haunted by humans: a book review

“I wanted to explain that I am constantly overestimating and underestimating the human race— that rarely do I ever simply estimate it. I wanted to ask her how the same thing could be so ugly and so glorious, and its words and stories so damning and brilliant.” -The Book Thief, Markus Zusak


I finished reading The Book Thief last night at 2 am. I had heard people talking about this book on occasion all over the internet, so one day I decided to get it from the library. I didn't know what it was about at all. I just knew that a lot of people thought it was good. And wow. I was not disappointed.
I've read quite a few books. And I've never read one quite like this. The writing style is so haunting and intriguing, which I think is so appropriate to the story. This book is about the Holocaust and life in Nazi Germany. So, not exactly a pretty time in human history. There is lots of death (the whole book is basically death) and horrible circumstances that people had to endure. And their only comfort was each other.
Basically, I think that everyone should read this book. I don't know if I could read it again (I'm still suffering emotional trauma right now) but it is so brilliant. Like, I can't even put into words all of the things I'm feeling right now.
I think one of the reasons this book was so devastating to me was the lack of God. There were thousands and millions of people dying and the book doesn't mention God. There is no hope of an eternal afterlife. There is no hope for the future. Life is just awful and then you die. And I have to believe that there is more than that. I'm probably not explaining this very well, but if you have read the book, please feel free to talk to me about it. I'd love to discuss this (and any and all aspects of the book) with anyone who is interested.
Basically, I think that Markus Zusak does an excellent job of giving names and faces and personalities to Nazi Germany. It no longer seems like some far-off thing that happened. It feels much more personal. Much more awful. Which is how Nazi Germany should be portrayed. It was devastatingly awful.


Edit: I don't know why the font is different for this post... but I don't know how to fix it. It seems pretty insistent that it's going to look different. Whatever.

hunger games and thinking too hard

I saw The Hunger Games on Friday night and my initial reaction was hearty applause. I have read and loved the books and was definitely nervous for the movie. I mean, I've seen Harry Potter completely butchered on screen, so I didn't want to get my hopes up for well-done Hunger Games. But I was pleased with the movie. It told the story the way it needed to be told translated on film. I understand why they cut the things they cut and I was able to accept it for the sake of the story and the sake of the movie. For instance, I realize that it would have been difficult to portray Katniss becoming severely dehydrated without some sort of cheesy voice-over narration. I get that. The camera shakiness kind of annoyed me for a while, but that could be because I was sitting closer to the movie screen than I normally like to. The shakiness also added to the frenetic insanity of the story. If that makes sense.
So anyway, I came away from the film feeling really good about how they did it. I saw the movie as a success and I appreciated what it added to my understanding of the story.
However, now that I've read some reviews, I'm not so sure I'm supposed to like it as much as I did. The more I reflect on it, I realize just how much they did cut out and how it could have had a more well-written script. And maybe Katniss shouldn't have been played by a white actress and how Peeta should have been taller and Gale should have been thinner. And maybe they should have given the audience a detailed account of how many tributes were left throughout the Games.
These are all things that I didn't even think about while I was watching the movie (with the possible exception of the last one... I did wonder at one point just how many people were still alive). I was so captivated by what the film did show that I didn't take time to think about what was missing.
And now I feel like a bad fan of the books because I didn't really care that the actors didn't look exactly like their characters. I didn't really care that everything wasn't exactly how Suzanne Collins wrote it in the books. But I do realize that this isn't a fair way of thinking about it. It's perfectly okay that I liked the movie and that I felt it was true to the story I read. It's just that the more I think about it, I can't help but wonder if I liked the movie too much. Which is stupid, I realize.
I liked The Hunger Games. I thought it effectively did what it needed to do. And I'm going to stop apologizing for liking it.