The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

I finished this last Sunday. I also watched Monty Don review some gardens on the telly last Sunday. The thing that struck me about that programme was the enormous number of adjectives he used to describe what he was seeing, eg: astonishing, breathtaking, fantastic, awesome, amazing. Now I like Monty Don, but I thought this was sloppy reporting and it's the reason that I've waited a week before telling you what I thought of this book. Every time I started to write about this book I was assailed by adjectives. Adjectives are great, but if over used they can devalue the very thing they are being applied to and I didn’t want to do that to this book. So, here goes...

Often when I read a book I think, ‘hmm, I could have written that’. Now, clearly I couldn’t, or I would have. What I really mean is, ‘hmm, if I’d thought of that idea and could have been bothered and was a writer I could have written that book’. It’s the idea that’s the clincher and it’s often written in a linear narrative which makes it seem straightforward.

Sometimes authors think, ‘hmm, I’m not going to get stuck in a linear narrative, I’m going to jump around and run a couple of parallel stories that are seemingly unconnected but eventually collide making sense of everything’. But even when they do this, I think it’s often transparent.
The Book Thief has a simple story at its heart: a girl in Germany during the Second World War who watches Jews marched through her village to a concentration camp. However, there is no way that I could have taken that simple kernel and gone on to create the tale as Markus Zusak has.

I read this book and was thrilled by the ingenuity of it. I was flat out envious and very admiring. It’s no gimmicky narrative tricksiness, it’s a proper great novel and I wish I could ever hope to get half way close to writing something this wonderful ( ‘hmm, note to self, must watch the adjectives, they are creeping in…’).

Death narrates The Book Thief, and I liked him, that in itself is a good trick, making Death a sympathetic character. It is Death telling the story of the Liesel (the girl). Liesel has some tough times because of the things she loves and the time in which she lives. However, it is also the story of Max, the Jewish fist fighter, and Hans the reluctant soldier and willing father. It is the story of Rudy, the friend, the idealist, the black sprinter. And it’s about the redeeming power of words and books (always dear to my heart).

Here is one of my favourite bits, it’s Death:
In all honesty (and I know I’m complaining excessively now), I was still getting over Stalin, in Russia. The so-called second revolution – the murder of his own people.Then came Hitler.They say that war is death’s best friend, but I must offer you a different point of view on that one. To me, war is like the new boss who expects the impossible. He stands over your shoulder repeating the one thing, incessantly. ‘Get it done, get it done’. So you work harder. You get the job done. The boss, however, does not thank you. He asks for more.

This book is beautiful, but it will make members of The Dead Dads Club cry. When my blog is one I am planning to do a big round-up of all the books I’ve read over the past 12 months and thought I might pick out my top ten, at the moment this is a frontrunner for the top spot. I urge you to read it and apply your own adjectives.