{"id":312,"date":"2011-04-22T07:00:45","date_gmt":"2011-04-22T14:00:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/?p=312"},"modified":"2011-04-21T15:28:33","modified_gmt":"2011-04-21T22:28:33","slug":"mark-reads-the-book-thief-chapters-57-59","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/2011\/04\/mark-reads-the-book-thief-chapters-57-59\/","title":{"rendered":"Mark Reads ‘The Book Thief’: Chapters 57-59"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the fifty-seventh through fifty-ninth chapters of The Book Thief<\/em>, Liesel is given an interesting job in town, and Hans does something to irrevocably change 33 Himmel Street. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to read The Book Thief.<\/em><\/p>\n

I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m sitting in a coffee shop by my house. The past month or so, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve found that I am too distracted in my own apartment to write consistently. I want to play video games. I want to play guitar and write songs. I want to tease my cats. I want to search my cupboards for unhealthy snacks that I know are not there. I want to sit on Tumblr for twenty minutes straight. There are too many things to distract me.<\/p>\n

I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve started sitting in coffee shops all across the Bay. Philz Coffee in the Castro is my favorite so far, even though it closes earlier than I like. There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s always a spot where I can enjoy a nicely brewed cup of coffee or tea and just focus on a book or an episode and write. I end up writing most, if not all, of my longer reviews away from home.<\/p>\n

I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m in Oakland now. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s sunny outside, that Bay Area warm where people here wear a sweater of their clothes and remark about how rare this is during this time of year, and this weather means I can wear a band t-shirt and shorts without funny looks from the locals. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve placed myself near a window and I keep trying to enjoy the view of Lake Merritt that I have but my eyes are blurred my tears and I can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t shake the feeling that it would probably be best for me to stop reading here if I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d like to keep my heart intact.<\/p>\n

There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a lot at work here in Markus Zusak\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s The Book Thief<\/em>, from the love of reading, to the horrors of the Holocaust, to loyalty and bravery and terror. Of everything, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m struck most by how this is a story about friendship<\/em>, between Rudy and Liesel, Liesel and Max, Liesel and her foster parents. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a story about how a friendship can run so deep and so true that the people involved aren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t reluctant to do what is right and loving without thinking about how these things will actually affect their own lives. All of this is perfectly summed up in the relationship Max has with all three people at 33 Himmel Street.<\/p>\n

So what do you do when this type of friendship ends up destroying everything?<\/p>\n

Let\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s start off first with Frau Holtzapfel, who comes to Rosa, her sworn enemy, with an interesting proposition. Despite that the damage to Molching doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t bring any death or injury, the peace that everyone enjoys is interrupted for Liesel in two ways. Frau Holtzapfel is the first to disrupt this:<\/p>\n

