Mark Reads ‘The Book Thief’: Chapters 49-52

In the forty-ninth through fifty-second chapters of The Book Thief, Death continues to build the dread of the oncoming bombs certain to ruin what the Hubermanns have in 33 Himmel Street, but a new threat arrives much sooner than that, giving us one of the most tense and frightening scenes in the entire book. Intrigued? Then it’s time for Mark to read The Book Thief.

CH. 49: DEATH’S DIARY: COLOGNE

I’m already anxious just typing this, because I know I will have to talk about chapter fifty and it is making me so nervous. But let’s first start with another story from Death’s perspective, this time focusing on the bombing of Cologne.

Operation Millenium is represented here in the pages of The Book Thief in a very brief form, but it’s still contributes to the oncoming horror to this story. It’s kind of strange to me that no one aside from the Nazis are ever mentioned in this book; there’s no reference to the Allies or the RAF, and it seems that the bombs are cast down from a faceless, nameless entity. I guess that in the context of this story and what’s happening for Death, it’s really all irrelevant. They’re dead souls and he has to pick them up.

I’m sure Liesel Meminger was fast asleep when more than a thousand bomber planes flew toward a place known as Köln. For me, the result was five hundred people or thereabouts. Fifty thousand others ambled homelessly around the ghostly piles of rubble, trying to work out which way was which, and which slabs of broken home belonged to whom.

Five hundred souls.

I carried them in my fingers, like suitcases. Or I’d throw them over my shoulder. It was only the children I carried in my arms.

I know I’ve said it before, but it’s so interesting that this is all through the perspective of Death, and it’s even more unexpected that Death is so…caring? And depressed? I don’t know, I never thought about Death as an entity with thoughts and desires and feelings, man, especially in terms of the fictional representation of him. I never personally considered Death to be a real thing, but I’m fascinated by the concept. Zusak has made Death an ongoing character in this story and it sometimes feel like Death ages and grows like we do. Yes, that’s an absurd concept, but as we get a better picture of his experience, I’m constantly impressed that Zusak was able to use Death as a narrator in this exact way. I mean, if any of you had told me that The Book Thief was narrated by Death before I started it, I probably would have never started reading it. The concept sounds so silly!

Yet this book is anything but that, and I’m really appreciating this experience. Plus, as I believe I’ve said before, it’s just so different from what I’ve read in the past. THIS IS FUN, NOTHING HURTS.

And since I don’t always take the chance to talk about the writing myself, chapter forty-nine has got a fine example of Zusak’s talent in it:

By the time I was finished, the sky was yellow, like burning newspaper. If I looked closely, I could see the words, reporting headlines, commentating on the progress of the war and so forth. How I’d have loved to pull it all down, to screw up the newspaper sky and toss it away. My arms ached and I couldn’t afford to burn my fingers. There was still so much work to be done.

Damning and beautiful.

Death detours briefly from this sort of introspection on his part, choosing to relate the story to us of the things that begin to fall from the sky that aren’t bombs. They fall lightly, black against the burning sky, and the local children are completely enraptured by them. Death allows himself to be momentarily distracted by this object falling in the sky:

Like the girls, I remained focused on the sky. The last thing I wanted was to look down at the stranded face of my teenager. A pretty girl. Her whole death was now ahead of her.

HOW DOES ZUSAK DO THIS. J.K. Rowling also had this talent, able to completely destroy in just a handful of words. Suzanne Collins did, to an extent, but I felt hers was more situational than her choice of diction. I kind of want to possess this talent, but then again, it can be so depressing.

The man took several small steps and soon figured out what it was. “It’s the fuel,” he said.

“What do you mean?”

“The fuel,” he repeated. “The tank.” He was a bald man in disrupted bedclothes. “They used up all their fuel in that one and got rid of the empty container. Look, there’s another one over there.”

The kids, not understanding the emotional and political weight these things might hold, actually ask the man if they can keep them, like stray pets wandering into a yard. I’m not sure if there’s any more significance to this story than just a chance for Zusak to give us these strange parallels (Death collecting souls, the kids collecting containers) and brutal contrasts (children joyously collecting parts of planes that tried to kill them). And I’m perfectly ok with that.

