NOW PANIC and FREAK OUT!

Posts tagged book review

The things you hope for the most are the things that destroy you in the end.

Will Grayson, Will Grayson - David Levithan and John Green

Review here: On People Named Will Grayson

It’s been a long time since I’ve read a medieval fantasy novel.

They were the books of my youth, really, along side the occasionally insipid but always entertaining “Choose Your Own Adventure” books.

Back then I suppose the “Dungeons and Dragons” scandal (yeah, I can’t think of a better word for the whole “the game is an express ticket to hell” melee) took its toll. Medieval fantasy books were left to rot in the bargain bins of National Bookstore — then pretty much the only bookstore worth noting. 

Anyway, there really isn’t much to say about George R.R. Martin’s “A Game of Thrones” — the first book in his “A Song of Ice and Fire” collection. It’s hack-and-slash alright. People are dropping like flies, the blood pretty much reaching out of the pages and spraying readers left and right. 

It’s good, is what I want to say. 

Truly. 

I haven’t read such an interesting fantasy novel in a long while, and although the length can be daunting, I think it nevertheless makes up for it with a beautifully woven story with varied characters and the trifecta of entertainment: blood, babes and… more blood?

Beyond the blood and gore, however, is a story that truly fleshes out its characters as best as it can, giving life and personality to each and every one of them. The personal point-of-view style of each chapter is helpful, I suppose, but more credit lies in Martin’s masterful ability to render each character sympathetic, no matter how slimy or repulsive they may prove to be in the long run. 

Intelligent, moving and so bloody entertaining. 

One down, four more to go.

Winter is coming.

The Book Thief

Markus Zusak

2005

I don’t know exactly why I picked this book. I was browsing through Amazon’s Kindle Store as I regularly do when I’m bored (this online shopping thing has done wonders for my financial fitness. Obviously.) when I saw this in the Young Adult fiction section.

I thought it was going to be something bright and breezy and fun.

Turns out I was wrong.

“The Book Thief” is the tale of a young girl in Nazi Germany, Liesel, who finds love, hope and freedom in the midst of hatred and destruction.

Wait. That sounded a lot more trite than it actually is.

Because there is nothing typical or simple or sensible about “The Book Thief”.

The road was cold and straight. It wasn’t long till the soldiers came with the Jews. In the tree shadows, Liesel watched the boy. How things had changed, from fruit stealer to bread giver. His blond hair, although darkening, was like a candle. She heard his stomach growl — and he was giving people bread. Was this Germany? Was this Nazi Germany?

That’s about Rudy, by the way, the young boy-next-door who never had enough to eat yet braved the coldest river to save a book in exchange for a chaste kiss.

That’s them: Rudy and Rosa and Hans and Max and Alex and Liesel and everyone else on Himmel Street.

It’s all about them.

The thing about history is that we all like to think of things in very grandiose terms. The world is a struggle between giants. Adolf Hitler versus Winston Churchill. MacArthur makes the Emperor of Japan surrender.

And then we go into statistics mode. Millions of Jews. Thousands of Germans.

Faceless. Lifeless. Meaningless.

We do not care. Or maybe we don’t want to. Because caring about the lives of millions innocently caught up in the battle between giants is a difficult thing we can’t face without breaking down and going insane.

History can be a little too black and white.

Germans bad. Americans good.

It’s very easy to just believe that the entirety of Germany decided to rise up and straight murder the Jews. Them. Their neighbours, friends, lovers — all of them Jews who’ve been Germans just like everyone else before it became illegal to be of the wrong race, the wrong colour, the wrong religion.

That is a very human thing to do.

To categorise. To label.

The truth is that we don’t give ourselves enough credit.

Germans. They’re a lot more human than we wish them to be. Because realising that a lot of Germans did their best to help and hide their Jewish friends is beyond the ken of normal understanding. 

Why would we bomb German cities? Why would the good guys murder innocent people?

Why would we kill Hans? Rosa? Rudy?

Why bomb a street full of ordinary people? An accordion player. A loudmouth nag. A boy with lemon-coloured hair. 

What’s the point?

I wish there was a better answer.

One better than “this is war; we do what we have to do.” Truthful, practical, but no less heartbreaking.

“The Book Thief” tells us we’re better than that, really.

That despite our penchant for destruction, our capacity for good is equal, if not greater. 

That there’s more to us than one-dimensional, sterilised categorisations.

We’re human.