Her wrinkles were like slander. Her voice was akin to a beating with a stick.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Ah, the woman Rosa seems sworn to hate, versus the woman who always spits on the Hubermann door. Frau Holtzapfel shows up at the door, sans spitting this time, and she surprises everyone when she reveals that she has something interesting she needs from 33 Himmel Street:<\/p>\n
Frau Holtzapfel looked once more at the street and back. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I have an offer for you.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
Mama shifted her weight. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Is that right?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153No, not you.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d She dismissed Rosa with a shrug of the voice and focused now on Liesel. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153You.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Whoa, what? What the hell? What on earth could Liesel possibly provide this woman?<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I liked that book you read in the shelter.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
No. You\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re not getting it. Liesel was convinced of that. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Yes?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
LOVE YOU FOREVER, LIESEL.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I was hoping to hear the rest of it in the shelter, but it looks like we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re safe for now.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d She rolled her shoulders and straightened the wire in her back. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153So I want you to come to my place and read it to me.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
WHAT! Oh, Liesel, the effect you have on people\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153You\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve got some nerve, Holtzapfel.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Rosa was deciding whether to be furious or not. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153If you think\u00e2\u20ac\u201d\u00e2\u20ac\u0153<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll stop spitting on your door,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d she interrupted. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153And I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll give you my coffee ration.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
WELL, THAT WILL DO IT, NO? It is a bit strange that Rosa decides this for Liesel without even asking her, but at the same time, this is a small victory for the family in a way. No spitting AND an extra ration of coffee? In these times, Rosa takes what she can get.<\/p>\n
Heading immediately over to Frau Holtzapfel\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s house, where she learns just how unpleasant reading can be sometimes, she makes an important remark:<\/p>\n
Good God, Liesel thought. This is my punishment for all that stealing. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s finally caught up with me.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
But it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not exactly all<\/em> bad. The woman is completely silent throughout the reading, proving to be a good audience for Liesel, calmly thanking her after she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s done and then continuing on as if she was just a brief interruption to her day.<\/p>\n
Liesel calculated that there were four more reading sessions like that with Frau Holtzapfel before the Jews were marched through Molching.<\/p>\n
They were going to Dachau, to concentrate.<\/p>\n
That makes two weeks,<\/em> she would later write in the basement. Two weeks to change the world, and fourteen days to ruin it. <\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t understand what this meant, this seemingly contradicting dichotomy that she wrote, but that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s because I hadn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t read chapter fifty-eight.<\/p>\n
CH. 58: THE LONG WALK TO DACHAU<\/strong><\/p>\n
What\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s there to say about this chapter and what happens that hasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t already been said?<\/p>\n
I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not Jewish, so I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have any personal family history that relates to the Holocaust, and I certainly haven\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t gone through anything even remotely similar to this. So I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m left feeling like an outsider, reading about the procession of misery that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s paraded down Himmel Street, and I can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t even say I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m like the Germans who watch them. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not. Need I remind you again that I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m sitting in a coffee shop and typing onto a fucking iPad? Yeah, no, I have nothing in common with this situation.<\/p>\n
Death is affectionately detached throughout the narration here, able to convey sadness and disappointment at this specific parade of Jewish souls, yet completely uninvolved at the same time.<\/p>\n
I climbed through the windshield of the truck, found the diseased man, and jumped out the back. His soul was skinny. His beard was a ball and chain. My feet landed loudly in the gravel, though not a sound was heard by a soldier or prisoner. But they could all smell me.<\/p>\n
Recollection tells me that there were many wishes in the back of that truck. Inner voices called out to me.<\/p>\n
Why him and not me?<\/p>\n
Thank God it isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t<\/em> me.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
One of the many, many unsettling details in this chapter is the method in which Zusak describes the sound<\/em> of the approaching Jewish prisoners who are on their way to Dachau:<\/p>\n
Everyone turned toward the sound of shuffling feet and regimented voices as they made their way closer.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Is that a herd of cows?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Rudy asked. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153It can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t be. It never sounds quite like that, does it?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
I know Rudy has no idea of what the subtext of this could mean, but it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s still horrifying. The Jews are cattle<\/em> to the soldiers leading them to Dachau.<\/p>\n
On Munich Street, they watched.<\/p>\n
Others moved in around and in front of them.<\/p>\n
They watched the Jews come down the road like a catalog of colors. That wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t how the book thief described them, but I can tell you that that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s exactly what they were, for many of them would die. They would each greet me like their last true friend, with bones like smoke and their souls trailing behind.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
The horrifying display here on Munich Street is incredibly hard to read, and Zusak doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t avoid spending a few pages describing the agonizing details:<\/p>\n
When they arrived in full, the noise of their feet throbbed on top of the road. Their eyes were enormous in their starving skulls. And the dirt. The dirt was molded to them. Their legs staggered as they were pushed by soldiers\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 hands\u00e2\u20ac\u201da few wayward steps of forced running before the slow return to a malnourished walk.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
What Zusak also describes here is less a physical description and more of an emotional one. As the Jews march down the street, he tells us how quite a few of them look to those watching them and, as he says:<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6pleading not so much for help\u00e2\u20ac\u201dthey were beyond that\u00e2\u20ac\u201dbut for an explanation. Just something to subdue the confusion.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Liesel watches them, too, noticing how each person reacts differently to being<\/em> watched as well:<\/p>\n
Hunger ate them as they continued forward, some of them watching the ground to avoid the people on the side of the road. Some looked appealingly at those who had come to observe their humiliation, this prelude to their deaths. Others pleaded for someone, anyone, to step forward and catch them in their arms.<\/p>\n