CH. 50: THE VISITOR

I knew it was inevitable that Max’s existence in the Hubermann basement would have to come into a glaring conflict, but this seems so much sooner than what I expected, and I think Zusak uses that to surprise and shock us with the events of this chapter.

A new ball had been found for Himmel Street soccer. That was the good news. The somewhat unsettling news was that a division of the NSDAP was heading toward them.

I almost feel like “unsettling” is an understatement. What’s a stronger word than that? If the NSDAP is heading toward Himmel Street, that spells certain disaster. It’s already been hard enough to hide Max in the basement. Keeping up this charade with the Nazis on the same street as you? Christ.

There was already a smattering of air-raid shelters in Molching, but it was decided soon after the bombing of Cologne that a few more certainly wouldn’t hurt. The NSDAP was inspecting each and every house in order to see if its basement was a good enough candidate.

And that’s on the very first page of this chapter. In an instant, I could feel my pulse quicken and that nervous terror creep into my chest. HOW ARE THEY GOING TO DEAL WITH THIS??? I thought. How do you hide Max in a house that small?

Liesel, who’s playing soccer, finds out from Rudy that the party on the street is inspecting houses, and she freezes up in fright.

“They need more air-raid shelters.”

“What—basements?”

“No, attics. Of course basements. Jesus, Liesel, you really are thick, aren’t you?”

The ball was back.

Liesel knows that playing soccer is the least of her concerns now. She’s got to get home, and quick, in order to warn her family about the coming inspection. She has to do so without arousing suspicion from her friends and with a genuine distraction. Liesel takes the opportunity with the passing Nazis to run full-speed right into one of the bigger kids in the game, named Klaus Behrig, spilling forth on to the ground, skinning her knee. It’s believable. Bleeding and clearly in real pain, Liesel attracts the attention of one of the NSDAP members.

“I don’t think you’re in any state to keep playing, my girl,” he said. “Where do you live?”

“I’m fine,” she answered, “really. I can make it myself.” Just get off me, get off me!

She’s found her way out! Take it, Liesel, take it!

That was when Rudy stepped in, the eternal stepper-inner. “I’ll help you home,” he said. Why couldn’t he just mind his own business for a change?

“Really,” Liesel said. “Just keep playing, Rudy. I can make it.”

“No, no.” He wouldn’t be shifted. The stubbornness of him! “It’ll only take a minute or two.”

I haven’t had a moment of keysmashing horror in this book. Allow me to entertain the notion:

;AKLDFJS /ZJXD ;UR A;DFKLSJ Z.,X/JDF ;SADFU A;LKDFJS ASOEIRU A;LSDKFJAF

RUDY STEINER. OH MY GOD. PLEASE LET HER GO HOME. PLEASE.

Liesel, in all her brilliant improvisation, comes up with a second plan to get home alone. Collapsing on the ground out of apparent pain, she asks Rudy to run home and get her papa. He buys it, hook, line, and sinker, running off to get Liesel’s father. Tommy steps in and agrees to watch Liesel and I imagine it must have been hard for her not to break out into a grin at how this was working out directly into her favor. Oh, right, there’s a Jew in her basement. SHE PROBABLY HAD NO REASON TO SMILE RIGHT THEN.

A minute later, Hans Hubermann was standing calmly above her.

“Hey, Papa.”

A disappointed smile mingled with his lips. “I was wondering when this would happen.”

HE’S BOUGHT IT, TOO, COULD THIS BE A FLAWLESS VICTORY?

Once inside, Liesel gave him the information. She attempted to find the middle ground between silence and despair. “Papa.”

“Don’t talk.”

“The party,” she whispered. Papa stopped. He fought the urge to open the door and look up the street. “They’re checking basements to make shelters.”

He set her down. “Smart girl,” he said, then called for Rosa.

