The Book Thief by
Markus ZusakMy rating:
2 of 5 starsThis book was written from Death's point of view, a narrative style annoyingly affected, condescending, even pretentious in places. Unfortunately, Death comes across as facetious, flippant, and without dignity, which for me spoiled what should have been a very moving story. Death as an entity would have been around since the dawn of time so in my opinion should have been a much more complex figure with incredible observations on human nature and the history of man to impart to us, the reader. Instead we get flippant remarks such as "oh, you want to know what happens do you?", and continual reference to the colours of everything. Things which Death thought were important were bolded, centred, and placed within decorative parentheses of a sort, which broke up the flow of writing and served no purpose other then to remind you how annoying his voice was. Perhaps Death was meant to be an impartial observer, but for me it added nothing to the overall story. Basically I kept reading because I wanted to know what happens to the characters. And there were no surprises there either, because Death, or should I say the author, in his wisdom, told us the future in snatches here and there. So no surprises, which in turn should make the journey more interesting, right? (Romeo and Juliet anyone? Yes, we KNOW they die in the end, but if the story is well told do we still cry buckets every time? Yes.)
Perhaps Death used this way was meant to introduce new readers gently to the holocaust. Maybe if you've never read anything like this before, never read a book with an omniscient narrator, never
read about the holocaust, then you may have been moved. But there are many books out there written by people who were actually there, experiencing it.
Diary of Anne Frank, and
The Hiding Place by Corrie Ten Boom spring to mind, incredible stuff, moving, and well worth shedding tears over.
Poetic syntax is used in the Book Thief to within an inch of its life. We are used to hearing things in certain orders, and the effect of breaking with normal syntax is to draw attention to what is being said and the way it is said. This can be effective but I believe it
is overused to the point of alienating the reader. On the other hand some descriptions were laugh out loud and stuck in the head because they were so unusual, my favourite being "her teeth elbowed for room in her mouth”.
One more thing - the ending. How convenient was it to kill off practically the whole village and anyone attached to our poor protagonist in one fell swoop. Didn't know how to end it? Heck it's a war, they drop bombs! Bang, all done. Oh, she reunites with Max. Cut to end of her life and Death shows her the book she wrote that he has been carrying around all this time. So... did she marry Max? Come on, they had a big reunion and "fell to the floor", but that's all we see.
The mark of a good book, I said to my Mum the other day, is that you often don't notice how it is written, or more importantly find fault with how it is written. If no fault of any kind strikes you while reading, then it's a bloody good book. If it makes you stop and re-read a line because it was so brilliant, or sit and look out the window to process the prose, even better. Maybe I'm a hard task master, but this does not strike me as one of them.
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