Criminality

            The setting, Nazi Germany, forces us to think about what is right and what it wrong, specifically dealing with laws. To abide by the law meant to persecute your neighbors and support the suffering of your fellow humans. Was it better to follow the rules or follow your morals? And if some of the laws were wrong, how does one know which are okay to bend or disregard and which aren’t? Surely some of Nazi Germany’s laws made sense and weren’t unique. But if you’re operating on the assumption that some laws can be broken, where do you draw the line? Our main character proudly considers herself a thief, as does her best friend. Lengthy discussion might not be able to resolve whether it’s moral of them to steal. At first, Liesel is fairly innocent, just taking books off the ground. Soon she is stealing from the mayor’s wife and even goes so far as making a boy crash on his bike so that they can steal his food. Obviously, that’s illegal. While it’s right for stealing to be generally illegal, do the circumstances excuse it? After all, that boy was rich and probably still had plenty of food to eat that evening whether or not his basket was taken. Meanwhile Liesel and Rudy shared the food in it with other kids who were living off of small rations in big families. One could liken them to Robin Hood in this situation, stealing from the rich to give to the poor. Is it really wrong to make more stomachs full than would have been before? That time perhaps, they weren’t in the wrong despite having broken the law. But other times might not have been quite so noble, and the question is where to draw the line. I think that line is impossible to define as each person has a different opinion on where it would be. Different people have different views, which is why it’s hard to decide on laws and punishments. Was it really right to steal from a farmer who was trying to make a living off that fruit? Maybe not. But was it wrong enough to be punished for thievery when all they wanted was to ease their hunger? Maybe not. There may never be an answer when considering things such as breaking the laws in Nazi Germany, where many of the laws were just plain wrong, even though they were supposed to be preventing wrongdoing. After all, after the war, the people who went against the Nazi regime were celebrated and honored, and the law-abiding citizens were shamed. How were the people in these countries supposed to decide what to do after it reached the point where there was almost no resistance to the Nazi regime? I think maybe breaking the law isn’t bad simply because it’s  “breaking the law,” it’s bad because you’re committing an act that was considered bad enough that a law was made against it. And in most cases, the people creating the laws were reasonable and just. But it’s hard to judge who’s right and who’s wrong when the moral guide of law starts to dissolve under a corrupt system and each person has to privately decide which rules should be abided by and which ones just shouldn’t. Having the protagonists be rule-breakers brings this question to mind and makes you reevaluate what laws have to do with right and wrong as you read The Book Thief.

Words

            As is evident from the title, language is very important in this book. Throughout the story we are shown how the power of language can be used positively and negatively. Nazi Germany was built on words. Hitler slowly persuaded people that he was right and that the Jews were to blame for their problems. People who’d been fine with Jewish people ten years earlier found themselves saluting the man who was systematically murdering them. In Max’s book, The Word Shaker, he says, “the Führer had decided that he would rule the world with words” (Zusak 445). He didn’t need anything except persuasive words and insidious ideas to control the minds of free-thinkers. Soon he had the whole country committing acts of hatred and murder simply by telling them things. This shows the true power of words by showing that they can make terrible things happen. On the other hand, Liesel loves words. Reading is what she loved; she was proud of it because she had to struggle to acquire it. She has an appreciation of literature because books are so hard to come by, and when she first sees a library it takes her breath away. She is not only aware of the way words can be used for evil, but their positive power as well. Reword. She has tamed an entire room of hysterical people and calmed their gripping fear simply by reading aloud. Books have brought her comfort and triumph. They are also a symbol of free-thinking−the Germans were burning books that the Nazis didn’t like for reasons such as the main character being Jewish. This censorship truly shows the power of literature because one of the most powerful regimes in the world was afraid to let books get in their people’s hands. Words have the power to change people’s minds. They also have incredible power to show love. One of the books she cherished the most was The Standover Man, given to her by Max. It was a simple book but it was hand-painted and a gesture of thanks and caring. Words can tell simple stories that speak volumes on their own. Overall, words having power is a very important subject in The Book Thief.

