Analysis of The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

I've been meaning to talk about The Book Thief by Markus Zusak for several days now. Briefly, it tells the story of a young girl, Liesel Meminger, as she is raised by her foster parents during World War II. I don't want to review the book--there are plenty of good reviews around. Instead, I want to talk about the book from a writer's standpoint, because it made me think about effective writing and why this book "works" in some ways and not in others.

To start, though, I'll say that I didn't love this book. When I read the prologue, I was excited to continue. But, for me, as the book progressed, I felt a little cheated. I felt like there was a lot of material that was trivial, so those pages were a waste of my time. I guess I wanted the prose to be more dense.

That's not to say that I don't admire Zusak, though. He has a lot of strengths as a writer. I'm going to talk about some of what I thought were his strengths and then digress a bit into some more general views and questions.

Zusak's characters in this book were particularly strong to me. What made them effective was that they were clearly rendered and stayed true to the initial personalities established in the beginning of the book. Each character had a strong personality and had a mix of both positive and negative traits. I found, though, that they weren't particularly complicated. For the most part everyone could be quickly understood and classified as "good" or "bad" with the exception of the Mayor's wife, who was by far the most interesting character for me. Compared to other literary characters such as, I don't know, say, Anna Karenina, Zusak's characters were flat. But, I realized that these flat characters, in part because they were flat, also made them memorable. They were simple and clear, like a nursery rhyme. And I wondered if maybe the more complicated a character is, the harder they are to render in the same memorable way.

Zusak also chose an interesting setting for his story. Setting the story in World War II naturally allowed the book to inherit a lot of emotion and drama. With the devastation of war in the background, even the most ordinary events could come off as haunting. When I was in graduate school, I had a teacher tell me that our stories should be about individual people, but hung against a backdrop of something that is more universal. Zusak did exactly that when he portrayed this German family in the middle of war. But is it "cheating"? Does such a dramatic subject matter serve as a crutch that lets a writer get away with not creating as much emotion on his or her own? The emotional climaxes of this story were completely reliant on the emotional events of war. In a way, it didn't feel earned, and yet it was still effective.

I'm neutral about the structure and formatting of the book. For those who haven't read it, the book contains some short and bolded lines like headlines, along with some illustrations and comic-book type sections. For the most part, I thought they worked, but there was quite a bit of redundancy in the headlines. Often I felt as if I had read something only to have to read it again in headline form. It became too cute for me. The illustrations, however, worked, and I did appreciate that variation from the norm. As far as the structure of the story went, I thought that was clean and straight forward. Like I mentioned in the beginning, some (and I might even say many) of the scenes felt trivial. I don't skim through books, but I wanted to in several spots while I was reading this.

What I found most interesting about this book, though, has to do with my post a couple of weeks ago on the changing definition of "literary" writing and the combination of insightful prose with other elements of the story, mentioned here. While The Book Thief did not have what I would consider to be beautiful, literary prose (in the best sense of the word) it did have the other elements that I find missing in some contemporary literary work: character, plot, premise. These are important elements! I feel as if we as writers have somehow separated prose quality from all the other important parts of a story and wrongly classified them as two distinct genres or branches of fiction. The snoots care only about the beautiful prose, while the mainstream writers care about everything else.

It may seem like an obvious choice. After all, prose is only one element in a story, and apparently not always a very relevant one. But, what I find among the best prose writers is that it is in those small moments that the deepest emotions of life come forward. A good prose passage provides dozens of insights into the world instead of simply guiding a reader towards The End the way simple prose does.

Take this short excerpt from Nina Barberova's story "The Resurrection of Mozart":

The silence was so complete that when they stopped talking and returned to their own private thoughts, they could hear through the open windows the clock ticking in the large old house. The sky was green, clear and lovely, and the stars were just beginning to shine, so few and far-flung that they failed to form any definite pattern. The old trees--acacias, limes--neither breathed nor trembled, as if standing stock-still were a safeguard against something that was invisible to men but somehow immanent in the summer evening. The hosts and their guests had just finished supper; the table had not yet been cleared. Some wine-glasses were still on the table. Slowly, the green light of the darkening sky transformed the faces of the seated company which was not obscured by shadows. They were talking about war and about the omens of war. A young woman, a guest who had driven out from town with her husband and sister, restraining her brassy voice, remarked that she had seen a meteor a fortnight before.

