Tuesday, May 4, 2010

The Book Thief

I wrote the following some time ago, first as a ketter to two dear friends, then as an article on Helium. Hope you all like it.

Dear Annemieke and Hanneke,

I write this letter to you both, because you both were there, and I thank you from the bottom of my heart. It always amazes me how big discoveries can follow on the heels of small accidents, even when the discovery itself seemed small at the time and the accident did not even appear to exist.

It was the simplest thing to do. The fact is this: We went into a book store.
Utrecht's largest bookstore was filled with people of all ages browsing and buying. Children in droves scoured the shelves hungry for new things to read. Children of all ages clamored for a place in one of the six check out lines, books in hand, faces smiling in anticipation of the adventures awaiting them.

For me, an American glancing at Dutch books, the vision was amazing and gratifying. Then I discovered that there were dozens of books in English waiting just for me. After an hour of exploration, I chose four. Among them was The Book Thief, a novel by Australian writer Markus Zusak. I examined it and fell in love with the premise: Death meets a girl and now Death is compelled to tell us her story.
Her name is Liesel Meminger, who finds herself growing up with foster parents on Himmel (Heaven) Street in a small town near both Munich and Dachau, during World War Two. Through an array of fascinating characters trying to find some sort of normalcy in such a place and time as Nazi Germany just as the war turns, we get to see all the horror, pain and beauty that exists in Man.

Four Observations from The Book Thief
1. The Average German was caught up in it, just like everyone else.
2. The average German was human.
3. Contrary to modern opinion, the accordion is not a curse on the musical world, but a blessing.
4. Although in Nazi Germany kindness was punished instead of rewarded.
kindness occurred. Kindness flourished.

The book compelled me in many ways. Not the least of which, I had to confront my own prejudices. Ordinary people whom I was raised to think of as the enemy shined brilliantly in this story, and then became the victims. There can be no daunt, as Death himself warns, so I don't think I am giving too much away: bombs will fall. American bombs.

After reading this book, how can anyone ever let anything like this happen again -- give Death the workload? And yet . . . .

Years ago I read Thomas Keneally's Schindler's List with great disappointment. Keneally's material was compelling but for me the story telling was flat and without real emotion. But if Keneally had written that book with the poet's eye that Zusak gives us in The Book Thief, it would have been like reading Kurt Vonnegut's take on the German side of the war and holocaust, Zusak is that good. The canvas is small, intimate, personal, quirky in the telling, yet filled with such miniscule humanity against the backdrop of a world gone terribly wrong that my own emotions became raw, from laughter to tears. This is the book I wish I had written, found so casually, by accident, among the stacks of books in Utrecht.

One reviewer focused on the idea that it was words that kept Liesel and the others going, that brought and preserved life and dignity -- just as words in the hands of men like Hitler could destroy. For me, the dominant theme of the book focuses on just one word. Kindness. Unseen, unheralded, unspectacular kindness, something we forget human beings are capable of and always ready to perform.

The Book Thief may just be the best book I have ever read.

So thank you again, ladies, for the happy accident that rocked my world.

Love,

Roy

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