The Book Thief

The Book Thief is narrated by an extremely overworked being who identifies himself as Death. Markus Zusak needed a narrator who could provide Liesel's point of view, but also provide information that Liesel, as a young girl in a relatively isolated town, wouldn't know about. He needed a narrator who could provide snapshots of the World War II outside of Himmel Street. Zusak could've just used a third-person narrator, but by using Death the author is able to offer a unique perspective on all the death and dying occurring during this historical period. Death doesn't know and see everything that's going on in the world. He's gets his information from personal experiences and from what he reads and hears about from others. In this story, much of what Death relates to us falls into the second category. His chief source for the story he's telling is The Book Thief, the book Liesel writes about her life. But, for Liesel's story to make sense to us, Death needs to tell us about what's going on in other parts of Germany, Poland, and Russia during World War II, to provide us with details Liesel would have no way of knowing at the time she's writing her book. The narration of Death turns our perception of death upside down. He is not heartless, cruel and uncompromising. He cares and avoids human contact for fear of getting attached. He sees deaths in terms of colours 'coloured' by emotions, “For me, the sky was the colour of Jews.” (p.372). Dying is one of the main things going on. He interweaves this larger context with the story of Liesel and the people she loves and loses.

Most of The Book Thief takes place in the small, and fictional, town of Molching, just outside of non-fictional Munich, Germany. Molching is on the way to the concentration camp  (which the novel does not enter). Himmel Street, where the Hubermanns and Steiners live, is where much of the action takes place. "Himmel," Death informs us, translates to "heaven", ”Whoever named Himmel Street has a healthy sense of irony. Not that it was a living hell. It wasn't. But it sure wasn't heaven, either”. (p.26) Yet, because of the acts of kindness occurring inside 33 Himmel Street, the Hubermann home, and because of the tenderness of Rudy and Liesel's friendship, there is something heavenly about Himmel Street. The bulk of the novel takes place from 1939 to 1942. In January of 1939, Liesel comes to live with the Hubermanns on Himmel Street. The story traces her life over the next four years, up to the night Himmel Street is bombed and (almost) everyone she loves dies in their sleep, “In short, Himmel Street was flattened.” (p.528). 1945 brings the end of Hitler, the end of the war, and the reunion of Max and Liesel. The epilogue takes us far into Liesel's future, to the time and place of her death in Sydney, Australia.

The Book Thief has been beautifully pieced together in a way that makes us feel the impact of Hitler and the emotions felt by everyone. The book shows us how powerful words can be and their consequences. The Book Thief is framed by Death's ideas of the value of humanity, and Death's inability to reconcile the remarkable cruelty and the remarkable compassion of which human beings are simultaneously capable. We meet all shades of German, from truly cruel Nazis to the warm-hearted Hans Hubermann. The book is a greatly balanced piece of work with glimpses of what is yet to come: sometimes misleading, sometimes all too true.