They say knowledge and experience are powerful tools that
can both make and break you.
Introducing Liesel Meninger who finds herself as a naïve little
girl in inhumane times. Nazi Germany has been a rich minefield for different
media, with me remembering the satire of the Great Dictator and the salvation
of Schneider’s List in preparation of this book. But where it really hits home
in its relatability is that Liesel slowly discovers the perils of her situation
as we do, and is not a hardened veteran like most around her.
Coming to veterans, we find an unlikely and ominous narrator
in Death. Yes, the very grim reaper we all know and somewhat fear. But what
strikes us most is the humanity in his voice – he’s tired especially of the
war, whom he calls ‘boss’ and the workload he is exposed to. You almost feel
sorry for him, given how he appreciates the fight to live and the various human
interactions he glimpses when he isn’t collecting souls. It’s in Liesel’s own
memoir that he finally manages to experience proper humanity through her eyes.
Liesel is no stranger to death, and her presence during Death's visits in observed
in multiple instances and shows how much scarred she becomes over the course of
the story – even as she tries to find release in the words and pages that she
surrounds herself with.
Someone once said that reality is the true illusion for a
bibliophile, and despite Liesel being limited in her interactions with books,
she proves herself to be one. Whether it be in those silent moments in the
Mayor’s Library or in her foster home’s basement, she manages to find a
strength that can rise up the most weary of souls.
And she’s in severe need of such strength, as she loses
people and places across her lifetime that destroy her heart multiple times.
The supporting cast is also rich in their portrayal. None of them more than
Hans Hubberman, the foster father and part time accordian player. We see the
actual conflict rising up in him – he cannot understand the issues between the
Nazi Party and the Jews cause it goes against his values of humanity. But he’s
wary of the danger of oppression and tries to impress that upon a young Liesel,
who blames Hitler for her actual family’s death.
Sadly he himself fails to heed his own counsel as his
actions put his family in peril repeatedly. Whether it be repainting a Jew’s
establishment after it has been defaced by the Gestapo, giving bread to a
captured Jew passing his house or the worst of them all, housing a Jew in his
own basement. He chastises himself repeatedly because of these events, but we
can see the reality in a perverted way – he’s a good man in bad times.
Then we come to Rudy Steiner, the self-proclaimed Jesse
Owens of Himmels Street. Befriending Liesel (and falling in a doomed romance with her), we
see a crude but growing boy whose physical achievements pale against his ideals
- that prove to be his undoing as he repeatedly shows his loyalty and bravery
in face of distress despite the repercussions he has to go through.
Rosa, Han’s wife, is intriguing in how she understands the
need for masks way better than anyone in the entire roster. She’s cruel when
she needs to be, and gentle as per situation. Mostly in the background, her actions
always give stock to the situation.
The cruel irony of their fates is one of the most depressing
moments of the book, as amid countless lives lost, they become another
statistic even as Liesel remains the survivor.
Other characters including Max Vanderburg, the Jew who Hans
gives shelter to and becomes Liesel’s beloved compatriot on her journey to
become a writer and Ilsa, the Mayor’s wife, who provides the book thief with a
library and then a life after she loses everything enrich the story and show
glimpses of being role models that Liesel desperately needs.
The idea of stealing is also a major theme in this book.
While Liesel is the aforementioned ‘Book Thief’ as coined by Death and Rudy,
the actual exploration is of the actual senseless stealing of lives and dreams
of the German populace. Hans is a free thinker in a world of dictatorship, and
his livelihood is stolen from him for going against the hostile party ethics of
the Nazis. Liesel may have been a repeat offender by taking fruits and books,
but her reasons are humane and appreciable, if not agreeable. She is not so
much of a thief as she is a rescue agent – never more seen than when she takes a
book from the burning fires of a book burning. On the other hand, her innocence
is stolen from her repeatedly which is a graver crime that Death slowly begins
to ponder on – as he is the visitor who sees the act being committed. But as he
repeatedly mentions, he is no thief. It is man himself who destroys that which he
should tend to. The true thief on the book is not Liesel, but the Nazi Party
and the War.
Over the course of the book, we are faced with the best and
the worst of humanity alongside Death – who proves to be an unsteady narrator
jumping forward and backward as he sees fit, and interjecting when he can. But
it makes the experience that much real, cause just like Death is discovering
this world in a new light, the reader and Liesel are too.
The Book Thief is a story of how innocence is lost, but that
doesn’t mean the death of humanity. Liesel shows everything that can be good
despite Hitler’s proclamations of Aryan superiority and the horror of gas
chambers. And above all, one of the great fears of any oppressive society –
that thoughts and words can be powerful. Liesel is an agent of that, and stands
in opposition to everything the Gestapo stands for.
And borrowing a quote from my favorite movie Dead Poets
Society, this book serves to show that no matter what anybody tells you, words
and ideas can change the world. Even in the bleakest of times.
So I give
this 8.0 out of 10
+A rich list
of characters
+A flawed
central protagonist
+The author
captures the tense environment excellently
+Death’s
little notes
-Death
proves to be a very irritating narrator at times, with breaks in story ruining
the flow
-The ending
is a little too fast paced
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