The way I see it, all of the other elements can lead to one good story, but good prose creates dozens or even hundreds of additional good stories draped over that one good story.

The truth--or at least what I believe to be the truth--is that readers want it all. Perhaps when given the choice, some would choose plot over prose or vice versa, but the only reason they have to choose in the first place is because so few books are able to combine all the elements that make up a truly excellent book. I don't think that lets either camp off the hook. I believe we should continue to challenge ourselves to truly reach that balance.

Dreams and Names, Names and Dreams

Happy Monday, everyone!

Last night I dreamt that Nicole Krauss and Jhumpa Lahiri came over to my apartment for a snack. I had just gone to the Thai bakery and had some containers of kanom chun and kali puffs. Both writers were very nice, and I slowly steered the conversation towards the question of how one becomes a full time writer. Unfortunately, as all dreams seem to do, it ended before I got any sort of useful answer. So, Nicole and Jhumpa, I want my snacks back!

I finished The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle this weekend and have a couple of posts I'll be writing about it. It was an educational book, technique-wise. Next, I'm reading In Exile from the Land of Snows: The Definitive Account of the Dalai Lama and Tibet Since the Chinese Conquest. This is research to help me on my Cyberlama book. I really wish I had a proper name for Cyberlama. I've started to collect words that might go into the final title. So far, I have "tomorrow", "sight", "gain", "never", and "last", so if any of you can think of anything let me know. Nicole and Jhumpa will probably be of no help on that one either.

I hope you all get to enjoy the day doing something fun. This week, we've got a couple of guest posts coming up that will be great!

Some Books That Changed Things, 2010

First, this is not really a Friday Filler post, but then again, it's All About Me so maybe it is. Except it's not:

Happy Holidays to any of you who celebrate any holidays that might be happening right now! Was that non-specific yet heartfelt enough? Because really, it's been a hard year for a lot of folks and what I wish most for everyone's 2011 is peace and joy but, mostly, peace because it's so hard to come by. Peace on Earth, everyone.

But back to me: I was thinking about which of the books I read this year that have influenced the way I write. Not necessarily books that were my favorites, but books that have changed my relationship to my own fiction. There were not many of them, but there were a couple:




Women In Love, by D.H. Lawrence. A classic, depending on who you ask. This book is a bit clunky in the prose but Lawrence had a way of directing your attention to the uncomfortable but real emotions of his characters, of showing how people do the most unpredictable things in order to achieve happiness, even resorting to a kind of savagery, and how some people might get it right while most people get it wrong. There's a matter-of-factness in Lawrence's approach to character that I definitely see working its way into my own fiction.




Labyrinths, by Jorge Luis Borges. Borges wrote no novels, concentrating his efforts on short stories and essays. The stories are amazing and groundbreaking; Borges had an eclectic education and his influences include everything from Shakespeare to Poe to folktales to Cervantes to Einsteinian physics. The thing that I am getting from Borges is that you can push ideas really far and be vague about where you end up but that vagueness is good and valuable and mystery is an excellent addition to life, and therefore to story. Weird, that is, is good.




How Fiction Works, by James Wood. A non-fiction book about fiction. I read a lot of books about literary history and literary theory and narrative theory and all of that, but this book is not that sort of academic writing. This is a sort of old-fashioned primer on the art of fiction, focused on what makes the good books so good. Wood might try too hard to reduce things down to the ubiquity of "free indirect style" narration, but his delight in character and the poetry of language is infectious, and his arguments in favor of the artistic elements of writing make me want to try harder. There were no specific lessons for me in this book, but it certainly got me more excited about being a writer and that's nothing to sneeze at, kids.

The point of all of this is not to get you to read the books. The thing is, really, that what Davin, Michelle and I are doing here at the Literary Lab is less about lessons on writing (though we're all quite capable of beazling and prolixing for thousands of words about the bits and bobs of our craft) than it is about getting you excited to be fictionauts and showing you that the three of us try really hard to constantly improve our artsy craft and crafty art, and we hope that we have--in our own small way--inspired you to try harder, too.

