The Book Thief

Australian author Markus Zusak is my new hero and inspiration. I'm two-thirds the way through The Book Thief, which is, as he says: " ... just a small story really, about among other things: a girl, some words, an accordionist, some fanatical Germans, a Jewish fist-fighter, and quite a lot of thievery. . . . "

This book captivates me on a multiplicity of levels. The use of words is simply outstanding - consider this from the opening paragraphs:

Where are my manners?

I could introduce myself properly, but it's not really necessary. You will know me well enough and soon enough, depending on a diverse range of variables. It suffices to say that at some point in time, I will be standing over you, as genially as possible. Your soul will be in my arms. A color will be perched on my shoulder. I will carry you gently away.

At that moment, you will be lying there (I rarely find people standing up). You will be caked in your own body. There might be a discovery; a scream will dribble down the air. The only sound I'll hear after that will be my own breathing, and the sound of the smell, of my footsteps.

The question is, what color will everything be at that moment when I come for you? What will the sky be saying?

These words are spoken by the book's narrator - Death. (Yeah, that Death!) Set during World War II in Germany, The Book Thief is the story of Liesel Meminger, a foster child living in extreme poverty in a small suburb outside Munich. Liesel steals books. With the help of her accordion-playing foster father, she learns to read and shares her stolen books with her neighbors during bombing raids as well as with the Jewish man hidden in her basement before he is marched off to Dachau.

This book works for me in sooo many ways. It touches on things like goodness and evil, words and literature, compassion and hatred, risk, faith, friendship, love, loss - and death. But even more than the actual story itself, as a wannabe writer, I am deeply inspired by the author, Markus Zusak.

In answer to the question of what inspired TBT:

It was a lot like finding a tap that's never been switched on before and turning it on... When I was growing up, my mum and dad told me stories about growing up in Nazi Germany - about a teenage boy who gave a starving Jewish man a piece of bread, of fiery skies and of people who didn't want to fly the Nazi flag. That world came rushing out of the tap. It was all at my feet, but then I had to organize it and turn it all into an imaginative piece of work. Fragments needed to be joined and I searched for the originality that would create not only a story but a style that was compelling for me to write.


In the end, The Book Thief took me three years to write. If nothing else, I know it’s a far different book from anything I’ve done before, which is what made it so challenging. I was also finally satisfied that there was a good sense of imagination in it. In three years, I must have failed over a thousand times, but each failure brought me closer to what I needed to write, and for that, I’m grateful.

Links to interviews: Here, here and here.

The Solution to South Africa's Electricity Crisis

(Sent to me by a friend the other day .... too good not to share! )

My Book of the Moment

Ideas: A History From Fire To Freud by Peter Watson

In my ongoing quest to make sense of life, I found this book at the library a few weeks back. It's a thick tome (1015 pages in paperback not including the index) but taken in small bites, it is very edible!

From The New Statesman review:

" ... a universal history of ideas seems an impossibly daunting project. Yet in Ideas: a history from fire to Freud, Watson gives us an astonishing overview of human intellectual development which covers everything from the emergence of language to the discovery of the unconscious, including the idea of the factory and the invention of America, the eclipse of the idea of the soul in 19th-century materialism and the continuing elusiveness of the self. In a book of such vast scope, a reader could easily get lost, but the narrative has a powerful momentum. Watson holds to a consistently naturalistic philosophy in which humanity is seen as an animal species developing in the material world. For him, human thought develops as much in response to changes in the natural environment - such as shifts in climate and the appearance of new diseases - as from any internal dynamism of its own. This overarching perspective informs and unifies the book, and the result is a masterpiece of historical writing."

It is a long and slow read, given the amount of information to be absorbed, but it is utterly stimulating and I am loving it. Read the full New Statesman review here.

Updates

It's been a while, but I'm still in the land of the living - have been photoblogging regularly and watching a lot of DVDs, but have neglected this little bloglet! So time for a bit of catch up time! :)

In February, we moved house - see the pics here. We've been in residence for nearly three weeks now and I am happy to say that it was a really, really good move! My daughter can walk to school in 3 mins, the local library is a 10 min walk away, there is a small shopping centre over the road with a grocery store, fresh veggie market, video rental outlet, laundry, post office, second hand clothes stores, and a ton of other small shops. The flat itself is more like a small house and I have a study in which to write!

One of the benefits of having a son who now works part time in a DVD rental outlet is that he gets to take out two free movies at the end of each shift - and one evening, he brought home the first disc of Season One of 24 - and I got hooked! I'm just about to start watching Season Six, and what a ride it's been. There is so much I could say about the clever storytelling, the non-stop tension which leaves me exhausted, the amazing and incredible plot twists, the dialogue which reaches new lows at times, the wonderful snatches of humor, the alarmingly high body count and the adorable Chloe, who is far and away my favorite character now that (SPOILER!) Tony is dead. And then there's Jack. Who wouldn't want him on your side in a time of crisis? But you can't love Jack the way you can love Chloe and the late Tony!

So much for 24. :)

I'm going back to nursing full time from April, too. After all my carefully laid plans for this momentous year fell through, including my application to study Primary Health Care, I had to rethink everything again. Money became a serious issue, leading to the renting out of my old house and the move to this place, plus my resignation from all my part time jobs and signing on for a full time post with a full time salary. So that leaves me with only one major goal for this year (now that house, job and kids have been taken care of) and that is to actually write one full, complete novel and begin submitting it to agents and publishers. I have wonderful support in the form of two main people: my newest writing buddy Kells, who is encouragement personified and a cheerleader deluxe, and my oldest (as opposed to newest!) and very cherished writing buddy of many years standing, Pat in LA. Both these ladies are great, great writers in their own right - Pat is a leading light in a certain fanfiction community, and Kells has a debut novel that is currently being shopped around . You can still read it online here, if you're quick - once it's been sold, it will no doubt be taken down.

OK, more to follow soon.