What happens next doesn’t need a second set of narration on my part, but I need to impart just how terrifying it all is. I read from here until the end of the chapter so quickly that I immediately went back and read it a second time, now knowing the outcome, because I was sure that I’d missed something. Was this the moment Death was foreshadowing? Had Death tricked us by making us believe the bombing and death of Rudy Steiner was what future event we should focus on? I felt so terribly nervous and brimming with anxiety, and Hans’s eventual plan certainly did not put me at ease either. As the Nazis knock on the door before they’ve even figured out what to do, Hans rushes to the steps and yells a “warning” to Max, and then turn back to his family in the next room and says:

“Look, there is no time for tricks. We could distract him a hundred different ways, but there is only one solution.” He eyed the door and summed up. “Nothing.”

That was not the answer Rosa wanted. “Nothing? Are you crazy?”

The knocking resumed.

Papa was strict. “Nothing. We don’t even go down there—not a care in the world.”

Somehow, this is both the best and worst possible thing I could have read at this moment, but what choice does anyone have? They can’t try to distract successfully, could they? So they just have to accept whatever happens.

THE LONGEST THREE MINUTES
IN HUBERMANN HISTORY
Papa sat at the table. Rosa prayed
in the corner, mouthing the words.
Liesel was cooked: her knee, her chest,
the muscles in her arms. I doubt any
of them had the audacity to consider
what they’d do if the basement was
appointed as a shelter. They had to
survive the inspection first
.

They try to imitate a life without a Jew hiding in the basement as best that they can, and seriously, I know they don’t do it well, but it’s the best they can do for what it is. I think I took about three minutes to make it from the moment the Nazis descended into the basement to the time when the Nazi who commented on Liesel’s soccer injury bids them goodbye. Saying I breathed a sigh of relief is an understatement as well. I felt like I needed to take a nap for a week. THIS IS SO STRESSFUL

They collected Liesel and made their way to the basement, removing the well-placed drop sheets and paint cans. Max Vandenburg sat beneath the steps, holding his rusty scissors like a knife. His armpits were soggy and the words fell like injuries from his mouth.

“I wouldn’t have used them,” he quietly said. “I’m…” He held the rusty arms flat against his forehead. “I’m so sorry I put you through that.”

Papa lit a cigarette. Rosa took the scissors.

“You’re alive,” she said. “We all are.”

It was too late now for apologies.

Amen to that. It’s time to appreciate life and for me to stop feeling like my heart is going to burst out of my chest. I just want each of you to know that I am writing this in a coffee shop and I just had to get up and alleviate my bladder because that’s how nervous this made me.

Jesus, Zusak.

CH. 51: THE SCHMUNZELER

JUST KIDDING, NOTHING IS SAFE.

Minutes later, a second knocker was at the door.

“Good Lord, another one!”

Worry resumed immediately.

Max was covered up.

GREAT. JUST GREAT. LULLED INTO A SENSE OF COMFORT, ONLY TO HAVE THAT IMMEDIATELY DESTROYED.

Rosa trudged up the basement steps, but when she opened the door this time, it was not the Nazis. It was none other than Rudy Steiner. He stood there, yellow-haired and good-intentioned. “I just came to see how Liesel is.”

When she heard his voice, Liesel started making her way up the steps. “I can deal with this one.”

OH GOD, WHAT A RELIEF. Surely Rudy is easier to deal with than the Nazis! Right?

“Her boyfriend,” Papa mentioned to the paint cans. He blew another mouthful of smoke.

“He is not my boyfriend,” Liesel countered, but she was not irritated. It was impossible after such a close call. “I’m only going up because Mama will be yelling out any second.”

“Liesel!”

She was on the fifth step. “See?”

OH god, I never thought it would feel so good to laugh. This fucking book, y’all. This book.

Rudy is his usual sarcastic and insulting self, immediately ridiculing the smell in the Hubermann household and implying that Liesel steals from her father. Given what just happened, though, Liesel is not at all in the mood to play around. She just wants to sit in her home with her Rosa and Papa and with max and enjoy the sanctity of it all.

But Rudy says something here that I know is intended to be his commentary on Liesel’s growing guilt as a thief, yet I couldn’t help but be immediately disturbed by the subtext of it:

“Like you’ve never stolen anything.”

