn't read this yet! As for young Markus, when I flipped back to the author bio and saw his picture, I was pleasantly surprised. Not bad at all.

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  10. It WAS a little long, wasn't it? I was ready for it to be over about 3/4 of the way through. It wasn't a perfect book by any means. And Death kept giving away the endings! I was like, "Shut up, Death. Just because you don't like mystery doesn't mean you need to rob the rest of us of our delicious suspense." But OVERALL, I thought the good outweighed the bad.

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  11. Yeah, that'll show the Internet! Never mind that I canceled out all the serious with my Sherlock GIF. Never mind that at all.

    I can understand hating the book. It's not one of those where I look at people who say they didn't like it and reply, "Well, then...I guess you just didn't get it." Because I do that sometimes. But this isn't one of those times. It could really go either way. But it's not as big of a time commitment as Sophie's Choice...so there's that. I just like seeing familiar stories from new perspectives, and this did that for me. READ IT SO WE CAN DISCUSS.

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  12. Okay!

    ALSO I say that to people who say Holden Caulfield's just a whiny teenager. *looks at you with suspicion*

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  13. I may have said that...a time or two. OK...so maybe he's not JUST a whiny teenager, but he certainly IS a whiny teenager. Stop looking at me like that!

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  14. HE COMPLAINS BECAUSE HE IS A TEENAGER AND DOES NOT KNOW HOW ELSE TO DEAL WITH HOW WRONG EVERYTHING IS IN THE WORLD

    *ahem* 

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  15. Okay - now that you've read it, I may be officially the last person to read this book, because I obviously haven't read it yet!  Thanks for the heads up, I'll be sure to have my excuses at the ready (I've got something in my eye, my contacts are burning, etc).

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  16. This book made me cry ON AN AIRPLANE.  I will forever hold that against it.  

    In the beginning I was totally on board with Death as the narrator, but once he started telling me who was going to die in 200 pages, we were in a fight.  Also, what was with the whole color-of-the-sky motif he had going?  It just felt like an excuse to use poetic color metaphors (unless I'm just living in an area where the sky is especially nondescript).  

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  17. I think it had something to do with Death's perception of the setting...like he could see colors other people couldn't. I think. But the spoilers! I know! Stupid Death and his big mouth.

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  18. No excuses necessary...just point at the book cover. ; )

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  19. So for whatever reason I decided this wasn't going to make me cry so I was reading it in public and was totally crying while waiting for the bus and it was awkward. Jerk book.

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  20. Oh dear, now I feel like a bad person because I didn't cry...

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  21. Oh no! Well, that was unintended. Perhaps you're just tougher than most. : )

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  22. If I saw someone crying in public because of a book, I would want to be friends with them immediately. DO NOT BE ASHAMED OF YOUR TEARS.

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  23. Wow... people actually read your blog huh? Look at all those comments! I'm not in book circles enough to have heard of this, much less read it, but if this is something you own I'd very much like to take it from you. It sounds like something I would like. I'm sure I would stay very tear free while reading it, but I've known for a long time that I am extremely dead inside. Not just normal dead. Deader than that. Extreme deadness.

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  24. Geez, try not to sound so surprised.

    I'll give you the book tonight if I see you. Then we can discuss!

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