REVIEW: THE BOOK THIEF BY MARKUS ZUSAK

As a child, one of the stories Markus Zusak remembers hearing from his parents was of a German boy during World War II giving a piece of bread to a starving Jewish man passing on the street. The man sank to his knees and thanked the boy, but the bread was snatched away by a Nazi officer and both the boy and the man were whipped. It was tales such as these that inspired Zusak to write The Book Thief, a deeply moving novel about Germans who defied the cruelty of The Third Reich.

The Book Thief follows the recent trend of Germans telling stories from World War II from their own perspective (Zusak’s parents lived in Germany through World War II before migrating to Australia). This can be seen in recent movies such as Hirschbiegel's Downfall, a film about Hitler's last days and Margarethe von Trotta's Rosenstrasse, a movie about German women who married Jewish men. While there have been a plethora of novels exploring this dark period of German history, many have retraced similar themes and plots. Markus Zusak, with The Book Thief, has managed to craft a war story that offers great originality and insight.

The Book Thief tells the story of Liesel Meninger who is delivered to foster parents Hans and Rosa Huberman in Molching, a fictional town on the outskirts of Munich. Liesel’s father has been taken away, branded a communist, and her mother can no longer provide for the family. Her brother tragically dies on the journey, leaving Liesel all alone with her new parents. Through Liesel’s eyes, we get a detailed picture of life in Nazi Germany through the years of Word War II.

The story focuses on the people of Himmel St, the working class area of Molching. Zusak’s characters are magnificent. There is Liesel’s best friend Rudy who paints himself black to look like his hero Jesse Owens, Frau Diller the staunch Aryan corner shop owner who won’t serve customers until they perform a Heil Hitler, and the ever whistling and swearing Pfiffikus, to name a few. But where Zusak’s work truly excels is through the characters of Hans and Rosa Huberman, Liesel’s adopted parents.

Rosa is “a small wardrobe of a woman with a lipstick sneer and chorine eyes.” She is an atrocious cook, foul mouthed, and quick to give out a watschen (hiding), yet underneath her harsh exterior she is kind hearted. In sharp contrast, her husband Hans, a painter and accordion player is gentle and thoughtful. The relationship between Liesel and each of her new parents is built masterfully by Zusak throughout the novel.

Zusak gives the story a unique quality through his unusual choice of narrator- Death. The Grim Reaper, rather than relishing his job of “handing out souls to the conveyor belt of eternity”, is haunted by humans. Unlike his usual characterisation as evil and sadistic, Death is detached and sardonic, but also capable of profound insight. Zusak, through Death, delivers some of the poignant humour that is so prevalent in his novels for young adults. While never glib, death’s wry wit gives the reader some reprieve from the burden of the heartbreaking events. At one point Death comments on the act of Heil Hitlering. “You know, it actually makes me wonder if anyone ever lost an eye or injured a hand or wrist with all of that. You’d only need to be facing the wrong way at the wrong time, or stand marginally too close to another person. Perhaps people did get injured. Personally I can tell you that no-one died from it, or at least, not physically.”

My only criticism of Zusak’s choice of narrator is that I found myself wishing that he would surface more often to offer his take on events.

At its core, The Book Thief is about the power of words. It is rhetoric that justified the atrocities of the Hitler regime and convinced ninety percent of Germans to give their unflinching support to the Nazi party. Zusak contrasts this sinister use of language with the positive sense of empowerment that the people in the story gain through words.

Liesel develops a reverence for words after taking a book left at the gravesite of her brother- The Gravedigger’s Handbook. This begins her career as The Book Thief. Liesel has never learnt to read but is desperate to read The Gravediggers Handbook because it represents her last memories of her family. Hans begins to teach her and, through words, a strong bond develops between them. Liesel becomes a prolific reader and her love of books gives her hope and strength during the tough times created by the war.

When Hans agrees to hide Max Vandenburg, a Jewish boxer, in their basement, Max also manages to maintain his determination by sharing his words with Liesel. The most powerful section of The Book Thief is a picture story book created by Max for Liesel called The Standover Man. Having no paper to write on, Max creates his book over the pages of Mein Kampf. It is presented in The Book Thief complete with pictures, the faded words from Mein Kampf apparent in the background. Here, Zusak has brilliantly captured the power of words by juxtaposing their potential for good and evil.

Zusak has previously published four books for young adults, which have won numerous awards. The Book Thief is Zusak’s first novel aimed at adults. While The Book Thief tackles more sophisticated subject matter, elements of Zusak’s style and characters have carried over from his young adult books.

Zusak’s laconic use of language that characterises his young adult books can also be found in The Book Thief. His prose can be unconventional, often using stripped down sentences that can contain as little as one word. Yet it works, giving his prose a penetrating quality that is frequently stirring.

“Just leave everything as it is, at all costs. It might be time to go soon. Light like a gun. Explosive to the eyes. It might be time to go. It might be time, so wake up. Wake up now, God damn it! Wake up.”

Zusak’s descriptive style is also unique. It is often humorous but always sharp.

“Mamer was a barrel of a man, with two small bullet-holes to look out of. His teeth were like a football crowd, crammed in.”

“Her voice was like suicide, landing with a clunk at Liesel’s feet.”

“Pimples were gathered in peer groups on his face.”

Zusak uses text formatting techniques such as sub headings, centred text, dot points, and pictures that are common in young adult literature. They add simplicity to the story without trivialising it. They also allow Zusak to control the pace of the narrative, driving it forward when necessary. The story is paced well and although lengthy at almost 600 pages, The Book Thief is never dull.

Like Zusak’s character Ed in The Messenger and the Wolfe family in The Underdog trilogy, The Book Thief is about the strength and resolve of people at the bottom of the social strata, who are battling despite their situation. Liesel’s family eats pea soup every night and Hans must trade his cigarettes to give Liesel a book for her birthday. In contrast, the mayor’s house has a room full of books and an assortment of food in the kitchen. Here Zusak draws out the often overlooked inequalities that were present inside Nazi Germany. Nevertheless, Zusak sees value in the act of the struggle because it is through these physical and emotional battles that his characters transform themselves.

In fact, The Book Thief constituted somewhat of a personal struggle for Zusak himself, taking him three years to finish. “If nothing else, I know it’s a far different book from anything I’ve done before, which is what made it so challenging. I was also finally satisfied that there was a good sense of imagination in it. In three years, I must have failed over a thousand times, but each failure brought me closer to what I needed to write, and for that, I’m grateful,” Zusak writes on the book’s website.

The struggle has certainly paid off for Zusak. He has written an intelligent, touching story with vivid characters and a sparkling style. The Book Thief has established Zusak as a precocious talent in Australian literature. At only 31, he is a writer to look out for.