Some facts about this story/book
The protagonist – A 10 year old girl staying with her foster family
The place and time – A small village in Germany in 1939-43
The narrator – Death
Some important words - Nazi Germany, Auschwitz, the war, Hitler, the party, concentration camp, fear
Some other important words – Family, papa, mama, love, loss, hope, forgiveness, life
And if you think this is yet another war story talking about a family’s sufferings and the eventual triumph of good over evil, I would say think again.
Another fact
This book is all heart. And all love/loss. And I had never been more surprised as to what I had expected of the book and what it finally came out to be.
The author – Markus Zusak / his style of writing
(I have to talk about these 2 in one go because I do not know how to separate one from the other)
To begin with, I am yet to read a more clever and powerful use of words. All thru the book, Zusak is convincing, original, complicated. And yet, he gives us a book that grabs you by the heart and does not leave you till you are long finished with it. Words in this book are much more than a combination of letters conveying some meaning. Here, they are characters; they breathe, fall, lie and hit. Sometimes there is this ‘quiet gathering of words’ and at others there is a ‘miscarriaged pause’ and ‘the brutality of words leave the subject injured and bloody causing a series of wounds rise up to the surface’. Needless to say, not a single word is missing, not a single word is wasted. Most of the book is made up of sharp and short sentences with effects of bullets. Others are a random collection of delightful moments felt through words. If anyone can actually evoke physical emotions thru words, I would say it’s Zusak. Occasional knots in the stomach, the frequent feeling of the heart in your throat, wet eyes and lots of smiles – the simple effects of being the reader of this book. The chapters do not follow one after the other; the events go back and forth in terms of time and characters, never missing a single heartbeat. Like apples arranged in a basket, they look beautiful, but when you rearrange them, they are equally attractive.
Excerpts
He had what he called just a small ration of tools:
A painted book.
A handful of pencils.
A mindful of thoughts.
Like a simple puzzle, he put them together.
Christmas greetings from Max Vandenburg
‘Often I wish this would all be over, Liesel, but then, somehow you do something like walk down the basement steps with a snowman in your hands’
In the tree shadows, Liesel watched the boy. How things had changed, from fruit stealer to bread giver… She heard his stomach growl – and he was giving people bread.
Was this Germany?
Was this Nazi Germany?
It was like good old days. A minor air raid in May. A ‘Heil Hitler!’ here or there and everything was fine.
Until the ninety-eighth day.
The story, narration
Of course I know more than to give the story away. Here are just some pointers. Death(as the narrator of the story) sometimes has an amazing sense of humor, (Justified I would say – how else do you handle something so unpleasant yet inevitable?) is often morbid, and always no nonsense. And the story is such a contradiction in itself – the love, sanity maintained in the most harrowing of times, Hitler’s madness, the pain/suffering of the Jews(and the non-fanatical Germans) so well described. The hatred is so vivid, so huge, and then there is love. Found in the most unlikely of places and times. There are more than one family in the story and each of them, in their quiet and certain ways value it, live for it, basking in the small moments of shared love. The often wordless understanding is so soothing in the war-torn lives of people. There are stories inside stories and sometimes we can’t help disliking our narrator for spoiling the plot much before it actually happens. Every once a while something sad comes up as bubbles but joy and happiness(however disguised) stay on the surface - well, at least till the end…
The end – If we discount the epilogue, there is no abrupt end here. It’s just a series of moments of curtains falling. And they break your heart - all these moments. If you feel like crying, do it with quietness and certainty. The book(and you) deserves this. And it’s not for everybody. It’s not what you or I will call a happy ending. May be I would like a different end, but I am not sure.
One of the final observations by the narrator – I am haunted by humans.
Well, Mr Zusak, just so you know - I am haunted by your book. It just does not leave me. But how can I ever thank you enough?