the book thief

by markus zusak

when i finished reading this book, i decided i wouldn't write about it. or read it again. i just don't want to revisit the memory of the book in any way, unless i want to give myself another good cry. because i was actually sobbing by the end of it. actual sobs. 

there is an undefined moment while you are reading something in which what you are reading stops being words and sentences. from that moment onwards, the book is an experience: sights, sounds, smells, voices in your head. 

in a book as intense and emotionally overwhelming as zusak's book thief, the whole book becomes feeling. from the very beginning, you are feeling colours, beasts of skies, cold cold death. so i look at it now in my bookshelf, and i can only see a room full of bookshelves in nazi germany. i see the book thief, and i know exactly what she went through. and it is for this reason that i don't want it again. it's a great book, but the kind of greatness that i don't have space for in my own tangled emotions. it's the kind of greatness i'd rather stow away, like parts of your childhood you don't know happened because they are too cruel for you to remember.

so instead of writing about the content of the book (which i actually just did, but we'll pretend i didn't) i just want to register two points of surprise: one, that i've had this book on hold for so long. it's not so surprising considering i've been putting off anything but fantasy all this while, but it's surprising considering the (deceptive) simplicity of the narration and the fact that it was on the nyt bestsellers list for some years. two, that it's been listed as young adult fiction. i can see why, but i really sort of can't.