The Book Thief

 

Image credit: Kid's Book Review

Books are journeys. Stories are journeys. The basic narratives that we tell day-to-day are some sort of journey. It’s interesting, while most books take the reader on a narrative journey along with its characters, there are some that do that while simultaneously taking them on an emotional journey. I’ve just closed the cover on a book that I hadn’t thought about for years, decided to reread, and have been deeply thinking about nothing else for the past week: Markus Zusak’s The Book Thief. 

Told from the perspective of Death, the books tells the story of ten year-old Liesel Meminger who goes to live with foster parents in Munich in the midst of WWII. Before entering this new family and life she picks up a book, accidentally left half hidden in the snow. This simple act sparks a great love of books, words, and the odd bit of thievery. As her foster father teaches her to read, Liesel begins stealing books wherever they are to be found: Nazi bonfires, abandoned in rivers, and even in the Mayor’s wife's library. And soon the power of words is guiding Liesel through her struggles of adolescent life in a war-torn Germany. 

I remember really loving this book when I first read it as a 19/20 year old. I mean really loving it. And it’s funny, when I picked it up a decade later and started rereading it, I was turned off by the prose. I found it clichéd and pretentious, so much so that I could almost taste the bittersweet metallic tang that made me cringe. I thought I'd just grown out of it, my tastes having evolved since then. I’m a stubborn reader so I persevered because, ‘I’ve started now, I may as well finish.’ And I mentioned my feelings to my blind, literary-loving grandmother who then made me read a few sentences that I found cringing out loud. They sounded completely different, so much better. And I realised that there is something to the voice that reads in your head and the voice that reads out loud. If I listened to The Book Thief, I would probably fall in love with it all over again. 

In a way I have decided that this is a favourite that will remain on the shelf, because it made me go through this real emotional and philosophical journey about whether or not I thought it a good book. 

It’s a fucking great book! 

Image credit: TasWriters

Zusak’s story is simple; it’s the way in which he uses sensory descriptions like colour, taste, and smell to describe the world and characters that makes this book amazing. It’s engaging from the very first page, hugely accessible and compelling, before you know it you’ve gone through several chapters. What Zusak does with words is actually truly incredible, chronicling a simple life, but making it rich and aromatic through a few sensory sentences and creating a reading experience that is captivating and hugely pleasurable. In every free moment I had, my nose was buried in this book. 

Author: Markus Zusak, 2005

Published: Picador by Pan Macmillan Australia Pty Limited, 2005. 

Longevity: The Book Thief was adapted into a film of the same name in 2013.