You know you’ve read something truly wonderful when you
can’t stop thinking about it — even when you are asleep. Like the kind of book
that digs its way under your skin and quietly makes a tiny hovel in the most
forgotten recesses of your heart.
There aren’t many such books, but I tell you now without any
doubt — The Book Thief is one of
them. Beautiful. That's how I would describe it if I had just one word to
breathe.
Beautiful.
It’s a triumphant piece of literature that wrings you
through the entire emotional spectrum. It will make you laugh and cry, fall in
love, and hate venomously, and at the end of the day it will break your heart
with the tenderest of care. This, my dear friends, is what storytelling is all
about.
Set in the all too common setting of Nazi Germany with an
all too common protagonist in the form of a surly 10 year old, Liesel Meminger
is a girl surrounded by war and death. Given this, the book would seem to have
a lot going against it and little new to offer, but that definitely isn’t the
case here. From this pot of commonness, Markus Zusak manages to pull out the
most alluring of tales. Like an expert magician with an empty hat, he manages
to pull out not only a rabbit, but an entire cornucopia of delights and wonder.
The Book Thief also has the most unassuming of narrators,
the unlikely Death which makes the entire experience somewhat surreal. Death,
who was busier than any man in this dark period of our history, finds himself
(herself?) drawn to this little girl with a dangerous habit of thieving books. Death’s
observations are sometimes funny and often poignant, and serve as a reminder of
the futility of war. It might seem like hammering in the point to some people,
but maybe that's the point. We never learn, do we?
The world of Liesel Meminger is a magical world populated
with characters that are as alive as any of us. And that is why it’s
gut-wrenching knowing where all this is headed while the characters in the story
still believe otherwise. From the stoic Hubermanns who take in a child to raise
as their own and later on a Jew, to the wannabe negro and hopeless romantic,
Andy, who shall forever be in love with Liesel, the book is rife with
characters that will nest in your hearts for a long time after.
Also, the structure of the story is such that Mr. Zusak chooses
to give us the ending right up front so that we don’t have any allusions of
happy endings, but the journey there is such a beautiful one that we keep
hoping against hope for a miracle (like no doubt many who lived in that time
did). But we know the author isn’t lying. There are no real happy endings. Just
lessons we learn along the way — in case we survive that long.
Part of the exigency in putting up this review now is thanks
to the upcoming movie adaptation. Yes it’s got Geoffrey Rush in it, but by god!
if it hasn't sucked the life and soul out of the original work like a monstrous
amazonian tick in an Alan Quartermain story! Judging by the trailer, it seems
as if they’ve thrown everything that was amazing and unique about the book by
the wayside in favour of another generic, "up-lifting", World War II
movie. BAH!
So do yourself a favour. Go pick up a copy of The Book Thief. Read it. It will do you good. It’s chicken soup for the soul but only better. And if you
can’t afford it, borrow it from me. This is one book I believe everyone should
read. It is human and real, and veined with a childlike innocence that will
drive a splinter through your being. So go. Now. You can thank me later.
— Sidharth Sreekumar
