The 10 year old Liesel has lost her father to the Nazis who branded him communist, and took him away. Her younger brother dies on the journey to Molching, a strange town where her foster parents wait, and after leaving her there, with the foul mouthed Rosa and the soft hearted Hans, her mother vanishes.
The Book Thief begins with the weight of Liesel’s tragic losses, but if you think it is a joyless WW II story you’re in for many surprises.
Mark Zusak is a young writer, influenced by his parents’ experiences in Nazi Germany, and these form crucial reference points upon which the stunningly different narrative is hung.
He chooses Death, weary and overburdened with his job of collecting souls, to tell us the story of Liesel Meminger as she sometimes stumbles and sometimes skips through the next two years of her life. "War is a demanding boss, " Death sighs.He is droll, makes tongue-in-cheek comments, ("I never carry a scythe and don’t wear a hooded cloak unless it is cold" ) spoils the suspense, and breaks our hearts too, by revealing incidents much before they happen, yet brings out beautifully the horror and needless cruelty of that time.
He is filled with admiration for Liesel whom he meets several times as he harvests souls of people close to her to send them on the ’conveyor belt of eternity, ’ and tells us her story.
Liesel’s life is not easy. She watches as Jews are marched through the town streets on their way to the concentration camps, Rosa dishes up horrid pea soup (there is little else to eat) and hard work with equal vigour, and the Allies’ bombs fall with increasing frequency.
She also bears the burden of a secret that could destroy her family and the fragile normalcy of her life - Rosa and Hans have hidden Max, a Jew, in the basement of their house (he hasn’t seen sunshine in two years!) She guards their secret, forms a close bond with the fugitive, and is devastated when he leaves their house so that they may be spared detection. One more loss, but life and death still go on.
The Book Thief is about colours, images and words - words that Markus Zusak uses skillfully to bring a tragic period in history to full blown and heart wrenching life, and words in the books that Liesel’s steals, first from her brother’s graveside, from Nazi bookburnings, from the one person who understands her better than anybody else, and from where ever else she can. In these stolen words she finds comfort and with these she offers distraction to her neighbours huddled in bomb shelters, not knowing if they will live long enough to hear the end of the stories she reads to them.
Life in the time of Nazi oppression is not easy to write about in a manner that is fresh and new, but Zusak succeeds brilliantly. He has written an unusual, yet completely absorbing novel, supposedly for young adults, but having universal appeal, filled with haunting images. Inspite of its heart-rending subject, it is not pessimistic, and tells of hope and courage in a witty, matter of fact and unsentimental manner.
By taking us into the lives of ordinary people, and showing us how their small acts of kindness, bravery and quiet defiance, made a difference, Zusak exposes the goodness that often lies hidden beneath the grim reality of every war torn life. You will smile with it, and feel the weight of its sadness, and when you are done, even though you struggle to come to terms with mans’ brutality, you will be truly thankful for the goodness that exists in this universe. This is a book to treasure.