“When death captures me,” the boy vowed, “he will feel my fist on his face.” “I have hated words and I have loved them, and I hope I have made them right.” This is a book to treasure, a new classic. I absolutely loved it. This book made me feel empty in a way that only truly beautifully written books can. When I finished reading the last word on the last page of this book, I felt empty; there is a paradoxical mix of feeling incredibly saddened that the book is over but also completely satisfied because the ending was the best ending you could have ever hoped for and more. Together, those feelings left me feeling empty and breathless. The story set in Germany in the years 1939-1943, The Book Thief tells the story of Liesel, narrated by Death who has in his possession the book she wrote about these years. So, in a way, they are both book thieves. Liesel steals randomly at first, and later more methodically, but she's never greedy. Death pockets Liesel's notebook after she leaves it, forgotten in her grief, amongst the destruction that was once her street, her home, and carries it with him. Liesel is effectively an orphan. She never knew her father, her mother disappears after delivering her to her new foster parents, and her younger brother died on the train to Molching where the foster parents live. Death first encounters nine-year-old Liesel when her brother dies, and hangs around long enough to watch her steal her first book, The Gravedigger's Handbook, left lying in the snow by her brother's grave. Her foster parents, Hans and Rosa Herbermann, are poor Germans given a small allowance to take her in. Hans, a tall, quiet man with silver eyes, is a painter (of houses etc.) and plays the accordian. He teaches Liesel how to read and write. Rosa is gruff and swears a lot but has a big heart, and does laundry for rich people in the town. Liesel becomes best friends with her neighbour Rudy, a boy with "hair the colour of lemons" who idolises the black Olympic champion sprinter Jesse Owens. One night a Jew turns up in their home. He's the son of a friend of Hans from the first world war, the man who taught him the accordian, whose widowed wife Hans promised to help if she ever needed it. Hans is a German who does not hate Jews, though he knows the risk he and his family are taking, letting Max live in the basement. Max and Liesel become close friends, and he writes an absolutely beautiful story for her, called The Standover Man, which damn near broke my heart. It's the story of Max, growing up and coming to Liesel's home, and it's painted over white-painted pages of Mein Kampf, which you can see through the paint. Whenever I read a book, I cannot help but read it in two ways: the story itself, and how it's written. They're not quite inseparable, but they definitely support each other. With The Book Thief, Markus Zusak has shown he's a writer of genius, an artist of words, a poet, a literary marvel. His writing is lyrical, haunting, poetic, profound. Liesel is very real, a child living a child's life of soccer in the street, stolen pleasures, sudden passions and a full heart while around her bombs drop, maimed veterans hang themselves, bereaved parents move like ghosts, Gestapo take children away and the dirty skeletons of Jews are paraded through the town. The Book Thief accomplishes a very lofty goal. It is both intellectually and artistically daring and satisfying while offering up an emotional punch second to none It's amazing that words can be strung together on bound pages can make you feel so strongly, it will stimulate your brain and it will, at the same time, steal your heart, but that's what great books do. And this is, without a doubt, a truly great book. Now I wanna watch the movie but I’ll probably wait for my heart to heal a bit . . .

Kitap HırsızıMarkus Zusak · Martı Yayınları · 202112,5bin okunma

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