Book Thief Research Articles

Reading as a Means of Healing Trauma in Markus Zusak’s The Book Thief

This research paper attempts to examine how reading books help for healing trauma of victim in Markus Zusak’s The Book Thief. Liesel Meminger, the protagonist gains rational power from her learning of reading books that Hans taught when she started stealing books from grave yard and the markets. Indeed, this study highlights that her habit of passionate reading of books in the war period heals her psychological disorder by forgetting her past. Relying on the concepts of Dominic LaCapra's "Writing History, Writing Trauma", Cathy Caruth's "trauma as a wound”, Herman’s “the role of memory and narrative in the healing process”, and Tedeschi and Calhoun’s “posttraumatic growth”, this paper gives emphasis to that Liesel gets healing from trauma through the process of reading that she ables to express her experience of witnessing. Furthermore, this study offers an ample examination of how reading becomes a vital tool for healing in the visage of adversity by delving into the intricate interplay between trauma, text, and toughness. Therefore, it can be concluded that reading can heal trauma however, it is difficult to root out that why the glimpses of memories can be seen inside the mind.

THE METAMODERN CONTEXT OF NARRATIVE STRATEGIES IN M. ZUZAK'S NOVEL "THE BOOK THIEF"

The article examines the narrative strategies of Markus Zuzak's novel "The Book Thief" from the perspective of metamodern aesthetics and the concept of metaxis. The article outlines the modern trends in the development of literary studies, which actualizes the problems of narratology at all functioning levels in the image of the human world, which draws special attention to the question of implementation forms and living of the narrative within the limits of the artistic work as a functional system that has signs of closure and openness. By narrative strategy, we mean a way of representing the artistic world of the text, characters, and the author, which is unique for a certain work of art, which is carried out through the mediation of the narrator. The narrative strategy in the paradigmatic (narrative as a variant of the narrative strategy of the text in the body of culture) and syntagmatic (narrative as a way of interaction between the narrative and the plot) dimensions of the work is also considered. The following aspects (or separate strategies) are distinguished in the novel's narrative strategy: the communicative one, which captures the peculiarities of communication as an interaction of the structural elements of the narrative and narrative instances; the event, which records the event as external or internal to the plot, the movement of the characters and their interaction, the visual and phenomenological aspect of the event, signs of heterogeneity, chronotypicality, intelligibility, factuality are also outlined; temporal, which examines the narrative from the point of view of its temporal regime; fictional, which considers the relationship between the reality of the text system and the environment (reality, culture) in which it is located; aesthetic, which captures the peculiarities of the aesthetic reception of the work in combination with its substantive and formal components; metanarrative, which considers the narrative as the subject of the next narrative, and performative, which interprets the forms of correlation and identification of speech and action in the narrative.

Out of Sight, Out of Catalogue: The Neglected Grey Collection Medical MS G.4.c.14, Its Problematic Provenance, and Its Colonial Context

Cape Town National Library of South Africa’s Grey Collection MS G.4.c.14 is a fifteenth-century paper manuscript that contains three medical works and a series of recipes. This article briefly explores MS G.4.c.14’s contents before examining the story of the manuscript itself. Containing commentaries on Book IV, fen 4 of Avicenna’s Canon of Medicine by well-known instructor of surgery Leonardo di Bertipaglia (d. 1448), and by the more obscure Maffeus di Laudi (fl. 1392–1417), and a summary of Benevenutus de Grassus’s De oculis (ca. 11–13th c.), MS G.4.c.14 has the potential to add greatly to our understanding of medieval medicine. However, medieval manuscripts also have histories outside the texts they contain. An exploration of the provenance and history of MS G.4.c.14 brought to light how it moved from Rome to Cape Town, through the antics of an infamous book thief, Guglielmo Libri (1802–69), and its purchase by Sir George Grey, colonial governor of the Cape Colony in South Africa between 1854 and 1861. Although neither British in origin nor explicitly Christian in content, like many other European manuscripts, MS G.4.c.14 played an important role in informal processes of colonialism and cultural imperialism. We examine why MS G.4.c.14 had been ignored in research and catalogues of medieval medical and ophthalmological works for decades, despite being digitized and available at the Hill Museum and Manuscript Library in 1990 and being included in a modern catalogue of the Grey Collection since 2002. We suggest that looking outside Europe to find manuscripts like MS G.4.c.14 requires scholars to confront the colonialist history in the disciplines of medieval and manuscript studies. This has become even more important as technologies of digitization have made it possible to examine a manuscript without any recognition of its history or provenance.

