The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

張貼日期：Jun 03, 2009 4:58:7 AM

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak is a 2005 best-selling novel, and a 2007 Michael L. Printz Award Honor Book.

The Book Thief is set in Nazi Germany. Beginning in 1939, it centers around a German girl, Liesel Meminger, who is sent by her mother to live with foster parents in a small town near Munich. As Liesel learns to cope with her new environment, all the pains she has endured, and the extreme unhappiness of pre-war and wartime Germany, she yearns to escape via reading. Her foster father Hans helps her learn to read, and Liesel finds books here and there — in a snowy graveyard, in a Nazi book-burning, and inside the local mayor's house. She has a few friends; first her neighbor and classmate, Rudy, and later the son of a soldier her foster father knew in WWI, Max, a Jew whom her new family must hide in their basement. While the toll of WWII, Allied bombing, and Nazi brutality increases, Liesel's world starts to crumble, but words and reading sustain her.

The story is narrated from the perspective of Death. A reluctant collector of souls who does not enjoy the job appointed to him, Death finds pleasures in telling the story of the book thief, Liesel Meminger.

The theme of death is central to the novel. The narrator is Death itself. The background of the story is World War II, which denotes that death is all around Liesel. Death permeates everywhere and surrounds everyone in the book.

Literature is recognized in the book. Liesel learns how to read and the value of having a voice from the beginning of the book. She also realizes that words are what hold the country under the power of Hitler and Nazi party. The theme is recurring: Hans teaches her to read at night, the mayor's wife allows her into the library and Max gives her two books he wrote himself. Literature is the source of Liesel’s strife as well as her escape from her bleak life.

Guilt is another main theme surrounding the book. When Max stays with Hans and his family, he constantly asks for forgiveness for putting them through many trials with Nazis and other situations. Another example is when Alex Steiner returns home at the end of the novel and realizes that his whole family has perished. He feels guilty for not letting Rudy go to the Nazi school which eventually got his son killed, to which he expressed he would rather have died in his son's place.

Much of the plot revolves around the friendship between Liesel and Rudy, which is developing into a romance. Hans' loyalty to Max's father leads to hiding Max in the basement, which creates the deep bond between Liesel and Max.

The conflict in this novel is man vs. society. The novel's events are set against the background of the Jewish Holocaust and the greater events of World War II. Hans, one of the main characters, is morally opposed to the actions of Hitler and the Nazi party. He challenges the Nazi regime through quiet means such as painting over anti-Semitic slurs which have been written on Jewish shopfronts. He even goes so far as to shelter and hide a Jewish man, Max, who is trying to escape the concentration camps. At the same time, Hans is aware of the judgment he receives from the "party members" in his neighborhood, as they all know that he is not sympathetic to Hitler's cause, which he is obligated to be as a German citizen.

The brutality of humans is primarily a product of the novel's setting in Nazi Germany. The horrors of war are shown to the reader through the treatment of Jews and scenes such as the dying pilot scene, where Rudy places a teddy bear on the man's chest as an example of the beauty of humanity. These acts of kindness re-appear throughout the novel, and, as a result, show two contrasting sides of human nature.