Young love and Hitler

Still reading the book thief...
Still love it...

Anyway, I've been noticing a reoccuring pattern in myself- a longing for friendy love inside a younger generation. In The Book Thief, Liesel has a close friend named Rudy. The book has an edge that gives it a very vague feel, making it extremely difficult for me to track Rudy as a character.

I have a few ideas...none very deep. I think he can be, as a person, mistaken for the average nine-year-old male thinker in Hitler's Germany. But I think it goes beyond that. he is an intellectual in many ways, and softens the shallow edge that Liesel, in growing up, feels forced to portray to the world. She still uses the somewhat loud and obnoxious tone with him, but I've come to realize he won't have it. Rudy can totally tell that there is so much more beneath the surface of Liesel, and he knows there's a lot more going on inside her head than what may seem at first glance.

I think, in some ways, he is in love with her. These kind of relationships- in this position- usually create crishes and love.

This is all just my vague little theory.

And besides that, I'm having even MORE issues trying to get into Liesel's thoughts on all of this. I think she feels flustered and embarrassed when she's around the intellectual side of him. But it forces her to think deeper. When his more shallow side is exposed, she is more comfortable, relieved, and barely thinks beyond the first few obvious layers.

I've also been thinking about Hitler's role in the book...but that is pretty much self-explanatory. He affects everyone's lives, some in negative ways and some in non-descript ways. Some feel they are benefitted with him being at power.

It was especially interesting for me to read, having written a play about Hitler. My play was an intense look at him as a character, whereas this makes him more of an idea- one that has a very powerful affect on everyone.

Very powerful.

P.s. My play won a silver key award in the scholastic competition. I think my writing life has officially begun.

Scratch that. My writing life is my life. It's always been there.

Assumptions and Followers

The Book Thief had been recommended to me multiple times before I finally found and decided to pick up the book from my classroom library, desparately in need of a new book after Elegance of the Hedgehog.

I now understand why it was so recommended.

In the book, Liesel Meminger is a nine year old girl in the 1930s in Germany, as Hitler rises to power. She makes the journey with her mother and brother- who does not survive the trip- to be given to a foster family. She arrives with only one memory to hold onto of her brother- The Grave Digger's handbook, a book Liesel found in the snow by her brother's graveside. Though Liesel cannot read, the book holds an importance...a last connection with her real family.

The foster mother, Rosa, is definitely a piece of work. The narrator tells the reader that she loves Liesel, though without that spectation the thought would barely occur to us. She is loud, cold, unfriendly and impatient. She forces Liesel to call her "mama" and Rosa's husband Hans "papa."

Though calling Hans "papa" is absolutely no trouble for Liesel.

It interested me how Hans is such a nicer, more fun and fatherly character. The male characters in relationships often show the softer side. Liesel seems to be living a scenario that I've seen occur multiple times in books.

My theory is that women hold on to emotion for a lot longer than men (this isn't the case with everyone, please don't mistake ths for being sexist!!!), making them a lot more complicated. Or atleast their minds. Men seem- in books- to be able to get past and let go a lot easier than their mates.

Is this an assumtion that authors, over so many years, have made? That men have specific strengths, such as this, that women struggle with? I think this is somewhat reality...while a lot of it is written to stay within the zone of the average character structures.

While I tend to enjoy literature that breaks these "rules," I am thoroughly enjoying The Book Thief.

Judging Myself

I know myself pretty well as a reader. Most of the time. Though often, my brain has been confusing me- in terms of favorites, how well written (and amazing, if that) a book is, and all of the above. I realized, after ditching the idea that maybe I didn't in fact know myself as intimately as I thought, that it wasn't me- it was the certain books that were leaving footprints of different shapes and sizes.

So I proceeded to go through the books that were standing out and had been (in whatever way) for a while in my current life.

I began with a not very deep book that I read last year- The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. Laugh all you want, but besides the junk food affect- bad for you but deliciously addicting- something else was drawing me in. As I tore through each book, rereading them, I dicovered the things I loved about it:

1. The close, fun relationship between the girls...I have never known what it's like to know a friend so well...

2. The multiple range of features, minds, and characteristics of the girls- and the fact that being told by all of them, I got an insight to and flavor of each of these, going back and forth throughout the books.

It was a combination of this and the junk food affect that got my brain so wrapped up around the books. I then compared this to how a book like The Elegance of the Hedgehog affected me. It was very different; less of an obvious reaction, and it's not one of those books that keeps you reading and reading and reading...you pause after a little, putting it down for the moment. You have to take breaks in between short passages and reread and think a lot.

But this also shows the difference in strength and depth between the books. They are both thoughtfully written, but one just radiates a new level of complex, sophisticated literature while the other is, well...very satisfying but addictingly(my own word) average.

While most of the time it would be easiest for me to pick up The Sisterhood and let myu brain deal with softer material to chew, sometimes it's better for me as a person to chomp on tougher stuff- telling myself "I will do this. I want to do this."

Do not read if you plan on...well, devouring this book

I believe that the secret to making a book as absolutely amazing as possible is to have the perfect ending. My favorite are the ones that leave you hanging, not knowing what to think and then suddenly exploding with ideas, so full that the person next to you gives you a weird look. In a few (french) words, to make it clear: j'adore un beau fin.

There is a purpose here, believe it or not. Today I finished The Elegance of the Hedgehog.

For a few seconds I couldn't breathe. The magic of the book still lingers in the air for moments after you close it. My first thought was that I couldn't believe it was over; half a second later I realized I should be focusing on the actual ending itself.

And my reaction to that was at least a thousand times stronger.

To sum things up, we are forced to blow a kiss to Renee's life, and Paloma, caught up in grief for her only true friend, does not commit suicide.

I promise everyone these are my final thoughts on the book, but I HAD to blog about it today. Forgive me.

Renee and Paloma were destined to know each other. They brought out not necessarily the best in one another, but something that changed them. Renee, in life and death, brought Paloma to see the light in living, the values of life. For someone as clever, persistent, and cynical as Paloma, that was an immense accomplishment.

Paloma for Renee was less obvious, but I think- usng the title- that though Renee was pretty much a hedgehog, Paloma helped her see the elegance in that- the elegance of the hedgehog. The elegance of Renee.

I loved the two of them. I loved how honest and gentle Renee was while still managing to maintain her elegant intelligence. I loved Muriel Barbary's take on young girls of my own age, and I loved Paloma's little girlish side that, later in the book, slowly began to seep through her thick later of maturity and solitarity, showing that it's natural- even she couldn't repress it.

My final words on the book (though probably not really): Thank you, Ms. Robbins, for recomending to me the most thought provoking and incredible book I have ever read.

And that's saying a lot!