I should probably wait a couple of days after I finish a book before I post about it, so that I have time for the thoughts to really flesh themselves out. But I didn't for this book so here are my preliminary thoughts about a very thought-provoking book.
This is a WWII era novel about a German girl growing up in Munich. I found that refreshing for one--I've read a lot of accounts of the holocaust, both fictional and non-fictional, but it's always seemed as if the German perspective were a bit taboo. Which I can understand--no author can really get away with saying how the German populace could rationalize agreeing with Hitler's thinking without justifying Hitler's thinking. One of my favorite movies, Judgment at Nuremberg allows the judges who passed the discriminatory laws against Jews and other targeted peoples to have a voice, but that voiced is trumped in the end by the righteous American judge who tells them they were still wrong and sends them to jail. Zusak, the author of The Book Thief, examines the German people as a mixed bag with varying levels of support for Hitler's reforms--the main characters ones who hide Jews at most or who are bored with Hitler's youth programs at least.
I've read a couple of reviews that critiqued Zusak's narrator--Death. They felt that it would have been better to leave the unfolding of events to the main character, a ten year old girl. That way, the reviewers argued, you would have been aware of the innocence and naivety that was slaughtered by the horrific events. I really liked Death as a narrator. I thought he was appropriately omniscient and therefore could comment on the cruelty and kindness humans are capable of. I think it is both humanity's cruelty and their kindness that leads Death to reflect, "I am haunted by humans."
The power of words is a major theme in this book, something I thought about a lot about in graduate school studying semiotics and I think about now teaching English 150, Writing and Rhetoric. I've studied speeches that stir people to action, words that change outcomes of serious political situations. I've felt both cruel words and kind words and felt emotionally changed by them. I think of sacred words that I've uttered during ordinances and think of their constancy and power. I reflect on John 1:1 and think of Christ as The Word, who by virtue of the integrity of his words could create the universe. I don't know where these thoughts really lead me, but I will add two more ideas to these musings from Zusak--a boxing Jew who imagines himself face-to-face with Hitler in the ring, ready to punch him out, who looses because Hitler, through the power of his words, convinces the spectators to join him in beating down the Jew; and a young German girl who is so desperate for words and literature that she steals them.
This is a WWII era novel about a German girl growing up in Munich. I found that refreshing for one--I've read a lot of accounts of the holocaust, both fictional and non-fictional, but it's always seemed as if the German perspective were a bit taboo. Which I can understand--no author can really get away with saying how the German populace could rationalize agreeing with Hitler's thinking without justifying Hitler's thinking. One of my favorite movies, Judgment at Nuremberg allows the judges who passed the discriminatory laws against Jews and other targeted peoples to have a voice, but that voiced is trumped in the end by the righteous American judge who tells them they were still wrong and sends them to jail. Zusak, the author of The Book Thief, examines the German people as a mixed bag with varying levels of support for Hitler's reforms--the main characters ones who hide Jews at most or who are bored with Hitler's youth programs at least.
I've read a couple of reviews that critiqued Zusak's narrator--Death. They felt that it would have been better to leave the unfolding of events to the main character, a ten year old girl. That way, the reviewers argued, you would have been aware of the innocence and naivety that was slaughtered by the horrific events. I really liked Death as a narrator. I thought he was appropriately omniscient and therefore could comment on the cruelty and kindness humans are capable of. I think it is both humanity's cruelty and their kindness that leads Death to reflect, "I am haunted by humans."
The power of words is a major theme in this book, something I thought about a lot about in graduate school studying semiotics and I think about now teaching English 150, Writing and Rhetoric. I've studied speeches that stir people to action, words that change outcomes of serious political situations. I've felt both cruel words and kind words and felt emotionally changed by them. I think of sacred words that I've uttered during ordinances and think of their constancy and power. I reflect on John 1:1 and think of Christ as The Word, who by virtue of the integrity of his words could create the universe. I don't know where these thoughts really lead me, but I will add two more ideas to these musings from Zusak--a boxing Jew who imagines himself face-to-face with Hitler in the ring, ready to punch him out, who looses because Hitler, through the power of his words, convinces the spectators to join him in beating down the Jew; and a young German girl who is so desperate for words and literature that she steals them.
I just finished this book -- and I loved it for many of the same reasons you did. As it is written for adolescents, I am curious as to how they like it. It is certainly unlike most other books they read. Didn't you love the boy with lemon-colored hair?
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