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Popular Culture Review
Hans sacrifices his cigarette ration to pay for these books. However, on Hitler’s
birthday in April 1940, Liesel steals her second book from a bonfire of banned
books. The Shoulder Shrug is the name of the book, and the mayor’s wife sees
her confiscate this smoldering book from the bonfire and hide it inside her
uniform. This sizzling book generates pain for Liesel, yet it also makes her
happy, thus illustrating the sacrifice and sanctuary motifs in the novel.
Books and the words in them almost always seem to be involved with
the events of Zusak’s The Book Thief. Thus, when the young Jew Max
Vandenburg arrives on Hans and Rosa Hubermann’s doorstep seeking refuge, he
carries a copy of Mein Kampf as a ruse to hide who he really is. Later on, Liesel
and Max will pull out the pages of the Hitler book, paint over the text, and use
the now-clean painted pages for their own writing paper. Amid fear and pain,
the written word can lead to a degree of sanctuary—especially when the canvass
is stripped of polluted words for a fresh approach to the creativity of what it
means to suffer in a world upside down.
At another time in The Book Thief Liesel visits the mayor’s house to
pick up and deliver the washing and ironing that Liesel’s foster mother takes in
for some extra money during these hard times for ordinary German citizens. Ilsa
Hermann, the mayor’s wife, is the person who earlier saw Liesel steal the book
from the bonfire. Ilsa allows Liesel to read some of the books in her home
library. One such book is the murder mystery entitled The Whistler. In the
mayor’s wife’s library, Liesel gains a measure of sanctuary from the outside
wor ld of war, hunger, and fear of the Nazis’ finding out about her foster family’s
harboring a Jew in their basement. When the mayor and his wife must cancel the
washing and ironing service, Liesel then breaks into the library room and steals
The Whistler, true to her name as the book thief.
Simultaneously, Max and Liesel read each night in the cold basement
on Himmel Street. Max even writes a story with sketches for Liesel. This
thirteen-page book, called The Standover Man, is written on the painted-over
pages of his copy of Mein Kampf
Here Zusak uses symbolism in that the Jew Max’s story obliterates the
Fuhrer’s famous words. Liesel and Max closely bond in their time together, as
they share stories, words, and writings in the basement. In a sense, their work
together mitigates their sacrifices and sufferings, provides some sanctuary, and
even leads to some redemption or hope for a time after the war. In fact, while
many on Himmel Street will die before the novel’s close in 1943, Liesel and
Max do survive and live on, as Death explains. Survival may be conceptualized
as fortune, “the survival of the species,” the sheer will to live, or resilience. But
Zusak helps us think about the nourishment of the human spirit, in this case
through the creation of the popular written word, as a way of thriving and
surviving.
Still another book that Liesel steals from the mayor’s wife’s library is
The Dream Carrier. Often the library room’s window is left open, allowing
Liesel easy access once she climbs up and reaches it. This book is about an