Grammatical Transformations in the Trans lation of the Novel “The Book Thief” by Markus Zusak

Grammatical Transformations in the Trans lation of the Novel “The Book Thief” by Markus Zusak

The Grading Process in System 1 and System 2 of Thinking: A Behavioral Economic Approach to Evaluation

The concepts of heuristics and biases underlie the decision-making process both at intuitive and rational levels, which Daniel Kahneman refers to as System 1 and System 2 of thinking. This research seeks to explore the interplay between these cognitive mechanisms and students’ grading decisions, examining the extent to which heuristics and biases can influence evaluation in the everyday process of learning and teaching. A survey was conducted, containing four grading situations that combine the experiences of reading, evaluation, and decision-making in four stages of System 1 and System 2 of thinking. The hypotheses and sub-hypotheses were tested using a quantitative approach, through a 15-item self-administered questionnaire (SAQ) in English, which collected data about the heuristics influencing Romanian students’ grading decision in four evaluative situations based on a synopsis of The Book Thief by Markus Zusak. The self-constructed questionnaire was filled in by 108 Romanian students studying for a bachelor’s, master’s, or doctoral degree in public and private universities. The data set was analyzed, using descriptive, inferential, and path-analysis methods (frequencies, percentages, measures of central tendency, t-tests, ANOVA, simple and multiple linear regression, mediation, and moderation) and one statistical program (R Studio 4.3.4.). Grade 1 (the most intuitive) can predict Grade 4 for the synopsis of The Book Thief. However, the correlation between Grades 2 + 3 and Grade 4 is much stronger than the correlation between Grade 1 and Grade 4. Furthermore, the impact of Grade 1 on Grade 4 is mediated by Grade 3 while Grade 1 has no effect on the impact of Grade 3 on Grade 4. The rational model of heuristics involved in the grading process is much stronger than the intuitive model. The study sheds light on the intricate interplay between intuition and rationality in the grading process, offering novel insights into the cognitive mechanisms that underlie decision-making.

A Review of Neurocognitive Interpretations of Australian Literature: Criticism in the Age of Neuroawareness

A Review of <i>Neurocognitive Interpretations of Australian Literature: Criticism in the Age of Neuroawareness</i>

“A Border is a Veil”: Death as a Border in The Farming of Bones and The Book Thief

Within literature, death has always been a common theme. In this essay, death as a border in literature will be explored in Edwidge Danticat’s The Farming of Bones and Markus Zusak’s The Book Thief. The Farming of Bones follows Amabelle Désir, a young Haitian woman working in the Dominican Republic, and tells of the Haitian massacre in the Dominican Republic in 1937. The Book Thief follows Liesel Meminger, a young German girl living under the Nazi regime, and tells of life during World War II. Both Danticat and Zusak explore death as it appears in those tragedies, how it affects the people under those regimes, and how it creates a border. Death creates a border both physical and spiritual, rigid yet permeable, and one that is displayed through the personification of death by Danticat and Zusak.

ТЕМА ВТОРОЙ МИРОВОЙ ВОЙНЫ В РУССКОЙ И ЗАРУБЕЖНОЙ ПРОЗЕ: ПРОБЛЕМА ПРЕПОДАВАНИЯ СОВРЕМЕННОЙ ЗАРУБЕЖНОЙ ЛИТЕРАТУРЫ В РУСЛЕ ПАТРИОТИЧЕСКОГО ВОСПИТАНИЯ МОЛОДЕЖИ

The article is devoted to the problem of interpreting the events of the Second World War in modern foreign literature (namely: the role of the USSR in the Victory over fascism is hushed up, the emphasis is placed exclusively on the genocide of Jews during the war, but not Soviet citizens in general), questions of teaching discipline to philology students. The material was mainly the novel by M. Zusak "The Book Thief", as well as the prose of P. Modiano, B. Schlink. The author comes to the conclusion that the basis of patriotic education, which is emphasized by the current state policy not only in secondary, but also in higher education, in classes on the history of foreign literature, should, firstly, be the formula: patriotism is love for one's country rather than hatred for a stranger. Secondly, it is advisable to teach foreign literature (including modern) in the context of Russian-foreign relations, as well as through the prism of a comparative analysis of the works of domestic and foreign authors, using a problematic approach, which will also contribute to critical (analytical) thinking. As for the practical application of the research results, it is advisable for language students to develop a colloquium (6 academic hours) on the topic “The theme of the Second World War in Russian and foreign prose”, involving material from both domestic and foreign prose.

Танатологические мотивы в романе Маркуса Зусака «Книжный вор»

The article considers the problem of thanatological motives in modern foreign literature and namely in M. Zusak’s Book Thief. The study revealed that thanatological motives provide for the content and plot development of the novel. M. Zusak depicts Death as a living creature similar to humans, including it into the system of images and characters. Thanatological motives interpretation is dynamic, natural and bright in multiple shades.

