Jan said that The Book Thief reminded her of A River Runs Through It, and said that she was haunted at the end of the book. She felt that Rudy's death was announced too soon, and that Death, as narrator, does not reconcile why Rudy died. Did Rudy have to die in order for Liesel to kiss him at last? We didn't want Rudy to die, and we wanted even less to know about it in advance. Did Rudy's death leave a place for Max, the Jew whom the family hid in their basement, and Liesel? Do they, Max and Liesel, in fact, have a life together after the war? This is not necessarily clear, but would certainly have been impossible if Rudy had lived. Death says that Liesel was living in Sydney, Australia, when he "took her away," and we noted that the author lives in Sydney, that his mother's name was Lisa (Elisabeth), and that he thanked his parents "for the stories we find hard to believe." We were divided on the question of sneaking a peek at the end of a book to relieve the suspense.
We talked a bit about our most and least favorite characters. Denise found the mayor's wife "intriguing." She felt that she conspired early on with Liesel, and acted as a shield for her. Foster-mother Rosa was also a shield, although no one specifically said she liked Rosa Hubermann. Katharine C said her favorite character was foster-father Hans Hubermann. She said Rudy can't be a favorite character because he dies. Denise said that Max is a catalyst, but felt that as a character, he's absent. We noted that the German question has never been resolved. How much did the "ordinary" Germans know, and when? Perhaps one day some diaries/journals will come to light and help to answer the question. We also questioned whether you can break people's spirits by torture.Unfortunately, I didn't note any remarks about the author's style, but I seem to remember that someone didn't particularly care for the bold-faced insertions throughout the text, such as "A Small Theory," "An Observation," "A Small Question and its Answer," "A Small but Noteworthy Note," etc. I, on the other hand, felt they were nice little points of reference. We did mention the books within the book, and the fact that Max had painted over the pages of Mein Kampf in order to write his own story for Liesel. We questioned whether Liesel truly detested the mayor and his wife. We talked briefly about Liesel returning the mayor's wife's plate, and the subsequent departure of Liesel's dead brother from her dreams. We noted the brief mention of the French in Death's diary, the idea of universality: "There was a group of French Jews in a German prison, on Polish soil... They were French, they were Jews, and they were you."
At various points during the discussion, I did manage to cite some of the phrases I had copied from Death's narrative, but add them now as a simple list:
"The survivors. They're the ones I can't stand to look at, ... crumbling amongst the jigsaw puzzle of realisation, despair and surprise. They have punctured hearts. They have beaten lungs."
"Eleven-year-old paranoia was powerful. Eleven-year-old relief was euphoric."
"The juggling comes to an end now, but the struggling does not. I have Liesel Meminger in one hand, Max Vandenburg in the other. Soon I will clap them together."
"The Duden Dictionary was completely and utterly mistaken, especially with its related words. Silence was not quiet or calm, and it was not peace."
"For some reason, dying men always ask questions they know the answer to. Perhaps it's so they can die being right."
"The human heart is a line, whereas my own is a circle... I'm always finding humans at their best and worst. I see their ugliness and their beauty, and I wonder how the same thing can be both."
May 2009