“Yes, but you reek of it.” Rudy was really warming up now. “Maybe that’s not cigarette smoke after all.” He leaned closer and smiled. “It’s a criminal I can smell. You should have a bath.” He shouted back to Tommy Müller. “Hey, Tommy, you should come and have a smell of this!”

I know it’s not actually accurate, but all I could think was, “OH MY GOD HE CAN SMELL MAX VANDENBURG.” And perhaps that’s not actually that realistic at all, but after what just happened, everything seems like a huge risk and a chance for Max to be discovered.

She started shutting the door. “Get lost, Saukerl, you’re the last thing I need right now.”

Very pleased with himself, Rudy made his way back to the street. At the mailbox, he seemed to remember what he’d wanted to verify all along. He came back a few steps. “Alles gut, Saumensch? The injury, I mean.”

At heart, Rudy does care about her, despite all the joking and insulting. And I had to remember that her injury, though orchestrated, gave a very real appearance.

It was June. It was Germany.

Things were on the verge of decay.

Liesel was unaware of this. For her, the Jew in her basement had not been revealed. Her foster parents were not taken away, and she herself had contributed greatly to both of these accomplishments.

“Everything’s good,” she said, and she was not talking about a soccer injury of any description.

She was fine.

It’s spelled out, right there on the pages, as a warning.

She was fine. For now.

CH. 52: DEATH’S DIARY: THE PARISIANS

Closing out part six of The Book Thief, Death constantly reminds us that we are reaching a critical point in the entire story, that soon everything will come together and we’ll understand why he had to tell us all of this. It’s disturbing that the device he uses to do this is to draw out the historical situation and remind us that the world is falling apart while these small tragedies and victories happen in Molching on 33 Himmel Street.

Summer came.

For the book thief, everything was going nicely.

For me, the sky was the color of Jews.

We only get two pages on this specific bit of insight to Death’s activities that summer, far from the steps of the Hubermann house where he once visited and was fought against, but two pages is enough. The little we do get in chapter fifty-two is agonizing. The gas chambers are operating at a nightmarish frequency, as Zyklon B was used to terminate so many lives:

When their bodies had finished scouring for gaps in the door, their souls rose up. When their fingernails had scratched at the wood and in some cases were nailed into it by the sheer force of desperation, their spirits came toward me, into my arms, and we climbed out of those shower facilities, onto the roof and up, into eternity’s certain breadth. They just kept feeding me. Minute after minute. Shower after shower.

I appreciate that this is not sugar-coated, but I can’t say I necessarily enjoyed reading this. I got a bit lost in a Wikipedia hole when I tried to look up dates that corresponded with this summer during World War II and I didn’t last long before I had to close those tabs and walk away for a second. Again, as fucked up as some of the stuff in past books has been, I can’t forget that the basis for what’s in The Book Thief is not imagined. It happened.

God.

I always say that name when I think of it.

God.

Twice, I speak it.

I say His name in a futile attempt to understand. “But it’s not your job to understand.” That’s me who answers. God never answers anything. You think you’re the only one he never answers? “Your job is to…” And I stop listening to me, because to put it bluntly, I tire me. When I start thinking like that, I become so exhausted, and I don’t have the luxury of indulging fatigue. I’m compelled to continue on, because although it’s not true for every person on earth, it’s true for the vast majority—that death waits for no man—and if he does, he doesn’t usually wait very long.

I mentioned many reviews ago that there seemed to be no mention of God anywhere in this book, aside from when God’s name was used to curse someone else. First of all, I was surprised to read that Death is just as distant from God as we are, that there’s no relationship between the two, just an imagined half of a conversation. That’s how prayer was to me and how it’s always been. I was always jealous of the people who could claim that God spoke to them in some way or that God answered their prayers, and I foolishly believed if I became a better Christian, that would happen to me, too.

It didn’t. I distinctly recall so many times I was praying and I imagined what God might say and I imagined that feeling of knowing I wasn’t alone, that some being cared for me. I have no interest in determining whether or not I was lied to growing up, or whether others are imagining the other half of the conversation, too. It doesn’t concern me, and if you’re speaking to God….well, I’m one jealous atheist. I just haven’t ever read anyone vocalizing my experience so succinctly before.