Beggars that we are, we are even poor in thanks but I must thank you on behalf of Domey and Michelle for coming to our little corner of the interweb and having these chats with us. Because one thing we forget to say often enough is that you folks, with your willingness to engage us in this ongoing dialogue, inspire us to work hard and think deeply and aspire to brilliance. Because this matters, really it does. It matters to you, it matters to us and my hope is that by reinforcing each other's will to brilliance we can all raise our game, as the kids say, to the next level. And that would be really cool. Peace on Earth. Bigger and better. All of that. Thanks.

The Paris Review Interviews

In case you don't know, the Paris Review has been interviewing good writers (of fiction, poetry and nonfiction) for over half a century. They've put all of these interviews on the internets, here. Go read some of them; get inspired. Check out Hemingway's cranky boredom with George Plimpton. Imagine yourself answering the interviewers' questions.

Also! Starting tomorrow, it is Banned Books Week. Celebrate your freedom to read! Go expose yourself to something dangerous.

More and Better Also! If you live in glorious Seattle, make sure you swing by the University Bookstore (4326 University Way, N.E) by 7pm to hear Alexandra MacKenzie read from her debut novel Immortal Quest. You must come, and you must buy a copy, and Alex must sign it! Because I said so!

What I Wish I Had Written

I am sort of continuing a series of writerly explorations with this post, a series I began weeks ago with questions about "moral fiction" and continued with the questions about portrayals of minority-status characters and characters who are not part of our own social groups. Today it's less social and more personal, and I am wondering about our early experiences with writing. Specifically, I'd love it if you could all think for a minute and then in the comments tell me what was the first book you ever read that you wish you had written.

Maybe I'm alone in this experience, but there was a moment in time when I had finished a book and I imagined myself as the author of that specific book because it seemed like it had been written just for me and it seemed like something I myself could have written. Granted, when I was very young, in maybe 5th or 6th grade, my brothers and I would make up little comic books (they call them "chapbooks" these days) that were just folded sheets of paper with a staple in the spine and write our names on the front covers and pretend we were authors.

But those moments didn't have as large an impact on me as did the time I read Flannery O'Connor's Wise Blood. "This is a great book," I said to myself. "I understand what she was doing, and how she did it, and I get it and gosh, but I could have written it!" And, sad to say, when I began to write my first novel about six months later, I was writing very much a rip-off of Wise Blood. Still. The moment pushed me past the "it would be cool to be a novelist" stage into the "I could write a novel" stage. Which stage I haven't left.

Anybody have a similar story they wish to share? Because I want to hear it.

I Am My Influences

I am currently reading Colum McCann's Let the Great World Spin. I am also currently rewriting my own novel, possibly to be titled The Stars Are Fire. Last night Mighty Reader asked me what I thought about McCann's book. My answer was, more or less, that I thought it was fantastic writing but I didn't know if I was enjoying it much. There ensued a short conversation about LTGWS and what, if anything, I expect from a novel. This conversation eventually turned to what I expect of my own novels (because I am never more than six sentences away from talking about myself), and I have made some observations. About me, of course.

The first books I can remember reading were fairy tales, Dr. Seuss and then adventure stories. Books heavy on danger and linguistic play. The books I write now are heavy on danger and linguistic play. Huh. Later I read Shakespeare, books heavy on (even the comedies) the dark side of humanity and full of linguistic play. The books I write now are (even in the comic moments) heavy on the dark side of humanity and full of linguistic play.

When I was a young man, I read a lot of books that examined the existential problem (that is, attempting to find meaning in the fact of being human and delineating the social and spiritual contracts) and I thought that when I grew up and became a writer, I would pen introspective novels set in modern day that examined the existential problem, books that would be beautiful and quiet, revealing and heart-rending. Not quite books like Let The Great World Spin (which is not a book I wish I'd written, though it's got passages I wish were mine), but possibly books like...well, that's where I run into trouble. I'm not sure who is writing books I wish I'd written. I can't think of a book--even one I admire greatly--that I wouldn't change if I had the power.

