Novel of the Week: The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

The book thief is a young German girl who is taken in by foster parents in Munich in 1939. She is terrorized by nightmares about the recent death of her younger brother. Her foster father sits by her bedside at night to comfort her, and helps her learn to read. This is a story about the lives of civilian Germans during the Second World War. Tough times, indeed. The narrator of the story is Death. He sees a lot as he traverses the world, bearing away the souls of the dead. He is an unusual observer to hear from, because he has so much contact with humanity but remains an outsider.

I enjoy how what I learn from one story expands my reading of another. Recently I watched a movie about the life of Pope John Paul II (title is "Pope John Paul II"), and it taught me about the experience of civilians in Poland during the 2nd World War. First they had Fascism thrust upon them, which restricted their freedom of worship, reduced their political choices, and tried to remove their national identity as Poles. They were then rescued by the Communist invasion, coming from the east and ousting the Fascists oppressors. However, the Polish people soon found that they were no better off, because Communism occupied and oppressed them in the very same ways. Another story, which further expanded my reading of The Book Thief, was The Sisters (about the Mitford family, by Mary S. Lovell). Learning about the Mitfords demonstrated for me the waves of political ideas in Europe in the 20's and 30's. Communism and Fascism were competing schools of thought, present as political parties in many countries, not just in Russia and in Germany.

The Book Thief helped me to be less judgmental of German citizens who lived through and "participated in" the Nazi regime. It demonstrated that there were people who joined the Nazi Party out of necessity, but didn't necessarily agree with it--they joined out of fear of retaliation if they didn't go along. And they could not know whom to trust. That atmosphere reminded me of the culture of denunciations and arrests in Communist Russia, as described in The Gulag Archipelago by Alexander Solzhenitsyn.

A good movie I'd like to see again, after having read The Book Thief, is "The Nasty Girl," made in Germany in the late 1980's or early 1990's. It's about a young wife who investigates the involvement of people of her parent's generation in the Nazi regime. What's so intriguing is, these people are the older citizens right there in her hometown, still living, and they do not want that terrible time dredged back up. She finds that everyone has behavior they're not proud of.

The Book Thief is a powerful story. I should mention that it has quite a lot of profanity, but despite that, it was edifying. It saddened me, but also surprised and rewarded me. I recommend it for teens and adults.