Death continues on, alone and ignored by God or whomever made him Death, or simply doing what he was born into, gift or no gift, collecting the souls of the French Jews from a German prison in Poland. And he appreciates and cares for each one of those souls, desperately wishing this could all be over.

But it’s not over. And it’s coming for Molching.t

About Mark Oshiro

Perpetually unprepared since '09.
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38 Responses to Mark Reads ‘The Book Thief’: Chapters 49-52

  1. QuoteMyFoot says:

    Ch. 52 is actually the worst one of these for me, though this is like my tenth reading of this so I knew the basement inspectors wouldn't find Max. But the description of the gas chambers? I actually struggle to read that, my heart just sort of snaps, every time. The fingernails nailed into the wood. Scouring for gaps in the door. A sky the colour of Jews. Oh my god. Probably one of the most haunting and devastating passages I have ever read.

    I'd like to recommend something to y'all: "Auschwitz" by Laurence Rees. He talks about how Auschwitz and the 'Final Solution' came to happen, and talks in some detail about life in the camp, drawing on interviews from survivors and even prison guards. It's such a worthwhile read (I won't say good because it is full of heartbreak) and very accessible. If you want to know more about the era, I'd recommend the rest of Rees' books too.

  2. Pip_Harper says:

    Zusak is a master prose-crafter. And I don't think I remembered to breath throughout that whole chapter with the basement inspection. Scary shit, and no mistake.

    • ldwy says:

      I totally agree, the more I read, the more impressed I become.
      Apart from the talent he has for just breaking your heart in two with a simple sentence, the prose is poetic and beautiful to read.

  3. @amyalices says:

    This book, oh my god.

    I'm just ahead of you, I think – I just read this section out in the sun at lunchtime and it still made me feel cold.

    It's utterly horrible, put in the most beautiful language, and it's very conflicting to read!

  4. SecretGirl127 says:

    I enjoy Death's gentle and weary perspective…but let's hear it for the eternal stepper-inner, Rudy Steiner!

  5. cait0716 says:

    I definitely thought Rudy was smelling Max, too. I just wanted him to leave so badly so Liesel could take a shower and clean the smell off her. In hindsight, I guess that really doesn't make any sense.

    It's amazing the emotional roller coaster this book is sending me on. The stress and tension and utter despair with all the little moments of happiness and laughter, but a cloud of doom hanging over everything. I think it's just as tense as The Hunger Games, if not more so. But the action is so low-key in comparison. I suppose the stakes are just as high, though

  6. Sparkie says:

    I think I was on a bus when I read that chapter, the old lady sitting next to me even commented on how fast I was reading because I HAD to know what happened!

  7. monkeybutter says:

    Great review, I don't really have anything to add. Even though I already knew that Max wouldn't be discovered, I still read these chapters frantically. Rudy, why are you always stepping in it? I love you, but you are torturing me! I liked that he was more concerned with soccer and stealing than the Nazis wandering around their neighborhood, just like the kids picking up fuel tanks after an air raid. Kids are still kids.

    Oh, wikipedia hole. I remember getting lost on there all the time in college when it was new (I am ooooold).

  8. FlameRaven says:

    I know I’ve said it before, but it’s so interesting that this is all through the perspective of Death, and it’s even more unexpected that Death is so…caring? And depressed? I don’t know, I never thought about Death as an entity with thoughts and desires and feelings, man, especially in terms of the fictional representation of him. I never personally considered Death to be a real thing, but I’m fascinated by the concept.

    It's interesting– maybe because I'm familiar with the portrayals of Death in other works (notably Discworld) I don't have a problem with Death as a character and a feeling one at that. Actually, this Death reminded me so much of the Discworld one that I had to go re-read "Reaper Man," which has the plot hook "Death gets fired because he's developed too much personality." (As typical of Discworld, that's only 1/3 the story). But the same book also has a comment that seems to reflect well on this story: "What can the harvest hope for, if not for the care of the Reaper?" I don't really believe that any being is going to be there when you die, but if some version of Death was there, that would be pretty cool. It's certainly a comforting concept, that there's some gatekeeper to ease your passing.

