There are certain books which touch your heart and leave a lasting imprint on your soul. We carry their impressions with us throughout the course of our lives and consider their concepts long after we’ve returned them to their places on the shelves. The Book Thief, written by Markus Zusak, is one such book.
The plot centers around the life of a young girl named Liesel Meminger. She is living in Nazi Germany in the late 1930s and early 1940s during World War II. Since her mother cannot sufficiently take care of her, she is adopted by the Hubermann family and goes to live on Himmel Street in a little town called Molching. Himmel Street is a very tight-knit community, and many of the events in the story take place there. Her best friend, Rudy Steiner, lives on Himmel Street with his family. Liesel’s adoptive parents are Rosa and Hans Hubermann, and they’re very kind to her. Hans in particular nurtures Liesel’s love of books, which plays a prominent part in Liesel’s story. The Hubermanns, against their better judgment, hide a Jew named Max Vandenburg in their basement for a dangerous period of time, and Liesel and Max grow very close. While dealing with the bombings, burnings, and marches that accompany this time period, as well as living in poverty and going hungry most days, Liesel takes to stealing books to read. This leads to her eventually writing a book of her own.
Author Zusak has an extremely unique style of writing. The way he constructs his sentences is metaphoric and visual; he describes details in unusual ways that serve to assist the reader in imagining them even better. He writes, “When he turned the light on in the small, callous washroom that night, Liesel observed the strangeness of her foster father’s eyes. They were made of kindness, and silver. Like soft silver, melting. Liesel, upon seeing those eyes, understood that Hans Hubermann was worth a lot.” Through these types of comparisons, Zusak illustrates his points thoroughly and elegantly.
The book also depicts the struggles of that harrowing time period and the intense moral issues that common citizens were forced to confront daily. Zusak’s own parents had grown up in Nazi Germany and Austria, and he drew on their experiences while writing. In fact, the narrator of the book is Death itself. “I could introduce myself properly, but it’s not really necessary,” Death says. “You will know me well enough and soon enough, depending on a diverse range of variables. It suffices to say that at some point in time, I will be standing over you, as genially as possible. Your soul will be in my arms….I will carry you gently away.” This unprecedented point of view reveals incredible questions, descriptions, and thoughts that circle around human morality and mortality. At the very end of Zusak’s tale, Death relates, “[This is] the only truth I truly know….I am haunted by humans.”
There is an air of despair and sorrow about The Book Thief, but it ultimately doesn’t leave readers feeling depressed. It displays both sides of the human condition—kindness and brutality. This conflict is one of the predominant themes of the book, and is never completely resolved. Instead, readers are inclined to answer the raised questions themselves. The story, well on its way to becoming a classic, shows the power words can have on an individual and a society. With the right usage, words are enormously important—and in his penetrating and profound tale, Markus Zusak brings to light that they have the power to change everything.
The plot centers around the life of a young girl named Liesel Meminger. She is living in Nazi Germany in the late 1930s and early 1940s during World War II. Since her mother cannot sufficiently take care of her, she is adopted by the Hubermann family and goes to live on Himmel Street in a little town called Molching. Himmel Street is a very tight-knit community, and many of the events in the story take place there. Her best friend, Rudy Steiner, lives on Himmel Street with his family. Liesel’s adoptive parents are Rosa and Hans Hubermann, and they’re very kind to her. Hans in particular nurtures Liesel’s love of books, which plays a prominent part in Liesel’s story. The Hubermanns, against their better judgment, hide a Jew named Max Vandenburg in their basement for a dangerous period of time, and Liesel and Max grow very close. While dealing with the bombings, burnings, and marches that accompany this time period, as well as living in poverty and going hungry most days, Liesel takes to stealing books to read. This leads to her eventually writing a book of her own.
Author Zusak has an extremely unique style of writing. The way he constructs his sentences is metaphoric and visual; he describes details in unusual ways that serve to assist the reader in imagining them even better. He writes, “When he turned the light on in the small, callous washroom that night, Liesel observed the strangeness of her foster father’s eyes. They were made of kindness, and silver. Like soft silver, melting. Liesel, upon seeing those eyes, understood that Hans Hubermann was worth a lot.” Through these types of comparisons, Zusak illustrates his points thoroughly and elegantly.
The book also depicts the struggles of that harrowing time period and the intense moral issues that common citizens were forced to confront daily. Zusak’s own parents had grown up in Nazi Germany and Austria, and he drew on their experiences while writing. In fact, the narrator of the book is Death itself. “I could introduce myself properly, but it’s not really necessary,” Death says. “You will know me well enough and soon enough, depending on a diverse range of variables. It suffices to say that at some point in time, I will be standing over you, as genially as possible. Your soul will be in my arms….I will carry you gently away.” This unprecedented point of view reveals incredible questions, descriptions, and thoughts that circle around human morality and mortality. At the very end of Zusak’s tale, Death relates, “[This is] the only truth I truly know….I am haunted by humans.”
There is an air of despair and sorrow about The Book Thief, but it ultimately doesn’t leave readers feeling depressed. It displays both sides of the human condition—kindness and brutality. This conflict is one of the predominant themes of the book, and is never completely resolved. Instead, readers are inclined to answer the raised questions themselves. The story, well on its way to becoming a classic, shows the power words can have on an individual and a society. With the right usage, words are enormously important—and in his penetrating and profound tale, Markus Zusak brings to light that they have the power to change everything.
Anansesem
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