“The Book Thief,” by Markus Zusak

“The Book Thief,” by Markus Zusak is the story of a girl, Liesel Meminger, growing up in Nazi Germany. She lives in the town Molching with her adoptive family who took her in after her brother died and her mother was forced to abandon her. Later, her adoptive parents hide a Jew from the rest of their town, which is mostly made up of strong supporters of the Nazi Party. Early in the novel, Liesel finds a book at her brother’s funeral, and this starts her love of reading, and a life of stealing books.

This novel is written from the point of view of death. I thought that this was very interesting, and was something I had not seen before in a novel. An example of this unique point of view is when Liesel talks to the Mayor’s wife about her son, who we discover had died. At this point, Death recalls collecting the soul of her son; “Oh yes, I definitely remember him. The sky was murky and deep like quicksand. There was a young man parceled up in barbed wire, like a gigantic crown of thorns. I untangled him and carried him out. High above the earth, we sank together, to our knees. It was just another day, 1918,” I thought this point of view was very effective, as it sets a dark mood in a unique way. This allowed the author to talk about the theme of death in a new way, and I think this made the novel much more powerful. Death is portrayed as slightly detached from humans, but not as evil. "They say that war is death's best friend, but I must offer you a different point of view on that one. To me, war is like the new boss who expects the impossible. He stands over your shoulder repeating one thing incessantly: 'Get it done, get it done.' So you work harder. You get the job done. The boss, however, does not thank you. He asks for more.' It is interesting that in this novel death is not seen as the villain, people are.

One of the themes of this novel is the inevitability of death. The narrator often talks of deaths that happened before the start of the novel, and hints at deaths occurring later. Another major theme of this novel is the power of words. The novel discusses the power that words have over people. For example, the Nazis initiated massive book burnings in which they destroyed anything that they thought could lead to their loss of power. Another example of the power of words is the connection between Liesel and Max, the Jew that her family is protecting; he writes her a story that managed to change her feelings towards him from suspicion to friendship. I think that the author did a great job expressing these themes, and that it was very effective.

Markus Zusak uses many rhetorical devices in this novel. The biggest rhetorical device is the personification of Death. This is used to give a darker mood, and also gives a unique view of death. Another rhetorical device the author uses are similes. An example of this was from the Nazi book burning. “To their left, flames and burning books were cheered like heroes,” This gives a good description of the excitement at the scene, and how people were happy to see the book burnings.

This book is a coming of age story like “Great Expectations.” As the book progresses, Liesel grows up from being a little girl with no idea of the events going on in the world, to a strong independent person. When Liesel was young, she accepted the way life was, but as she grows older, her attitude changes and she starts to hate Hitler and the life she is living. Although the two novels take place in very different circumstances, they are both about growing up.

I found this book very interesting, as it is about life in Nazi Germany, something I knew very little about. I found it interesting to learn about the war from a different point of view. Although I had read about the war from the point of view of soldiers or people living in Canada, reading about it from a German’s perspective was a new experience. I enjoyed this book very much, and would highly recommend it.