    I don't even know if I can comment intelligently on the rest of the chapters except that the cloud of dread just kept growing for me the more I read. "Shit gets real" just can't even do this justice. As emotionally wrenching and exhausting as Mockingjay was… I think this story is worse, just because you know it all happened somewhere.

    • cait0716 says:

      I've read a lot of Discworld, too, and am pretty comfortable with anthropomorphic personifications of Death taking on human characteristics. The Death novels may be my favorite Discworld novels, and this book is definitely reminding me of Death's struggles in Reaper Man. I may have to go re-read it, too

  9. mugglemomof2 says:

    I haven’t had a moment of keysmashing horror in this book. Allow me to entertain the notion:

    ;AKLDFJS /ZJXD ;UR A;DFKLSJ Z.,X/JDF ;SADFU A;LKDFJS ASOEIRU A;LSDKFJAF

    Pure delight 🙂

  10. Catryona says:

    I think it may be a temperament thing (getting clear answers when you pray), because though I was raised in the church and have considered myself a Christian ever since I was old enough to consider anything (although being Protestant I had to wait until I was twelve to be baptised), I can count the number of times I've felt answered in prayer on the fingers of one hand. On the other hand I'm not really jealous of the people who say that God talks to them, because I have a deep and abiding suspicion of voices in people's heads. I mean, seriously. How do they know it's God? There are any number of other things a disembodied voice in one's head could be.

  11. A*R says:

    Chapter 50: OMG SO STRESSFUL! Need to eat ice cream whilst reading it!
    Chapter 52: The way it's described, it feels like a void being put into me while reading it. Zusak does it beautifully, and with so much horror. I actually work in a military museum, I've seen the sketches of the gas chambers and read the stories and learned all about it; but I've never heard it put with such heart wrenching diction. For some reason when you study all of this, you never think of the claw marks in the door or the desperate attempts there must have been. I'm glad Zusak can slap us all in the face so we can remember in a rather beautiful terror.

  12. HieronymusGrbrd says:

    As I read it, there were several nazis on the street, but every house was only entered by one.

    Although the family’s tradition was social-democratic, which is very different from national-socialist, and he was a nice old guy when I knew him later, my mother’s father became a “Nazi” in 1934. (In case you didn’t know: Nazi is phonetic german for the first syllables of National Sozialistische Deutsche Arbeiter Partei).

    He was driving a streetcar, and the streetcars were a minicipal business. He mentioned once that a special streetcar was used to transport parcels from the city’s main mail office to the main railway station, and that he drove this streetcar. So I’m actually not sure if he was in the municipal streetcar service or in the German Mail Service. But this doesn’t matter. Anyway, he had to be a Beamter. A Civil servant? A Public officer? A Functionary? There doesn’t even seem to be an english word that hits the point of this typical german, originally prussian, institution.

    In 1934, the Gleichschaltung (consolidation?) of the Deutsches Beamtentum made it impossible to be in public service, but not a member of the only political party that still legally existed. It didn’t matter if you were the first undersecretary to the minister for whatever or a streetcar driver. So he had the choice to join the NSDAP or loose his job, and at this time there were still many jobless man. Also, there were two little children (my mother was born in 1933).

    So, if he hadn’t lived in Big City, my grandfather could have been the Hubermann’s kind and chirpy visitor. Would he have looked the other way, if Max had not been hidden so well? It’s too late to ask.

  13. Ellalalalala says:

    I honestly can't think of a book that's had such a physical effect on me. All the way through Chapter 50 it was heart-pounding, dry-sweating, breath-holding, bladder-clenching tension. Worst bit:

    They had a minute to come up with a plan. A schemozzle of thoughts.
    "We'll just put him in Liesel's room," was Mama's suggestion. "Under the bed."
    "That's
    it? What if they decide to search our rooms as well?"
    "Do you have a better plan?"
    Correction: they did not have a minute.

