Writing a great novel is a job for a writing magician, a conjuror of words. When a magician is working at the top of her game, experts always say, "Watch the hands closely. Inevitably one hand will be distracting you from the deception being committed by the other." That's why magic is called "sleight of hand."
In the case of writing a great novel, the "hands" aren't the words exactly; they're the key objects in the story, the conventions of the story, and the point of view from which the story is told.
Do I hear voices of protest insisting great novels are the result of great stories, themes, characters and villains?
While all those are legitimate elements in a great novel, it's my thesis that they are largely chimeras, illusions created out of the words that describe objects used in the story, or story conventions or point-of-view decisions that all add up to a unique or memorable way of telling the story.
My view here; tell me if you agree: We're all so accustomed to reading Holocaust stories, what's astounding to me is how any author could find a fresh, original way to write the story of a 12-year-old Jewish girl being cared for by foster Christian parents in a little town outside Munich, Germany during the Hitler years, from 1936 through 1945?
In the novel, The Book Thief, Markus Zusak finds that way and is able to construct a masterpiece work of fiction out of the most trite elements: Crowds giving the Nazi salute while shouting "Heil Hitler," Hitler Youth meetings, Nazi book burnings, Death Camps, hiding Jews in cellars, , just to name a few. You've seen them in movies and read about them so often they're practically clichés.How does he do it? First, by beginning with a first-person narrator who is the voice of death. He equips that voice of death with a wicked sense of humor and the flawless sense of timing of a great stand-up comic. He bursts through all the pretentious seriousness and cultural taboos that surround death, and especially death during the Holocaust, and is able to bring us through to the other side where he can talk about it directly, simply, without flinching, because the narrative voice of The Book Thief is propelled by a heart-wrenchingly poignant, wicked sense of humor.
Let's start with page 1. The opening movement to the Prologue is entitled, "Death and Chocolate." Admittedly, Zusak is outrageous. He uses bold-face capital letters and text that is centered on the page to call attention to the "important things" which, without exception turn out to be big, important things. He's not kidding. And thanks to him, neither am I.
In the center of page 1, we see:
***HERE IS A SMALL FACT*** You are going to die.Notice the refined tone with which Zusak has the voice of death opening The Book Thief: "I am in all truthfullness attempting to be cheerful about the whole topic, through most people find themselves hindered in believing me, no matter my protestations. Please trust me. I most definitely can be cheerful. I can be amiable. Ageeable. Affable. And that's only the A's. Just don't ask me to be nice. Nice has nothing to do with me.
***REACTION TO THE*** AFOREMENTIONED FACT Does this worry you? I urge you—don't be afraid. I'm nothing if not fair.The voice of death goes on to say the only thing that haunts him are the survivors, "…the ones left behind, crumbling among the jigsaw puzzle of realization, despair, and surprise. They have punctured hearts. They have beaten lungs." And that brings him to the story he's about to tell us" …about "A girl," "Some fanatical Germans…" "…And quite a lot of thievery…"
The story is one we might have read before, as I've already mentioned, repleat with Jews being hidden during the Holocaust, etc., except in The Book Thief, the voice of death narrates the story for us in the most heart-wrenchingly, matter-of-fact way.
At about the half-way point of the novel, we come across a mere 2-page chapter entitled "Death's Diary: The Parisians," which opens, "Summer came. For the book thief, everything was going nicely. For me, the sky was the color of Jews.
"When their bodies had finished scouring for gaps in the door, their souls rose up…
"I'll never forget the first day in Auschwitz, the first time in Mauthausen. At that second place, as time went on, I also picked them up from the bottom of the great cliff, when their escapes fell awfully awry.
There were broken bodies and dead sweet hearts. Still it was better than the gas. Some of them I caught when they were only half-way down. Saved you, I'd think, holding their souls in midair as the rest of their being—their physical shells—plummeted to the earth. All of them were light, like the cases of empty walnuts. Smoky sky in those places. The smell like a stove but still so cold.
"On June 23, 1942, there was a group of French Jews in a German prison on Polish soil. The first person I took was close to the door, his mind racing, then reduced to pacing, then slowing down…
"Please believe me when I tell you that I picked up each soul that day as if it were newly born. I even kissed a few weary, poisoned cheeks. I listened to their last, gasping cries. Their vanishing words. I watched their love visions and freed them from their fear… I took them away… They were French, they were Jews, and they were you."
My heart weeps. And I ask myself, how could Zusak pull this off? How could he do this? Almost as if what Zusak has done in writing this novel is a crime. I'm quite serious. In his hands, in the hands of the voice of death, my heart is reduced to broken pieces.
And that's what I'm trying to get at in the title of this essay. While at first blush there might appear to be something cheap and underhanded going on, Zusak, the writing magician, the conjuror of words has managed to do the impossible: By writing a story about a teenager who lived in Germany during World War II, and who had an uncontrollable urge to steal books, he seems to have stolen this masterpiece right from under our noses. Yet he's done it fair and square, as any writer might, by the way he wields his words.
Next month: More about how Zusak did it, specifically by focusing on novel structure, narrative point of view and his descriptions of objects.