No one did.<\/p>\n
Whether they watched this parade with pride, temerity, or shame, nobody came forward to interrupt it. Not yet.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
And who would? Who would risk the attention by the entire neighborhood? Unless it was for a negative reason, I thought, no one would be foolish enough to interrupt. So that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s what idea got planted into my head: Someone would abuse or insult one of the parade Jews and interrupt it all.<\/p>\n
I have one of you in my basement! She wanted to say. We built a snowman together! I gave him thirteen presents when he was sick!<\/p>\n
Liesel said nothing at all.<\/p>\n
What good would it be?<\/p>\n
She understood that she was utterly worthless to these people. They could not be saved, and in a few minutes, she would see what would happen to those who might try to help them.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Ok, not only is this heartbreaking, as Liesel realizes what a miniscule part in the world she holds, but now I know that we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re not going to see someone do something negative to interrupt the parade. I instantly became set on edge at the idea. What was going to happen?<\/p>\n
One specific man triggers it. This man keeps falling, the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153side of his face\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6flattened against the road,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and every single time, a soldier tells him to stand up. He does so, shuffle forward as best as he can, and then falls again. It becomes clear to everyone that this man is in his final moments of life:<\/p>\n
He was dead<\/p>\n
The man was dead.<\/p>\n
Just give him five more mnutes and he would surely fall into the German gutter and die. They would all let him, and they would all watch.<\/p>\n
Then, one human.<\/p>\n
Hans Hubermann.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
I am proud of Hans, and of course, it makes sense that if anyone<\/em> would do something so fearless and beautiful, it would be him, but upon reading his name here, I just stopped. I had to. For a second, I thought it would just be better if I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t read what he did. But I pressed on:<\/p>\n
Papa reached into his paint cart and pulled something out. He made his way though the people, onto the road.<\/p>\n
The Jew stood before him, expecting another handful of derision, but he watched with everyone else as Hans Hubermann held his hand out and presented a piece of bread, like magic.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
I just stared at the page, a mixture of horror and joy swimming through me, knowing that this simple act was both a death sentence and a blessing. Bless you, Hans Hubermann, but WHAT ARE YOU DOING????<\/em><\/p>\n
Other Jews walked past, all of them watching this small, futile miracle. They streamed by, like human water. That day, a few would reach the ocean. They would be handed a white cap.<\/p>\n
Wading through, a soldier was soon at the scene of the crime.\u00c2\u00a0 He studied the kneeling man and Papa, and he looked at the crowd. After another moment\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s thought, he took the whip from his belt and began.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Oh god, I can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t. This is probably the only scene so far in the whole book that I cannot read a second time. I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t even want to type out Hans\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s whipping. It hurts to read it and I can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t even comprehend that an act so altruistic and gorgeous can make me feel such dread. The worst part?<\/p>\n
Silver eyes were pelted then.<\/p>\n
A cart was turned over and paint flowed onto the street.<\/p>\n
They called him a Jew lover.<\/p>\n
Others were silent, helping him back to safety.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know what this means anymore. I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know what to think or expect, and I certainly could never have guessed that this is what would be the undoing of all of their lives. And it has to be, right?<\/p>\n
Hans Hubermann leaned forward, arms outstretched against a house wall. He was suddenly overwhelmed by what had just happened.<\/p>\n
There was an image, fast and hot.<\/p>\n
33 Himmel Street\u00e2\u20ac\u201dits basement.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
NO. NO NO NO NO NO. <\/strong>I HAD FORGOTTEN ABOUT THIS ENTIRELY. Oh my god, everything has<\/em> to unravel now, doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t it?<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153What was I thinking?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d His eyes closed tighter and opened again. His overalls creased. There was paint and blood on his hands. And bread crumbs. How different from the bread of summer. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Oh my god, Liesel, what have I done?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
Yes.<\/p>\n
I must agree.<\/p>\n
What had Papa done?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Oh, christ. Oh my god, this is seriously horrifying. FUCK.<\/p>\n
CH. 59: PEACE<\/strong><\/p>\n
At just after 11 p.m. that same night, Max Vandenburg walked up Himmel Street with a suitcase full of food and warm clothes. German air was in his lungs. The yellow stars were on fire. When he made it to Frau Diller\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s, he looked back one last time to number thirty-three. He could not see the figure in the kitchen window, but she<\/em> could see him. She waved and he did not wave back.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Max left. Max left 33 Himmel Street. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s probably the best for the Hubermann\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s, but I can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t deal with this. Holy shit.<\/p>\n
That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s when the silence begins to creep into the house, the silence of guilt and shame and terror and of the uncertainty remaining after Hans gave a Jew a piece of bread.<\/p>\n
Somewhere near Munich, a German Jew was making his way through the darkness. An arrangement had been made to meet Hans Hubermann in four days (that is, if he wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t taken away). It was at a place far down the Amper, where a broken bridge leaned among the river and trees.<\/p>\n
He would make it there, but he would not stay longer than a few minutes.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m strugging to think of anything to say about this instead of simply being shocked into speechlessness. Max left. Max is not following the plan.<\/p>\n
The only thing to be found there when Papa arrived four days later was a note under a rock, at the base of a tree. It was addressed to nobody and contained ony one sentence.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
* * * THE LAST WORDS OF * * *
\nMAX VANDENBURG
\nYou\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve done enough.<\/em><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n
It was at this point that my morning in a coffee shop was overwhelmed by tears brimming my eyes, knowing in my heart that Death probably wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t misleading us, that this would be the last the family at 33 Himmel Street would ever hear of Max, that Max would drift on and try to survive, but he would fail.<\/p>\n
Now more than ever, 33 Himmel Street was a place of silence, and it did not go unnoticed that the Duden Dictionary <\/em>was completely and utterly mistaken, especially with its related words.<\/p>\n
Silence was not quiet or calm, and it was not peace.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Well, I was definitely unprepared for all of this.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In the fifty-seventh through fifty-ninth chapters of The Book Thief, Liesel is given an interesting job in town, and Hans does something to irrevocably change 33 Himmel Street. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to read The Book Thief.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[23,46,45,44],"class_list":["post-312","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-book-thief","tag-mark-reads","tag-mark-reads-the-book-thief","tag-markus-zusak","tag-the-book-thief-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=312"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=312"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=312"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=312"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}