    There I was, thinking hey it's OK, Liesel's warned them, they just have to move him to — HOLY FUCK NO NO NO NO NO NO WE ARE NOT READY COME BACK IN A FEW MINUTES NO NO FUCK FUCK FUCK. Heart through throat. Lands on floor. Splat. I melted into the table, and I wasn't even there.

    Rosa's plan was actually pretty sound, if they'd had time to implement it. BUT THERE IS NO TIME. How they managed to pretend everything was normal is beyond me. Seriously, I would have curled into the foetal position under the table and rocked.

    And then Chapter 52. What can even be said about Chapter 52? The people who are reading this book on public transport: how? It's fucking devastating. How on earth do you manage to hold it together?

    • ldwy says:

      The people who are reading this book on public transport: how? It's fucking devastating. How on earth do you manage to hold it together?

      I know, I'd be such a crying, not breathing, antsy, jumpy mess. Or rather I am, and so I prefer to read in the confines of my own house.

    • cait0716 says:

      I read on public transport because I don't have time to read anywhere else. And I'm a fairly quiet crier, so I usually just have tears streaming down my cheeks and occasionally blurring my vision. Though I care very little what the people around me think and have no qualms about laughing or crying while reading a book in public. If anyone asks, I just recommend the book.

      • ldwy says:

        Fair point. 🙂 I don't actually use public transport much now, but if I did have a block of time like that, I'm sure I'd be using it as my reading time. Back when I took city transit to school, I definitely did. It can be a great opportunity to have interesting conversations about books with people.

      • Ellalalalala says:

        I'm impressed! I weep like a noisy good-fer-nuffin fiend. There's no way I'd be able to continue my post-Book Thief life without a spectacular re-application of make-up.

        Of course, an equally valid question would be how do those of us who read it before bed manage to get to sleep. The answer to which would be: we don't. And we envy you public-transporters!

    • stellaaaaakris says:

      Haha I either read this book on public transportation (because it's about 2 hours each way for me to get to/from work) or right before bed. I'm screwed.

      Also, I read Chapter 52 while listening to AVPS soundtrack. What a contrast. I had to reread it a few times because it didn't sink in.

  14. Ellalalalala says:

    This, many many times over.

  15. tethysdust says:

    I have never literally heard voices in my head while praying, but I don't feel unanswered. I think the experience of prayer is sort of like meditation. You sort through the thoughts and feelings that are unbalancing you, try to come to a place of peace and understanding, and (if necessary) try to see clearly what action your situation merits. I have always felt the presence of God throughout this process. Of course, I am aware that this may not match other people's experience of prayer, and I can only speak for myself.

    I think Death's feeling of isolation there is rooted in his horror at the situation coupled with his complete inability to do anything at all to help. I was not expecting Death to be so hurt by the plight of humans at the beginning of the book. He seems like his disdain for humanity is just a desperate attempt to distance himself from the constant grief that is his existence.

    Also: Thank goodness Max is safe again! I really really hope Max, Liesel, and the Hubermans live, though I guess that's highly unlikely.

    • Gabbie says:

      I am in awe of you right now. I wanted to try to explain praying and everything, since I'm a Christian as well, but I couldn't get the words out right. And, yes, I don't hear voices or whatever either. Well, except my own conscience. But in the back of my mind I know what the right thing is and go with it.

  16. Sarah says:

    “I wouldn’t have used them,” he quietly said. “I’m…” He held the rusty arms flat against his forehead."

    The first time I read this, I thought he was going to use the scissors against the Nazis. Now, the second time around, I think he was talking about using them on himself.

    Suicide or concentration camp?? What a choice. It makes me ill just thinking about it.

    • ldwy says:

      Wow. Now that you say it, I'm surprised this didn't occur to me. I just assumed, "use them on the Nazi"–but really, that wouldn't do any good, there'd just be another. Now that you're saying it, I think you're right. And like you say, what a horrific choice.

    • Ellalalalala says:

      Cannot compute. O good god.

