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Perspective
Where Death leads, readers will follow
A fresh, young writing star emerges from Sydney, Australia, with the U.S. publication of Markus Zusak's new novel, The Book Thief.
By DAVID HENDRICKS
Published April 30, 2006
THE BOOK THIEF By Markus Zusak Knopf, $16.95, 560 pp A fresh, young writing star emerges from Sydney, Australia, with the U.S. publication of Markus Zusak's new novel, The Book Thief. My goodness, the chances Zusak takes with this story. A 12-year-old girl, grieving from the death of her little brother on a train shortly before World War II in Germany, is given away by her doomed communist mother to foster parents living in a Munich suburb called Molching. Liesel Meminger doesn't know how to read, but she willfully wants to learn, and her good-hearted stepfather assists. Gradually, a cast develops of everyday Germans living on Himmel Street, nearly all of them innocently apolitical, bewildered by the coming war, economically depressed and downright hungry most of the time. Their "heil Hitler'' salutes are delivered half-heartedly, more out of sense of community than with spirited nationalism. They don't dislike Jews but know they must overtly despise them to survive. The novel's most daring aspect is the identity of the omniscient, first-person narrator. Death itself tells this story amid a busy existence carrying souls away in wartime. The narrative unfolds so seamlessly that the book originally was considered for the children's, or young adults', market in the United States. Fortunately, Knopf now positions the book for everyone, because it possesses an ageless universal appeal. Amid accounts of carrying away souls, Death develops the characters and the actions of the plucky Liesel, her lemon-haired friend Rudy, her accordion-playing stepfather Hans and her profane stepmother Rosa. Liesel steals her first book, a gravedigger's handbook, at her brother's burial. She steals a second from a Nazi book-burning. As Death's story advances, Liesel learns the power of words and language, both positive and negative. Stepfather Hans owes a debt from decades before, and repays it by hiding a Jew in his Himmel Street basement. Here the story takes an Anne Frank turn, as Liesel helps nurse the ill Max, and he writes stories for her to read. An observant Death narrates the bravery, persistence, twists of fate and love that swirls around "book thief'' Liesel. The ending transcends the sadness of war through powerful emotion, made possible by the storytelling risks Zusak takes. David Hendricks is a business columnist for the San Antonio Express-News.
[Last modified May 1, 2006, 09:34:22]
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