The Book Thief
Why do people steal anything.. out of need or desires.. it can be either or both.. but one would only steal books if they loved them .. and a Book Thief is easily forgiven at least by me because I love books so much myself that I can totally understand the craving when it hits.. so this clarifies the reason why I picked up this book.. 'The Book Thief'
I imagined that it would be her life through the passing phases of various books which she steals, how they change her life & how she grows with them.. and I realized that the book’s reality was so as the theme could not be more apt & the title couldn't be more suitable.. The story is so warm with the characters so real, situations so poignant and world so miserable but still so beautiful through the eyes of the girl!! I felt that with 'death' as the narrator.. yes it actually is - it might turn into dramatic, unreal, shifting focus to unimportant things & all over the place .. but not once did it leave the main characters & death was able to justify its presence at all places & intertwining the story of the girl around it. death is an inevitable narrator and also the inevitable visitor as its death which begins the story & death that ends it.. The best part of the book is the characters, the intertwining of various books & stories & the presentation of each & every event!!
1. Liesel is an ordinary girl but still so special, she is so simple looking but still so beautiful, she is fun loving but there is sadness in her, she is a child but also a woman, she knows a lot but she is curious too, she loves words and is learning how words can give one power or make powerless, express your feelings, or affect your feelings, they can hurt you or heal you... and also they are her life & death...
2. Rudy & Hans are other two beautiful characters who stand by her & love her unconditionally & whom she loves most.
3. Rosa is loud & abusive but yet with the warmest heart!!
4. Max - what can I say he is just like Liesel..
5. and finally death the narrator is the most human of all.. feels love, feels sad, feels sympathy, feels attachment.. feels fear.. just like any human.. unlike the Nazis & some people who can’t feel anything..
Finally the author.. it is based in 1939 World War 2 Germany.. on which many books have been written & the past authors have tried to capitalize on human emotions by writing sad & gruesome stories of inhuman treatment of Jews & effects of war.. This also could be other such book and he could have gone wrong by writing a rip off or a copy of such books.. by exaggerating the inhuman conditions of Jews & ill treatment at the hands of Nazis.. but he tried to show the other side of it - the Germans who also went through equal torture & misery at hands of some Nazi rulers.. even though supposedly they were a superior race.. but poverty & death differentiate none..
The various stories/ books are heart rendering, deep & soulful - The Word Shaker, The Stand over Man, The Whistler, The Shoulder Shrug!! Each story touches your heart & gives you a warm feeling in the stomach like sun in the winter afternoon!!
like burning of a book is described as "Burning words were torn from their sentences.".. describing the weather & the clouds to someone who hasn't been out for years.. "She imagined the vision of it passing from her hand to his.."
collecting stuff from the road to give as cute lil gifts for a sick unconscious, dying man.. drawing a picture story book gift on your own life for someone you love, stealing a book rightfully yours which you refused when it was gifted to you.. dreaming a nightmare & your father reading you a book in wee hours of the night to comfort you.. painting yourself black & running laps in the middle of the night just like Jesse Ownes..
I can go on & on.. as there were so many beautiful moments in the book but I would end by saying.. that go & thief 'The book thief' - its worth it..
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