Os elementos da narrativa fílmica “A menina que roubava livros” (2013)

The film “The Book Thief” (2013) – product of an adaptation of the same title Australian book under the direction of Brian Percival – is taken here as an object of study and analysis as an activity linked to the Study Group on Violence, Childhood, Diversity and Art (NEVIDA/UFG) and to the interinstitutional Art, psychoanalysis and education research: aesthetic procedures in cinema and the vicissitudes of childhood (GEPIAP). Therefore, this work aims to discuss the cinematographic work from the narratological elements: narrator and protagonist, as well as analyzing their developments, with emphasis on the encounter of the protagonist child with the Nazi regime and the omnipresence of the figure of the dictator Adolf Hitler, a meeting that precedes the others the narrative displays. The content of the film text invites us to reflect on the relationship between cinema and literature, the understanding of reading and writing as refuges from barbarism, the school at the service of Nazism, among other threads launched by the plot supported by aesthetic devices that will also be addressed in the film analysis anchored in the guidelines of Galiot and Leté (1994) and in the phenomenological perspective. It is also added as a theoretical framework Benjamin (1984; 1994), Truffatut (2005), Tarkovski (1998), Bowdell (2008) and Marcello (2008).

Bibliophilia, Bibliomania or Bibliokleptomania ? Liesel's Passionate Love Affair with Books in Markus Zusak's The Book Thief

Abstract Liborum necesse est se faciat amatorem. Perhaps, as this Latin proverb suggests, it is necessary to fall in love with books, to turn them into lovers. But what happens when this passionate love affair spins out of control? In The Book Thief (2005), Markus Zusak's novel aimed equally at young adult and adult readers, the eponymous protagonist rarely engages with books because they afford stories of enchanting and enchaining interest. Rather, Liesel Meminger seems to hunt and enjoy books for quite different reasons than the delights of storytelling and pure entertainment. I first explore the laws of attraction which make books so beguiling to Liesel, before examining if this impulsive obsession of acquiring books has not become a blatant symptom of bibliomania, and more specifically of bibliokleptomania. After discussing the psychodynamical perception of what is often referred as book madness, I shall demonstrate these printed works in Markus Zusak's novel are much more than mere storytelling as they fulfil specific functions, all of which challenge the normative way of seeing texts, literary and otherwise.

Trauma and Escapism: The Dual Faces of Holocaust in Markus Zusak’s The Book Thief

Markus Zusak’s novel, The Book Thief wholly recaptures the trauma induced by war-torn Germany upon its inhabitants. This study serves the purpose of juxtaposing the traumatic bereavement of the Holocaust survivors with their various escaping tendencies. The chief protagonist of the novel, Liesel is representative of the entire traumatized community who faces the darkest moments of their life and still survives. Her story as part of the developing canon of Holocaust literature thus exposes the destructive trauma and affirms the importance of community in the rehabilitation of the traumatized. The power of words as an escaping force amidst all the upheaval provided much impetus to the distressed souls of Nazi Germany. Books emerged as an escaping force in the lives of many in times of all treachery and destitute. Trauma and escapism hence, binds together the traumatic experiences and the escaping strategies which the characters share among themselves under a dictatorial setup.

Szlachetni szaleńcy czy zwykli złodzieje? Wybrane aspekty problemu kradzieży książek na przestrzeni wieków

This paper analyzes the phenomenon of book theft, sometimes referred to somewhat frivolously as bibliokleptomania. The essential goal is to outline the motives behind such practices and, based on that, develop a typology of book thieves.&#x0D;

Word Havens: Reading One’s Way out of Trauma in Contemporary Fiction

Prompted by the attention received in recent years by the collateral benefits of reading and the growing prominence of bibliotherapy in the literary marketplace, this paper aims to investigate the therapeutic effects of books as they emerge from the experience of fictional characters, a perhaps less scientifically sound endeavour than empirical studies and clinical trials targeting real-life readers but one likely to occasion interesting perspectives on reading as a coping mechanism in the face of trauma. By focusing on a variety of reading experiences gleaned from a selection of novels ranging from Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein to William Styron’s Sophie’s Choice, Graham Swift’s Waterland, Michael Ondaatje’s The English Patient, Azar Nafisi’s Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books, Markus Zusak’s The Book Thief, Lloyd Jones’ Mister Pip and Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows’ The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society and targeting acts of solitary communion with narrative as well as illicit seminars, informal book clubs and impromptu public readings, the analysis intends to highlight the extent to which literature can provide more than a mere pastime or intellectual challenge to its most vulnerable readers. Whether such benefits entail a sense of community, a temporary shelter from the hardships of war, a reprieve from the abuses of a totalitarian government or sanctuary from the less brutal but nevertheless haunting scars of broken relationships, parental disapproval or social rejection, the ultimate goal is to identify and assess the various survival strategies employed within these fictional universes. The

