The Beauty and Brutality of the World

As I've been alluding to, my one saving grace is distraction. It keeps me sane.



As the words float off the page and resonate deep within my heart, I can't help but feel a certain connection with the writer.

Then I satirically realize that I share a similar mind-frame with Death.

Still with me? Then in the same being's words, I write to you, dear reader: Come with me and I'll tell you a story.

A story of opposites, put simply. Life and Death. Losing and finding. Giving, and most paramount of all, thieving.

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak is a well-written masterpiece with such poetic prose that toys with the emotions and etches itself into memory. It tells of the dark inkling of time that imbues human history -- Nazi Germany and World War II, the years that fell under Adolf Hitler's tyrannical rule.

I must admit that I'm not an expert in the historical aspect of the subject. All I've ever heard about of Hitler, in passing, is that he is a horrible, horrible man, and a mass murderer with a strong sense of discrimination.

The characters are unique and individual, described by Zusak in a way that shows off their trademark. We are given a look into their lives and see just how steadfast they all are in a time that calls for strength, amidst war and depression.

The centerpiece of the tale is a girl named Liesel Meminger who, for a girl still young, draws in Death and tragedy in her wake. She's not to blame, of course, concerning her circumstances. Who would ever ask for their brother to suddenly drop dead on a train ride to their new foster home? She experiences such terrible loss, is separated from her family and becomes a first-hand witness to the destructive force of World War II.

After burying her brother and pilfering her first book from a mound of snow (fittingly entitled, The Grave Digger's Handbook), she arrives at Himmel Street in a town called Molching. Ironically, especially in the heart-breaking final scenes of the book, the meaning of Himmel to be translated to Heaven could not be farther from reality. She meets her new foster parents: Rosa Hubermann who, underneath the constant string of profanities, houses a heart of gold; and Hans Hubermann, an accordion-playing painter who soon teaches Liesel how to read.

Liesel's first encounter with the written words may seem like a solemn one, but The Grave Digger's Handbook was the first book she ever held in her hands and only a prelude to the more enticing ones that color her new life. She finds a new joy in reading them, even resorts to stealing them when she can, because then money for her family was scarce and they were even a luxury she could not continuously indulge herself in.

Her fixation with books and reading reminds us how words can transport us. We can get lost in the pages and get swept up in the stories they tell, leaving behind our reality to enter the fictitious ones between the lines.

I've always been a believer in the power of words. But this book also shows me that they are a double-edged sword. Words can have the power to change things. Dramatic as it sounds, they are even capable of changing the world. It can save lives. Move nations.

They can be twisted and edited, used to lie and manipulate. As was the custom then during Nazi Germany, the Fuhrer's words became gospel. He brain-washed the people under his rule with propaganda, and as the story unfolds we see the harsh consequences of such abuse. They follow his every word like robots, like zombies. He has the Germans thinking that they are a superior race, superior enough to risk their lives in a bid of war. A war that led to so many deaths.

So many people had placed their faith blindly upon him, to the point that if you weren't a Hitler supporter, the repercussions would be dire. Liesel's new Papa was among that small percentage that weren't Nazi believers and that paradigm hinged on the fact that he owed his life to a Jew. The very people Adolf Hitler discriminatingly despised.

Hans Hubermann was one of the few people who didn't believe that Jews had to be exterminated. But he never could act upon those beliefs, even speak them, all because he was afraid that once those words leaked from his lips, he could not take them back and anyone who heard them would punish him for standing up against what is obviously immoral. Maybe most of the Nazis who claimed their support were the ones who were most against it.

We're given a look at what it is like to be a Jew during that time, looking through the eyes of Max Vandenburg. He's on the run, to the point of dehydration and starvation and for what reason? Because he was born a Jew. Because a man in a fuzzy mustache says that every fiber of his being is wrong, simply because. What in the world could justify such thoughts? How deep could a racial hatred grow to make someone go through such suffering? He is coincidentally the son of the man who saved Hans Hubermann's life, and now without a home or a family, he turn to him and asks him to do something that could risk his life more than anything: to hide a Jew in his home. Implicitly, he is also asking: How far will you go to uphold your beliefs? How much of a human being are you truly are?