Max

            Max is a very intriguing character. It is noted in the beginning that Liesel is more fortunate than him because at least she isn’t a Jew. The first time we see him, he is already broken beyond belief. He has been forced to sit alone in the dark, petrified to move or breathe too loudly for far of someone finding him. His own neighbors, because of the propaganda they’ve been fed, have probably treated him like filth. Being hated and punished for being who you are can take a toll on your self-image. It’s safe to say that by the time he reached the Hubermann’s his self-worth was pretty low and he was constantly scared−with good reason. His whole life after that he was forced to live in hiding if he wanted to stay alive. His days consisted of sitting alone in a cold basement. He literally never went upstairs because if he did he could be found. I cannot imagine that kind of existence. One thing I noticed is that he was always apologizing. He was sorry to the Hubermanns that he was causing them trouble, taking a portion of their rations, and making them break the law for him, despite that it was their choice to take all those things on so that they could protect him. It’s as though he can’t accept that these people would care enough about him that they’d risk their own safety to help him. He didn’t feel like he deserved to be fed and kept safe. He ultimately shows this when, instead of meeting Hans to arrange when it was safe to come back to the house, he left a note that said “You’ve done enough” (Zusak 398). They had insisted that they didn’t mind keeping him in their basement, but he always felt like he was asking too much of them. We’re left to contemplate what did this to him. Was it truly that he was so kind he didn’t want to burden them? Did the atmosphere of Anti-Semitism make him truly believe that he was worth less than them? Did the constant fear make him feel worthless? Did the poverty, shame and starvation play a part? We aren’t offered much insight on Max’s motives, so I guess we’ll never know. Perhaps it was a combination of all three that turned the audacious young fighter into the constantly apologizing man who showed up at the Hubermanns' door.  

The Word Shaker

             Before Max left, he’d left a gift for Liesel for her to receive when she was ready. It was a book that he wrote himself, a collection of thoughts really. But on page 117, there was a story. It was about Hitler cultivating and spreading words, and getting people to follow him with the words he’d grown into a forest. One girl planted a dried tear for her sick friend who was hated by his country and allowed it to grow into a tree that couldn’t be cut down by anyone who tried because she stayed up in its branches. Finally, her old friend found her and they climbed down together, causing the tree to fall onto the forest. “It could never destroy all of it, but if nothing else, a different-colored path was carved through it” (Zusak 450). This story has so much symbolism in it. The way Hitler took over the country with words is likened to him growing a forest of words and symbols. Just like words, a tree, once planted, can grow and grow long after the seed was planted into something very present and immovable. It can even grow into something unintended by the planter. Words, once they’ve been said, take root in people’s minds. If the conditions are right, the words can grow by being passed from person to person and being repeated over and over again until it is nearly impossible to get rid of them. It would take a lot of effort to cut down a sequoia. But then there is the part about the girl’s tree. This too shows how words can be cultivated form the smallest idea into something that grows and grows as more people are affected by it. One person’s resistance can grow as more people are inspired to do the same. If the conditions are right (having enough people around with hearts ready to be changed), then that little bit of resistance can grow into a lot of resistance. Even if it won’t make much of a difference, it can still carve a path for other people to follow in. Maybe a few people in the crowd the day that Hans Hubermann gave a Jew that bread realized that it was possible to do something about the cruelty and were given the nerve to do a little something themselves. Maybe Liesel’s bravery would spark another person’s bravery, which would spark another few people’s bravery, and slowly it would reverberate throughout the nation. That one little seed would grow into a massive tree that would carve a different path through the poisonous forest of Nazi words. This incredible symbolism reveals the theme that sometimes in life, one small act or a few small words affect many because they grow and spur on a chain reaction, which will give people the ability to travel down a different path.