Anyway, so there I am thinking I'd either be on the cutting edge of experimental prose (like, say, William Burroughs during his Cities of the Red Night stage or Italo Calvino writing If On a Winter's Night a Traveler), or I'd be writing solidly humanistic fiction like Dostoyevski or Chekhov or Prose or Hemingway. Instead I am writing big tragedies in the manner of Shakespeare that are filtered through the fairy tales and adventure stories (Doc Savage! John Carter, Warlord of Mars! Lucky Starr and the Pirates of Venus! Et cetera!) of my youth. In short, my writing and reading are both apparently strongly informed by my earliest reading habits.

I make no judgements about this (aside from the inescapable feeling that no matter what I write or how I write it, I could have done a better job and I'll never really be pleased with or impressed by my own work); I merely note it. I write the stories that come to me, that I am able to write. I work on the books until they seem right to me, and I read books that seem right for me, and neither the books I read nor the books I write seem to be the books I thought I'd be living with. Which confuses me a bit, and confusion annoys me, so I'm annoyed.

So am I going anywhere with this rambling confessional? Don't know. Possibly there's a buried theme about trying, through my writing, to reconcile my juvenile influences with my abstract concept of literature and either failing or not but being unable to tell the difference (because there is no success or failure in that attempt, which is predicated on a foolish and undefined standard). Or, you know, I've been getting too little sleep of late and everything seems a bit funhouse mirror, if you know what I mean.

Anyway, thoughts on this? Are we essentially writing versions of the books we first read? Can we move far from our "formative years?" Should we? Should we not?

Now I want a cheeseburger

My husband and I have recently been watching Star Trek: the Next Generation series, starting with season one and moving on through. I think my favorite character of Star Trek is Data. He's an android, and he's pretty much clueless to human behavior at the beginning of the seasons, and then slowly begins to learn what it is to be human. He's a great device for building emotion and sympathy from the audience.

One of the best questions Data asks: What is funny?

And even when Data attempt to figure out a joke, what ends up being funny is his attempt - not the joke.



Davin did a post yesterday about putting humor in our work. That got me thinking about whether or not it's possible to learn how to be funny. Like Data, I often feel like an android who has no clue how to go about telling a joke or understanding why something is funny. It's timing. It's intuition. It's skill.

Roni over at Fiction Groupie totally stole my idea yesterday to ask if it's possible to learn how to be funny. (I still love you, Roni) Go check out her post if you would like some greater insight there.

Today, I guess, I just wanted to say that I think it's possible to learn how to be funny - there are tricks of the trade, I suppose, but perhaps a deeper question might be should you learn how to be funny? It is certainly tempting - everyone loves the funny man.

Do you think we are better off sticking to what we naturally do best? Or do you think venturing into the unknown and trying on new hats is a good idea? I'm currently trying to write fantasy, and it keeps delving back into major drama/literary/suspense writing - just like everything I write. Go figure. Of course, there is no humor in it that I can see. Yet.

Who Created the Rules of Your Story?

While ambling through the internet, I once stumbled upon some videos of writer Kate Braverman teaching a class. I had particular interest in Kate because I had the opportunity to meet and study under two of her past students, Janet Fitch and Samantha Dunn, and according to both of these very strong writers, Kate was quite the taskmaster. (I wrote about her once before.)

In this video, Kate was telling a roomful of students that they weren't using their imaginations enough. She said that in all of our stories, we should be creating every part of it: the characters, the setting, the time...even down to the force of gravity.

I'm into pain. I like to challenge myself, and this seemingly impossible idea of creating my own gravity in my stories was something that has fascinated me for a long time. I often ask myself if I'm using my imagination enough. And, often my answer is no. And, more often, my answer is "What does that even mean?"

So, I'm throwing the question out for your thoughts on this idea. Do you use your imaginations enough? Do you create your own gravity? What does that even mean???

It's Not You, It's Me

In a sort of continuation of Davin's post about sincerity and Michelle's post about honesty, I wanted to do a poll today.

