The Book Thief

Can Death be funny? Can you feel pity for Death himself? Can you imagine Death holding the souls tenderly or do you imagine Death mercilessly collecting souls with his scythe? What if I tell you that Death is just something or rather someone who is just a victim like us of circumstances? That he just happened to have the ugliest dayjob among all of us?

Yes, Death is just doing his job. And no, according to him, he does not bring a scythe with him, nor does he wear a hooded robe when it is not cold outside.

Markus Zusak's The Book Thief has won several awards in the literary world and both him and his novel shot up to stardom worldwide. It is also because of this stardom that I got curious about The Book Thief. As what other book bloggers have been raving about, The Book Thief was narrated by someone who calls himself Death. Death is the one who we imagine to wear black hooded robe, scythe in hand, and a skull as a face. His job is to collect the souls of those who are dying. But as what Death himself has clearly pointed out in the novel, it is not to his happiness that he has to collect souls. It can be tiring too. Death once said in the novel that "Even Death has a heart" and I felt pity towards him. Death, I concluded, has always been misunderstood.


The first page of the first chapter (yes, the book is divided into chapters) has already elicited a chuckle or two from me and all throughout the novel, pieces and bits of the story made me smile and laugh but please do not mistake the book to be funny in whole because Zusak packed a rather large luggage of emotions in this novel. Of all the emotions there were in this story, it was love which has played the most part. You will be touched by how a teen can love someone as much as Rudy and Liesel. And yet I cannot stop myself from thinking about Max. Has there ever been a love triangle? Someone who got confused? Or has just someone moved on with the rest of the world?

unconventional style of Zusak

The Book Thief, from Death's point of view tells about the life during the second world war in Germany. In Nazi Germany. He has been everywhere, that Death, from Germany to Russia, beside the bed to the middle of the forest. But wherever he was at the time, he still knows what was happening to Liesel Meminger. You see, Liesel Meminger has met Death a couple of times but there was not more than a glance that has been exchanged between the two of them. In this novel, you will love Liesel, sympathize with her, share her grief and sorrow but you will also feel the same with Death. And hopefully, like me, you will come to believe that death is not something that happens accidentally. Death comes at the exact moment that he should but you can be lucky and avoid him just like how Hans Hubermann has cheated on him.

The Book Thief is a rather long novel, at 550 pages and so I will cut short this entry as it may contain spoilers but let me express some opinions. As what others might have already realized, Markus Zusak wrote The Book Thief in such a way that he will not let you feel a particular emotion intensely. Many a times I was in the verge of crying but then Markus swiveled onto the other way and suddenly the sorrow or sadness just puffs away. I think he should just have let the reader cry or laugh instead of letting them on, only to force them to abandon the feeling by the next sentence. But let me clarify that I love The Book Thief. I think it belongs to the few best books that I have read. It was not emotionally heavy, maybe because it was poised as Young Adult fiction but at the same time it packs many kinds of emotions and many layers of each kind. As I read the last pages though, a thought suddenly struck me and it stuck itself to my mind since. I wonder, was it Max who became the husband of Liesel? I desperately wanted this question to be answered by Markus himself but I have been searching in vain. Deep inside, I know I wanted Max to be the "husband" because I think they have shared something beautiful and special in the middle of a chaotic Germany. I still cannot take my mind off the scene where Liesel stepped forward when she realized that "he's looking for me". That scene for me, is the one that has touched me the most. The feeling of finally seeing the person you have been worried about, missing too much, been looking for. And yet you can only be with him for a few minutes, exchange a few lines, only to be pulled apart again. That feeling when you know that only a miracle can let you see him again, breathing. That part. It is impossible to capture that whole scene with words. You can only feel it. And it is heart-wrenching. That particular scene, from Max to Rudy, the three of them only represented one thing: Love.

unconventional style of Zusak