The Book Thief
It's raining as I write this. Keyboard clacking with nails much too long for the story I have to write in this post. But that's all right--the rain is company. The sky is always welcome to cry, here in the dry, dry lands of southern California. The wind outside is frightening, but there are people out there who are so much worse.
This post is not a story about the weather.
It is the story of a book thief.
From the Beginning
Let me tell you a short story: years ago, I was in sixth grade.
Tiny me would head into my middle school's library, always cautious of people but always taking risks with books. This tiny child, an echo of the past, has no clue what World War II really meant to six million Jewish people, their ancestors, and every soldier with and without a family. Back then, history was just every line in a textbook, every black and white image on documentaries.
But stories were very much real.
The Book Thief, however, needed that background of history to make all of its dangers real--the war, the concentration camps, the fear and pride juxtaposing one another in Europe. The sixth grade version of myself would pick up this book, read 100 pages, and let it go back into the library because they couldn't understand how much of a risk it was to hide a Jewish person in someone's basement.
Nearly a Decade of Dianne's life later included:
- A field trip to the Museum of Tolerance in LA
- Elie Wiesel's Night, read three times over the course of nine years
- AP European History
- The Devil's Arithmetic
- Awareness of Anti-Semitic Behavior
- a class on the Holocaust as Public History, which led to:
- a research paper on Marina Polvay
- Schindler's List
- Oma & Bella
- and lastly, years & years of debating whether to pick Markus Zusak's book back up, buying it but rarely reading it because the writing was beautiful those first hundred pages, and I feared it wouldn't be the same years later.
But it was.
Picking It Back Up Again
Having just recently finished Afterworlds and Shatter Me, I wanted to read something the week before I went back to school. The day before Rosh Hashanah, I picked The Book Thief from my shelves and decided that I would finally go and finish it. The first night, I went through about two hundred pages, and it was just as every bit as lovely as I had remembered it, each word woven through the story like a sparkling web.
It felt as though the whole globe was dressed in snow. Like it had pulled it on, the way you pull on a sweater. (pg. 5)
Zusak created a beautiful narrator, and Death was captivating the entire way. Death knew everything. Death knew nothing at all. The mystery of humanity remains a mystery to Death, as much as they try to figure it out. Humans are as faceted as diamonds, and the twinkle in their eyes is just the same.
Liesel herself captured memories in every word she read. She was the storyteller, old enough to grieve but young enough to imagine. Stories were her comfort, and words were her blankets. They kept her company amidst the nightmares of her dead brother. They gave her a chance to express herself as she painted them on the basement wall. They granted her with the penchant to steal and the guidance to live. Even as the world died around her.
{Max's stories were such a treasure.
The Standover Man was just the beginning--
The Word Shaker resonated with me the most.}
Death did not mind spoiling the book as the story unfolded. Normally, I would have listened to the characters more closely, the ending in mind. But no, I did not listen to Rudy closely--I listened to Liesel and the way she treasured each word she stole from the world. She claimed every word, Liesel did, and it was how her world formed. Rudy was another collection of words--lemon, a kiss, Jesse Owens--and his soul was taken, too, just like everyone else.
The surrounding air was a lovely, gorgeous, nauseating cold, not to mention the concrete ache of the water, thickening from his toes to his hips. (Pg. 241)
Writing down her memories kept her alive. That was an accident. Her cherishing words became the miracle it needed to be. And I loved her words--I loved Death's words, too. The way Zusak treasured Rudy, writing down Rudy's scenes carefully, tending to Rudy's incessant demands with a gentle grace in those words.
When Zusak described a clock as the sound of a grave (pg. 259), I realized just how crucial time was to this story. From the beginning Death keeps track of the years, counting down each war year one by one. The dates are counted, the seasons are detailed, and it's this passage of time that Death keeps track of. Because Death knows when there is a soul to take. For people like Max, time is all too present. For people like Rudy, time is a distant thought until it's time to go.
The Word Shaker
You've got to keep your heart guarded at eleven p.m. Otherwise a story like The Word Shaker will take your heart and shackle it to a wonder like Max Vandenburg.
Max is a fighter. To the Nazis, he's a fugitive hiding in Liesel's basement. He dreams about fighting Hitler in the Nazi ring, and one bomb scare in Molching lets him see the stars for the first time in months.
Down in the basement, there's only so much one can do with paint and a copy of Mein Kampf. But through Liesel's mother, Max gives Liesel his sketchbook, a collection of thoughts and sketches drawn by him. And while Max isn't there at that moment (having fled long ago), Liesel still treasures his collection.
In that sketchbook is that story. A story of trees, invincibility, and the promise of friendship. Up in the word trees, the war doesn't matter. Nothing can cut the word shaker's tree down. Not unless she gets off--she does, only when a young man comes to get her.
And when they later reunite when Max is on a march with hundreds of others, Liesel recites the story back to him. Where has Max been? At a concentration camp.
But in her thoughts? All this time, he's been up in the tree.
After the war ends, Max finds her with Rudy's dad at the tailor shop. And their reunion is sweet, is hopeful, and is such a carefully crafted moment. It's a beautiful scene, full of light and promise and warmth, and I loved reading it, even with teary eyes.
It's books like these--stories that cherish words above all else--that make me realize:
what a wonderful world it is, to be human.
Love,
Dianne