(Poll closed, results below:)

Q: In your current novel, is the protagonist:

1. Someone unlike you or anyone you know? 41.5%

2. A stand-in for you, or an idealized version of you? 36.6%

3. A stand-in for someone you know, or an idealized version of them? 19.5%

4. A version of someone else's protagonist because you could write that story better than they did? 2.4%

In my last book, my protagonist was a minor character from Shakespeare's "Hamlet" that I expanded and fleshed out a lot and he's nothing like me except, of course, that he reads a lot and is obsessed by fine food. Otherwise he's a complete stranger. In my current book (titled "Cocke & Bull"), the protagonist is a gay Irish highwayman in colonial Maryland. Again, not so much me though we share Irish Catholicism but I've never killed anyone, at least.

If your protagonist is essentially you, why is that? If not, why is that? Discuss.

Inappropriate Subject Matter

As I get farther along in the first draft of my work-in-progress, I begin to suffer some sort of vague but growing doubts about the subject matter and the characters I have chosen. I'm not second-guessing my choices so much as I'm starting to feel a bit ill at ease over the reception this book will get from my agent, possible future publishers, Mighty Reader, et alia.

Mighty Reader and I were talking just last night (over dinner of chicken Provencal, if you must know) about books we won't read even if we admire the authors who've written them. There are subjects that I'll simply steer clear of: modern warfare, terrorism, pedophilia, serial killers, anything with explicit sex scenes, cyberpunk stuff, clown romances (kidding; I love clown romances), white collar crime; there are also subjects that aren't so nice that I will read: adultery, occult stuff, slavery, poverty, murder, imprisonment, death of all sorts. And the book I'm currently writing might, maybe, be one that I wouldn't necessarily pick up off the shelf and buy were I in a bookstore. Which is what I find most interesting here, that I'm writing a book about things and characters that I usually don't read about.

And, really, mosty my issue is that I'm writing about characters for whom I don't feel I necessarily have adequate standing. I am not an escaped female slave, nor am I a priest, nor am I a widow, nor am I a gay man, nor am I an American Indian. All of these characters appear in my book, as do (I attempt) all of the worst things about their lives when viewed through the above-mentioned societal identifiers. Who am I to presume to speak for any of them? Also, there is a violent act in each chapter. Is this the sort of book I normally buy? Not in the least. But it's the sort of book I am writing. Imagine my embarrassment at the library as I ask for books about how African slaves were tortured during the colonial era, or what the symptoms of syphillis are. Really, thank god for the internets sometimes.

Anyway, Davin's already written a post about "dark subjects" so I won't get into the question of avoiding possibly-inappropriate subjects, but I will wonder if any of you have awakened to the reality that you're writing a book about things you would normally never even consider reading about?

Harriet Potter

I am writing this particular post today for three reasons: First, it's Friday and that's the day when the fewest people seem to read/respond to blogs (I don't take it personally, really I don't) so I can just pad out the week with something light; Second, tonight Mighty Reader and I are going to go see the new "Harry Potter" film (which is nearly three hours long, for gosh sakes, meaning MR and I will get home around 2:00 AM and we are therefore very brave HP fans); Third, I've noticed something in my trolling of query letter sites and I must ask about it.

A lot of people seem to be writing the same book. Or, I should say, the same couple of books. I get around, you know, and read a lot of writers' blogs and see a lot of queries for books people have written, and there seem to be two premises that crop up a lot:

1. Sort of downtrodden youngster discovers he/she has magical powers, enters world where he/she learns to use said powers, and must then battle Ultimate Evil.

2. Sort of shoe-gazey young girl, feeling isolated, meets handsome mysterious male who turns out to be paranormal evil person, who tempts girl to dark side (usually because she has paranormal powers she doesn't know about, and handsome evil boy wants to steal her paranormal energy).

3. There's also a third premise I see a lot that I just remembered, where young protagonist (usually female) discovers she has magical or otherwise unearthly powers and either a) must choose between the life of a close relative (sister or mother in most cases) and her own life as a superhuman powergrrl, or b) must use her superhuman powergrrl powers to save her close relative.

So we have, essentially, Harry Potter and Twilight and Superman (or maybe Wolverine in a Hello Kitty t-shirt) as premises that are being used A Lot Around Here.

So what's the deal? Are people deliberately trying to be the next Rowling or Meyers or whomever (I don't know, maybe Neil Gaiman on the last one), or are these just the sorts of stories that YA and MG readers like, and we write what we read and it's all just that "Harry Potter" and "Twilight" are the sorts of stories we want to read more of?

