Author: Markus Zusak
Publication date: 2007
Publisher: Knopf Books for Young Readers
Genre: Historical novel
Language: English
Rate: 4.5/5 ⭐️
Movie: "The book thief" (2013) 🎬
The plot:
This is the only difference between us and an handful of clay... a word. Words are life.
It is 1939. Nazi Germany. The country is holding its breath. Death has never been busier, and will become busier still.
Liesel Meminger is a foster girl living outside of Munich, who scratches out a meager existence for herself by stealing when she encounters something she can’t resist–books. With the help of her accordion-playing foster father, she learns to read and shares her stolen books with her neighbors during bombing raids as well as with the Jewish man hidden in her basement.
The book thief is a realistic historical novel set in Nazi Germany. The story, narrated by an external narrator: Death, crosses the events that happen to the protagonist Leisel, with those of a Jew on the run: Max.
The first time the protagonist steals a book occurs shortly after the death of her little brother and it will be thanks to this book, "The Gravedigger's Manual", that the girl will learn to read. From this moment on, Leisel will find refuge in reading. The second time, instead, happens at the end of a gathering of the Young Hitlerites, when she collects one of the books considered forbidden, which remained intact from the stake. When Max, a Jew who is running away from the guards, shows up at the door of Leisel's family, the two became friends, exchanging advice on books and drawings. Leisel's love of reading continues thanks to the Mayor's wife, who allows her to take refuge at any time in the majestic library of her house, where the girl begins to read every type of book she finds. The nickname "book thief" was attributed to her by Rudy, a small boy, a friend of the protagonist.
The story takes a dramatic turn (arm yourself with handkerchiefs!) when Max falls ill and the father of the Hubermann family (Liesel's adoptive family) is drafted. Although both manage to survive their fate; due to a bomb dropped on the city, only Leisel, who had taken refuge in the cellar, and Max who had managed to escape from the Nazis, survive.
With the liberation of Germany Max and Liesel find each other and live a long and peaceful life.
Markus Zusak used an interesting method to explain the importance of finding a "reason for living" even in the darkest moments and in historical periods in which the important thing is to survive, like Leisel who finds his salvation in the pages of the books that she steals only to get trapped in stories that distract her from what is happening around her, in fact, as Rudy says “words are life”. Despite the heaviness of the themes and the narration of the story by Death with its pedantic and mocking tone, at times annoying, the plot is pleasant, smooth and interesting.
The narrative style conveys many emotions, which are contrasting with each other. The narrative Death describes the desolation, injustice, perfidy, cruelty perpetrated by men when reason is clouded by a being who has caused so much misfortune and useless destruction. On the other hand, however, we are shown the figure of Leisel, a young war heroine, who makes us understand how the nobility of the spirit can survive any human misfortune.
Comentarios