Book Review: The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
@samostically
Posted 2d ago · 4 min read
Hello everyone,
Welcome to another book review from me based on a quote from a book. Today's writing will be from the book The Book Thief by Markus Zusak, and the quote says:
I have hated the words, and I have loved them, and I hope I have made them right.
The book is a novel written by Markus Zusak, and it was published in 2005. It is set in Nazi Germany during World War II. The novel went on to become a best seller with translations into 63 different languages and 17 million copies sold. Due to its success, it was adapted into a movie in 2013 with the same book title, The Book Thief.
It is things like these and obviously the witty quotes that grab my interest into finding out what the book has to say, or in this case, where the story leads to with this novel. The story centers on a girl named Liesel Meminger as she begins to untangle her relationship with words, making her discovery into the fact that these words have the power to heal and also the power to destroy.
As the setting of the book is in Germany during the era of Nazism, the story centers on the young girl, Liesel Meminger, as she teaches herself how to read through the books she stole. The novel does a good job of portraying the power of words. On one hand, these words are used to instigate fear and cause violence, just like the Nazi speeches from Adolf Hitler, while on the other hand, these words could be used to promote hope, just like Liesel did. From the quote, one gets to understand that this is a complicated relationship that has been mixed up in the threads of hate, love, and hope. All are just words, but it comes down to how it is used. Thus, the power lies in its usage.
Many have been driven into battle all on the spectacle of words being used to instigate fear and also bring about violence, as seen during World War I. Another difference with this book is the use of an abstract narrator, Death. Through the lens of its storytelling, we get to see ordinary people live, love, and suffer during a difficult time such as World War. It becomes increasingly unbearable to endure such times and conditions.
Liesel Meminger's story with words began when she stole her first book from her brother's graveyard. Although she had difficulty reading it with the words, her foster father, Hans Hubermann, helped her to understand the words. Then, over time, it became her coping mechanism with the harsh reality of the bombing and attacks. She began to see how words were used to manipulate people, and the propagation of certain ideologies led to the destruction of books. So she steals them to preserve their knowledge.
The book is filled with a lot of human emotions, given the time it is set. It is all about the words and how it has been used, but the emotions come into play when you see how these words have been used to destroy lives. I highly recommend reading The Book Thief, if you are looking for something with a paradigm shift into the way you see words and the effect it has on people at large, or you could watch the movie as well.
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