I'm not complaining or saying any of this is bad. Personally, I think premise is the least part of storytelling, as long as the premise and the story are solid and compelling; it's how you tell it that matters most to me. But I am asking. Why are these the stories a great lot of writers are choosing to tell now? If this is you, dear reader, what's up? Spill it.

From Inspiration to Story: Where Do You Start?

Most of the writers I admire say that a story has to be inspired by character. You can also start a story from a situation and write something more plot-driven. But what are the things that inspire you? Can you start a story from anything else?

For me, Alice Munro is one of the greatest living authors. Even though her writing isn't about three-headed polar bears, they are strange works. I read one story, "Open Secrets" where I thought to myself: How did she get away with this?

It wasn't a bad story. In fact, it is one of my favorite stories by her. But, it was so unusual that I felt like she had broken some major storytelling rule. (Without ruining the story, "Open Secrets" is a murder mystery, and the in the end, the mystery is solved in a very strange way.)

It seemed like Alice was cheating and still making it work. How did she do it?

I read an essay that she had written where she said something that revealed her technique. She talked about what inspired her to write "Open Secrets." It was something incredibly mundane, something similar to seeing soap bubbles in the kitchen sink. She had written a story inspired by soap bubbles! Then she said something that was truly helpful to me. She said that the longer she writes, the more successful she is as keeping the story focused on that thing that inspires her. And it can be anything. That's what made this story so unusual. It wasn't focused on character or conflict. Instead, somehow, this murder mystery was about soap bubbles. (They weren't actually soap bubbles, but I don't want to give away too much.)

This has really opened up new avenues of storytelling for me. I get inspired by everything. I used to discard a lot of these points of inspiration because I couldn't fathom how a story could be built around it. Now, I'm more open to experiencing the world and writing based on anything that excites me. And, in the end, isn't this the heart of making art? Don't we want to portray what inspires us instead of showing that we are good at following rules? I used to tuck the non-character driven inspirations somewhere in the background of my story. I wanted those things (such as the soap bubbles) in the piece for my own satisfaction, but I also didn't want to write something that wasn't "a story". Now I dare to place my inspiration in the foreground. I write to explore my inspiration rather than to construct a story just to contain it.

Nonwritten Influences

A few of us have gone back and forth discussing who our writing influences are. For me, I'm also significantly influenced by other art forms.

Movies are more of a natural influence. I tend to write stories with multiple main characters and multiple story lines, so movies like American Beauty, Closer, and Princess Mononoke have been very influential to me. I watch them over and over again to learn how to pace multi-character stories and how to transition from one character to another.

But, other forms of art also inspire me. I love the music of Radiohead, for example. Whenever I listen to their album, OK Computer, I immediately feel like I want to duplicate what they are doing musically in my writing. Shostakovich also inspires me this way, as do the paintings of Agnes Martin and Paul Gauguin, just to name a few.

An obvious problem arises. How does one translate these different art forms into writing?

Can it be done?

One of the things I love about OK Computer is that the musicians make use of these intricate counterpoint lines to balance the main melodies. When the singer finishes a phrase, and before he starts a new one, another line of music rises up in the gap to keep your attention. These lines often overlap so that as one sound is tapering off, another is just developing. In my writing, though, I've never been able to do anything close to this. I've always felt trapped by the fact that our writing is so linear, that readers can only pick up one word, or one sentence, at a time. Poet John Ashbery has experimented with having poems that are meant to be read simultaneously, but I'm sure that borders on the fringe of what readers are willing to put up with. I know in my own experience of that particular poem (I think it was in The Tennis Court Oath, but I may be wrong) was that I ended up not understanding anything.

So, I often ask myself it is a pointless pursuit to try and translate music or painting into my writing? Perhaps the beauty of these separate art forms are that they are, indeed, separate. But, I realize that part of my motivation to write is so that I can take part in the creation of art that I find to be beautiful, and it saddens me to think that some things are "off limits".

Do you think that other forms of art can ever be more than just an inspiration to your art? Can you steal techniques from other artists the way you can steal from other writers?