    • Ellalalalala says:

      You're totally right. It's taken me 15 minutes of solid thought, but you're right: using them on himself is far more Maxian than anything else. FUCK.

  17. Phoebe says:

    Oh god, imagine the suspense if this was a movie. i just imagine it all has that tension from the opening death eater scene in hp7, when everything is just so scary and suspenseful even though you know what's going to happen

  18. plaidpants says:

    What I love about this is just the contrast. In American media, NAZIS are always horribly 100% evil people who like nothing better than killing people and stealing ancient artifacts. But the one who checks Hubmermann's home is so friendly sounding, making sure Liesel is ok, being friendly and everything. It almost made me think that he was going to discover Max but keep it hidden. I wonder if he had found Max, what would have happened. Would his nice personality just have dropped? Or would he have protected them?

  19. tigerpetals says:

    I think Death is no more tied to god than humans because he/she/it is part of the nature of living things. Humans go through a process, part of it is life and another part is death. Death is maybe that much closer to God only in the sense that he carries people to eternity, but he's still tied to humans. That's why he looks human, and can get as tired of people and yet as willing to try and find them worthy and meaningful as actual humans.

    I instantly loved the prose in this book by the way.

    • ldwy says:

      I think Death is no more tied to god than humans because he/she/it is part of the nature of living things
      What a perfect way of phrasing this.

  20. Phoebe says:

    Wow this is really ironic but i literally JUST found this picture, and I wasn't even looking for it!
    <img src="http://i52.tinypic.com/359gw85.png&quot; border="0" alt="Image and video hosting by TinyPic">
    From <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/ashlkn/4825235792/in/faves-53856082@N06/” target=”_blank”>http://www.flickr.com/photos/ashlkn/4825235792/in/faves-53856082@N06/

  21. Chapter 52 is the most brilliant depiction of the Holocaust I've read since Maus.

  22. stellaaaaakris says:

    I wrote my history thesis on anti-Semitic propaganda in France (like I've mentioned almost every time I comment, sorry about that, I just want you guys to know I'm not pulling this all out of the air or from half-remembered lessons). Obviously I had to do some research as to what was going on in France at that time. Now, I don't have anything on the date June 23, 1942, mostly because it's taking place in Poland. But here is what I do know:

    1941 marked the beginning of the mass roundup and deportation of Jews. They were sent to the French concentration camps, such as Drancy. From there, many were sent on to extermination camps, such as those in Poland. In 1941, Parisian Jews (who had already been registered thanks to previous laws passed) were arrested and nearly 4,000 Jews were sent to the Pithiviers or Beaune-la-Rolande camps, once again, pit stops before many were sent east to camps like Auschwitz. The French public was told that only Jews of a certain age were needed for these "labor transports," but even young children could be found on those train. The July 1942 roundup of Parisian Jews resulted in over 12,000 arrests. Men, women, and children were forced into overcrowded trains that took them to Drancy for a few days before continuing on to Auschwitz.

    So, for the French Jews, the worst is yet to come.

  23. LOTRjunkie says:

    Hm. Wonderful review as usual, Mark, but I found the prayer bit especially interesting, considering my own personal faith. Yes, I am a Christian, but I can't say I really feel God speaking to me. You know, with the voice coming down from the heavens and all that? I readily admit that I still struggle with this issue- How do I know that God's actually even bothering to listen? I mean, there's so much going on in the world and people are talking to God about actually important stuff. Why would he even bother to care about my petty worries? Doesn't he ever get tired of my desperate prayers that only come when I need help?

    But at the same time, I do believe that he answers us. It doesn't have to be in some dramatic, showy way. Sometimes it can be simple things- A friend happening to show up when you need someone to be with you. A stranger doing some random act of kindness. A sense of peace when you've been struggling with something. A little moment of beauty in the sun shining down on you when you've had a bad day. The piece of advice (or Bible verse, for those of you who read the Bible) that you needed. In those moments, it seems to me that God is saying something through that. He's telling me, "Yes, I do hear you and I love you so much. I'm here." That's how I think God answers us.

    I hope I didn't come across as too preachy or anything, by the way.

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