Tag: The Book Thief

BOOK REVIEW- THE BOOK THEIF BY MARCUS ZUSAK

BY DAKSHITA NAITHANI

It’s the year 1939 Germany during the Nazi era. The country is gasping for air. Death has never been busier, and it will continue to be so.

Marcus Zusak’s gripping debut novel tells the storey of Liesel, who sees her younger brother’s death while travelling through Germany on a locomotive. Liesel clutches a volume she finds concealed in the snow while standing at her brother’s grave, regardless of the fact that she has yet to learn to read. When Liesel is placed with a foster family on Himmel Street, she quickly settles into a happy but impoverished life. The risks, however, are raised tremendously when news of the inevitable war and Hitler’s impact on Germany and the Jewish race reaches Liesel and her foster family, posing a significant threat to the family because they take on a Jewish soldier and hide them in their home as an act of honour for an old friend. Soon, Liesel, her family, and her friends on Himmel Street are pushed into the adversities that only war can bring, experiencing devastation and misery but ultimately making memories that will help them survive Nazi Germany’s challenges.

The importance of the plot was one of the reasons why this work was able to accomplish all of the aforementioned goals. I discovered that allowing readers to explore Liesel’s romance through words provides a significant reprieve from the war-focused storey, giving us glimpses of the carnage while deflecting skillfully with other crucial plot points, such as the relationships between the children on Himmel Street, Liesel’s tense relationship with her foster mother, or Liesel’s infatuation with stories and words. Zusak achieves a nice medium in between dark, tortured horror thriller and the study of youth and Liesel’s coming-of-age storyline by doing so. Thereby, Zusack guarantees that ‘The Book Thief’ transcends a single genre, offering readers who enjoy a variety of reading styles a sample of a novel from every perspective.

I was taken aback when I first opened this book and saw that Liesel was not the narrator. I wasn’t sure how attached I would feel to the protagonist’s rise and fall in Nazi Germany without hearing it directly from her. I realized how important it was having Death as the narrator which only enhanced my love for the work tenfold. Death provided a genuine insight into the impact of war on society, giving readers a look into the tragedies that may rip men, women, and children apart. One of the hallmarks of a great novel is how it makes the reader think about a particular topic, and I can confidently say that not only did Zusak give an opinion on the insufficient disparity between social classes and demographics, but he also managed to give voice to something that–in our lives–will never be given a chance to speak, much like the oppressed people who were suppressed during Adolf Hitler’s reign.

This book was quite eye-opening for me. It is among the first novels about the war that I have read that is written from the perspective of someone who lives in Germany. It makes you realise that so many people in Germany suffered as a result of the war, and that they weren’t all as bad as they are frequently depicted.   The grief surrounding Liesel’s narrative sneaks up on you until you realise how common it was and continues to be for so many others.

Overall, I found this to be one of the most pleasant and powerful novels I have ever read. All authors aim to strike all of the correct notes in their novels, but it’s uncommon for an author to nail every single stride on the first try. The narrative gives the storey an unusual viewpoint. Death says a lot of things that are intellectual and even beautiful.

In some respects, The Book Thief leaves you with a feeling of guilt when you think about it. Because it is British bombs that fall on Germany, and it is British bombs that murder so many people in the narrative, leaving the reader’s cheeks wet in tears.

5 Books To Read Before You Die

Losing yourself in a great book, is one of the most endearing and satisfying joys. Every book has a different style, different attitude, different perspective but every book teaches and leaves you with a different feeling. It is hard to choose a favorite but let’s talk about 5 books that you must read.

  1. To Kill A Mocking Bird, by Harper Lee- A novel before its time, Harper Lee’s Pulitzer-prize winner addresses issues of race, inequality and segregation with both levity and compassion. While To Kill a Mockingbird could be a favorite book of just about everyone who has read it, it is important to recollect that it continues to be subversive and challenging to the establishment. The story revolves around the cute, lovable kids, Scout and Jem, and undoubtedly one of the most loved character in literature, Atticus Finch. Most of the characters within the book are marginalized by the facility structure of their town — a structure that also exists nearly everywhere — where wealthy white men control the lives of everyone else, and even the members of that group who want to use their status for something honorable, cannot win against the flattening wave of power.

2. The Book Thief, by Markus Zusak– Set in Germany during 1939, The Book Thief follows a young girl, Liesel, growing up in Germany amidst World War II. Liesel is living with foster parents, Hans and Rosa. Throughout the story, Liesel steals many books. At first, she doesn’t even know how to read, but she knows that the book is important. Hans notices and teaches her how to make sense of the letters, as she rescues books from the tyranny of Nazi rule. Meanwhile, her family has hidden a Jewish fighter in their basement and death looks down on the family, narrating our tale. Experience bravery that is rarely found in the world, and friendship that is formed in the most unlikely of situations.

3. The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger- It only takes one sentence, written in the first person, for Salinger’s Holden Caulfield to announce himself in all his teenage nihilism, sneering at you for wanting to know his biographical details “and all that David Copperfield kind of crap”. The Catcher in the Rye is the quintessential novel of the adolescent experience, captured in deathless prose. 

4. The God of Small Things, by Arundhati Roy-Roy won the 1997 Booker Prize with her debut novel, a powerful inter-generational tale of love that crosses caste lines in southern India, and the appalling consequences for those who break the taboos dictating “who should be loved, and how. And how much.” Sex, death, religion, the ambivalent pull of motherhood: it’s all there in this beautiful and haunting book. 

5. The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood– Atwood’s classic dystopian novel of a terrifying (and terrifyingly plausible) future America has rewarded rereading like no other book; I’ve probably read it 30 times by now. the globe of the narrator, Offred (from “Of Fred” — women not have their names), is chilling, but she could be a magnificent survivor and chronicler, and also the details of everything from a mundane way of life to ritualized sex and violence to her reminiscences of the time before (our contemporary reality, as seen within the ’80s) are realistic. The novel is as relevant today as ever; feminist backlashes still wax and wane, but women’s rights remain within the spotlight. And despite its scenarios of great despair, The Handmaid’s Tale is ultimately a hopeful book — Offred, and others, simply can’t be human without the chance of hope, and therein lies the strength of the resistance. All of Atwood is worth reading, but this book best exemplifies the cultural and psychological impact that a piece of fiction can create.