Liesel’s Accordion

            Earlier in the book, Death had remarked that, though Liesel often wanted to ask Hans to teach her to play the accordion, she felt like she would never be as good as him anyway, not in the same way. She wanted to let it be his thing because she could never live up to the way he played. Then, in the bomb shelter, she started to read The Whistler, and eventually all of the frightened people in the shelter were silent and hanging on to her every word. The author described her reading: “she hauled the words in and breathed them out. A voice played notes inside of her. This, it said, is your accordion” (Zusak 381). The accordion here is used as a metaphor for the one thing you can master and call your own. Hans Hubermann is known for playing the accordion, and no one can play it quite like him. Now Liesel has discovered that this is her skill and what she loves- books. Even though she struggled so much earlier on with learning how to read, and has had to steal every book she owns, this is what she can be remembered for. Hans’s skill with the accordion brings people together and evokes emotions in them with the music. Liesel’s reading does the same. Her reading brought some semblance of peace to a chaotic room and gave the people something to concentrate on besides their gripping fear. The children stopped screaming and the adults stopped shaking. She already thought of herself as a book thief, now this group of people would also know her as the girl with the books. Like her father, she found something that she is good at in a way that no one else is. She used her words to save a roomful of people in turmoil. The author compared that skill and ownership to her father’s accordion because the readers already recognize the feelings Liesel has about her father and her love and awe of his skill with music, so saying that she found her accordion is much more powerful than saying she found something she was good at, loved, and would be remembered for. Most times in literature, it is much more effective to show something rather than specifically tell the audience. The author doesn’t need to talk about the significance of that moment and how it made Liesel feel, by saying “This...is your accordion” (Zusak 381) we can infer all of that information, and it’s much more powerful. He said all of that without saying anything more than a simple metaphor, and it spoke volumes so that he didn’t have to.

Liesel’s Gifts

            While Max is in a coma, Liesel brings him discarded items she finds. She gave him a ribbon, a pinecone, a button, even the image of a cloud. Her innocence and compassion are shown through these gifts; her innocence because only a child would think of such a thoughtful thing to do and believe that such an assortment would bring a dying man comfort, and her caring and compassion simply because she thought to give him anything at all. One item briefly mentioned is a toy soldier. “It was scratched and trodden, which, to Liesel, was the whole point. Even with the injury, it could still stand up” (Zusak 323). These two sentences reflect a significant theme in the book, that sometimes when someone has had misfortune, injury or misery in their life, they can still be happy because they don’t allow themselves to be beaten. The characters in this book, especially Max, have gone through a lot of hardship and misery, so this beat-up soldier that could still stand signified all of them- beat-up people, physically and emotionally, that can still live. Despite being impoverished, living in Nazi Germany, and having lost people they love, the characters are still able to get by and do so without wallowing in their misery. Hans Hubermann keeps painting and showing his daughter the world, Max stays in the basement without complaint, and Liesel steals books, plays soccer in the streets, and revels in the little victories of life. I thought it was profound the way Marcus Zusak dropped that in there and so quickly moved on, and it was brilliant how simply that theme was revealed using the thoughtful gift of a child to a dying man.

            This theme reminded me of Kintsugi, a Japanese method of repair where you fill the cracks in a broken ceramic piece with gold resin. The result is a beautiful bowl laced with gold lines. The idea is that the bowls are now even more beautiful because they were broken. There is such deep meaning to this idea, and it relates to this theme in The Book Thief. Even though misfortune befell these people and they were “cracked,” by healing the cracks in themselves they can become better than they were before. Just because you’ve been beaten doesn’t mean you can’t stand.
To read more about Kintsugi, visit http://www.elephantjournal.com/2012/06/kintsugi-as-yoga-filling-the-cracks-with-gold-zo-newell/

Mortality

             The first book Liesel steals is The Grave-Digger’s Handbook. It reminds her of her brother who died in front of her, and frankly it’s a morbid subject: how to bury a dead body. The author obviously chose each book for a reason, and this one is meant to signify a depressed, scared, death-filled time in Liesel’s life. One of the next books she gets is The Whistler, which is about a murderer. When she finishes it, Hans remarks that it’s pretty dark for her to have been reading. It reminds you of how living in Nazi Germany and having lost her family has taken her innocence too early. In some aspects she is still an innocent child but she has seen more death than she ever should have and in that aspect she is less innocent than she might have been growing up in a happy, healthy home all her life. The murderous subject creeped her out, but it didn’t scar her. It also keeps us focused on death, which is a primary subject of the book. The Book Thief is even narrated by Death, which is another way the author reminds us that these characters are constantly avoiding death, which is a very real thing. Humans are as mortal as it gets, and sometimes people die. That idea is constantly present throughout this book.