Can you ever
imagine sympathising with death, that grim reaper that sucks the last breath
out of your loved one? From that moment, they no long live in ‘our world’ as
‘he’ has taken them from us.
During the
deepest and darkest times this world has ever know, World War II, who was more
feared – Hitler or death?
The
incredibly innovative novelist Markus Zusak delves into Nazi Germany through
his unlikely narrator. He invokes a world of a fostered nine-year-old lonely
girl who steals books to attempt to try and bear the hell of the Nazi world she
is living through, with death surreptitiously on her side.
The Book
Thiefs’ narrator is sympathetic, eloquent; a realist – it is death himself.
Although, don’t think of him roaming the streets looking for bodies in a black
hooded cloak, and for some reason carrying the stereotypical scythe – he
wouldn’t like that. Markus Zusak‘s death is the one who has roamed the world,
time and again, he has been present at all of the wars, gently scooped up all
the innocent children’s souls in his arms, witnessed the famine and the
atrocities of the world. The one who releases our precious soul from this
wretched world, the one who found Liesel’s own book when everyone else had been
sleeping. We meet him before the angst and turmoil of World War II in Germany.
He is watching the beginnings of Liesel’s life uncontrollably unfolding right
in front of her at the tender age of nine.
Lets face
it, the clever and sympathising narrator of death is far more likeable than the
Nazi leader Hitler who, to a nine-year-old is the reason her little brother
died and why she was taken away from her parents. Zusak compares those exact
two things everyone feared so much during the 1930s and 40s in Germany, the two
men who were responsible for ending lives; death and Hitler.
Zusak uses
the much-feared figure of death to highlight the real cruelties of one human,
Hitler, while the ethereal figure of death becomes a symbol of hope during this
time. Death becomes more appealing and comforting than living in the world,
which may be entirely controlled by one evil hated man.
The reader
sympathises with death and even the scary figure of Mama, whose favourite
insult revolves around pigs. We are drawn towards the lyrical figure of death
like a moth to a flame. A lost soul towards an unlikely helper.
Zusak has
dramatically changed the perception of the so called ‘grim reaper’ in this
immensely cleverly narrated and written novel, where real life and human
feelings come to heads with war, the rights and wrongs of this world and the
man who we call Hitler, or the Fuhrer.
His story
telling is next to none. As his fifth novel, The Book Thief put Zusak
firmly on the literary shelf since 2005. Zusak’s first novel, The Underdog, which had two sequels, has
the same survival theme that runs through The
Book Thief. His fourth novel, The Messenger was the beginnings of
Zusak’s popularity.
Interspersed
with little quips from death himself – bits of wisdom, real facts, little insights
that only he would see – he describes to the reader the reality of the
situation, from Liesel stealing her first book to her picking up the pieces of
her destroyed street and life, once again.
Liesel is
visited by death three times. The first is when her brother is taken from her
on the train journey towards her new home on Himmel Street. Death is present
and is there long enough to witness Liesel steal her first book, The Gravediggers Handbook – something
which sadly becomes her sonly connection to her brother, and she can’t even
read.
At Liesel’s
new home with her foster family, she is looked after by the hard nosed woman we
come to know as Mama and the soft, accordion playing soothing wonderful man Papa.
After discovering Liesel cannot read, Pappa takes it upon himself to teach her during
the night and by painting words on the basement wall.
When Papa is
obliged to return a favour, and hides a young Jewish man, a beautiful
friendship is formed. Max, a supposed ‘evil’ young Jewish boy, and Liesel the
daughter of a communist breaks all barriers reminds us of what humans really
are. The two unlikely people inevitably saved each other through their mutual
love of words and their hatred of Hitler. From two worlds apart, despite of
their faith and Max being hidden in the basement, they come together in secret
inside the walls of their home to save each other’s souls.
Max does
this by writing a book for Liesel, as he has nothing else to give her for her
birthday. He carried Mein Kampf with him whilst escaping, He paints its
pages and writes The Standover Man; a
story of Max’s life, who has forever had a figure overshadowing his life in the
same way Liesel has, and how she stood over him when he was very ill. Yet the
novel isn’t morbid, although its subject is perhaps one of the most horrific
incidents in history, the holocaust and Max’s writing is just as haunting,
poetic and meaningful as Zusak’s.
Not only
does the reader identify with the Jewish Max, the lonely communist daughter and
death, it also identifies with the common German. Albeit blue eyed and blonde
haired ones like Rudy or Papa, we feel their pain of persecution, of not
falling in line with the Fuhurer’s demands and living in constant fear or the consequences
of their actions. Although it is clearly not the same experience as the
skeletal Jews being forced to march through towns and villages in search of a
camp, Zusak brings them together as people with feelings, taking away the
stereotypically connotations.
Words calm
Liesel as they calm Max, in the same way the playing the accordion is cathartic
for Papa. Liesel realises, through Max’s book The Word Shaker that words
alone are exactly what she needs to cure the hatred inside of her, and she must
use her words for good. One day Liesel recites these words back to Max to save
him, when she sees him in the marching swarm of Jews through Molching.
Towards the
end, Liesel is visited the second time by death the day everyone else was
sleeping. Writing her own story in her basement, Liesel survived the bombing
attacked that killed her most loved Mama, Papa and Rudy. This is where death
takes Liesel’s story to re-tell to us. They meet again for the third time when Liesel
dies an old woman surrounded by family in Sydney. Although Max isn’t mentioned,
we are led to believe it is Max she spent the rest of her life with. Death ends
the novel with the sentiment that humans shall forever haunt him.