I momentarily tend to forget the story is fictitious and my heart aches for the poor souls, in another place, another time. Out of my reach. The realistic scenarios aptly depict the harsh times and I can't help but wonder what kind of suffering people in the real world had to face. Perhaps there were Liesels and Hubermanns and Maxes facing all sorts of dilemmas. Or perhaps it was far worse that Markus Zusak could ever try to depict.

What binds all these characters, places, and stories within stories is the omniscient narrator who comes off a bit too... human for my liking. The most uplifting story-telling of The Book Thief is the use of Death as its voice. As the war rages on, he becomes quite busy, as you can imagine, reaping souls and dropping them off to only he knows where. Zusak defies common perception that Death is a cold-blooded, empty soul in a black cloak who wields a scythe, and instead gives him a heart. We read that he is burdened with his task, he finds no joy in it, no satisfaction. He distracts himself with all the deceased souls he sees everyday by vacationing in increments. In colors.

It's not that he needs to distract himself from the souls he need to collect -- it is after all his job, and no matter how much he chooses not to, he will not stop seeing them. He needs a distraction from us. From humans. From the survivors that stand in the wake of Death, humans who can kill and save lives, who are capable of nearly anything good, even bad. He is obsessed with them, with their stories, even though he knows he should not.

This novel tackles quite a few issues and themes, like discrimination and duality, but the one that sums everything pretty well is this: human nature. It puzzles Death to no end. The way humans can be so complicated. How they can bring upon their lives such beauty and brutality, such order and chaos, as if one could not exist without the other.

We wish for peace yet continue to war with one another. We fight for life but then kill. Through the darkest days we still manage to see the silver lining. We are afraid of Death yet... we continue running towards him.

A small excerpt from his "Diary" might help to clarify:

It was a year for the ages, like 79, like 1346, to name just a few. Forget the scythe, Goddamn it, I needed a broom or a mop. And I needed a vacation.

* * * A SMALL PIECE OF TRUTH * * *

I do not carry a sickle or a scythe.

I only wear a hooded black robe when it's cold.

And I don't have those skull-like

facial features you seem to enjoy

pinning on me from a distance. You

want to know what I truly look like?

I'll help you out. Find yourself

a mirror while I continue. 

I also find it incredibly fitting that in the end, Liesel uses the words to tell her story by writing it down. No one could ever had guessed that the story, written in a small bounded notebook, would fall into the hands of Death. In his introduction he tells us his reasons for keeping stories of survivors: It is one of the small legion I carry, each one extraordinary in its own right. Each one an attempt -- an immense leap of an attempt -- to prove to me that you, and your human existence are worth it.

In the end he's even at a loss for words to describe what he has seen.

All I was able to do was turn to Liesel Meminger and tell her the only truth I know. I said it to the book thief and I say it to you now.

* * * A LAST NOTE FROM YOUR NARRATOR * * *

I am haunted by humans.

So ask yourselves this reader: Is our existence truly worth it? Can we even call ourselves 'human' beings?

It has been a long while since I wrote a book review (again, my use of the word 'review' is a loose one), but I do enjoy writing them, analyzing what they have to offer, entertainment or education-wise. I know it is long, but if you've taken the time to read this, then thank you. I hope that you can take what I've written as some food for thought, and might even decide to pick up this book for yourselves and fall in love with it like I did, from the very first page. As I writer, I recently realized that I suck at words. I could associate my lack of inspiration to a thing called writer's block, but it is nothing but a blatant excuse. So, like Liesel Meminger said at the end of her book, The Book Thief:

I have hated the words and I have loved them, and I hope I have made them right.

-- Haunted by the Words, Karin Novelia