Who has Stolen Their Childhood?—A Comparative Study Between The Book Thief and Grave of the Fireflies from the Perspective of Trauma Narratives

Literature from the perspective of perpetrators receives less attention due to history and ethical problems, but it is our duty to view history as a whole. By comparing and analyzing The Book Thief and Grave of the Fireflies, this study claims that war and blind patriotism have stolen the childhood from the war-stricken children and that love, care, company and chances to speak out the pain can be the treatments. In the study, traumatic narratives, traumatic elements and treatments in both books are discussed comparatively and respectively.

Michael Vinson. Bluffing Texas Style: The Arsons, Forgeries, and High-Stakes Poker Capers of Rare Book Dealer Johnny Jenkins.

The story of Johnny Jenkins, rare book dealer, forger, gambler, and misterioso, has haunted me since my days in library school nearly a decade ago. I first encountered Jenkins through his publication Rare Books and Manuscript Thefts: A Security System for Librarians, Booksellers, and Collectors, which was printed in 1982 while Jenkins served as president of the Antiquarian Booksellers Association of America (ABAA). I was doing research related to the history of book theft in the United States and found Jenkins’s short text (only 27 pages) to be a helpful insight into how the ABAA viewed book theft and security. Pursuing Jenkins a bit further, I quickly came upon Calvin Trillin’s fascinating 1989 New Yorker article that chronicled Jenkins’s demise. The details of Jenkins’s secret life of forgeries, gambling, and arson were fascinating; the details of his death (shot in the back of the head, no weapon found, ruled a suicide?) were macabre and confounding. A few years later, while on break at a conference in Austin, TX, I walked into a used bookstore and found a copy of Jenkins’s Audubon and Other Capers (1976), which told the tale of his exploits in helping the FBI track down book thieves in the early 1970s. The completely contradictory life that Jenkins led, coupled with his untimely and odd death, stuck in my brain in the form of unanswered questions, unclear details, and an unresolved murder or suicide. While it was not up to me to put the pieces together and offer a clear picture of Johnny Jenkins’s life, career, and death, it had to be done by someone. That someone, it turns out, was another rare book dealer specializing in Texas and the West, Michael Vinson.

Children's Literature in a Multiliterate World ed. by Nicola Daly and Libby Limbrick

Reviewed by: Children's Literature in a Multiliterate World ed. by Nicola Daly and Libby Limbrick David Jacobson CHILDREN'S LITERATURE IN A MULTILITERATE WORLD. Edited by Nicola Daly and Libby Limbrick. UCL Institute of Education Press, 2018, 184 pages. ISBN: 978-1-85856-878-2 Forty percent of the population of Auckland, New Zealand, was born overseas, putting it among the most diverse cities in the world, ahead of even New York and London. That made it a particularly appropriate site for the 35th Congress of the International Board on Books for Young People in 2016, whose theme was "Children's Literature in a Multiliterate World." This volume was edited by Libby Limbrick, principal lecturer at the University of Auckland and a co-director of the Congress, as well as Nicola Daly, senior lecturer at Waikato University. It collects eleven of the presentations given at the conference. Rather than focus on the headlining speakers, such as The Book Thief author Markus Zusak and popular graphic novel writer Raina Telgemeier, the editors wisely chose to focus on presenters who wrestled with issues of multiliteracy, both in theory and in practice. They also gave preference to authors from the South Pacific, who contributed nearly half the chapters. That is a welcome choice in view of the fact that this was the first IBBY Congress to be held in that part of the world. The volume opens with the acceptance speech delivered by China's Cao Wenxuan upon receiving the 2016 Hans Christian Andersen Award. Cao uses the metaphor of a house to describe children's books. For writers like him, children's books are objects to build, scaffolding on which he can lay his creativity. And like buildings in the real world, once he completes "construction," they no longer belong to him, [End Page 104] which makes him feel a great responsibility—a "sense of the sacred"—for the "houses" he constructs. For children, on the other hand, books are, also like houses, a source of shelter, solace, and warmth. Cao does not explicitly make the connection, but in the context of a multiliterate world, his metaphor raises the question: How can children's books become a source of shelter and solace for all children, including ethnic minorities and refugees? Those questions are raised in many of the succeeding chapters. Robin Morrow reviews the history of Australian picturebooks and finds a long-running nostalgic bent, emphasizing the country's rural roots but until recently neglecting the majority of the population that now lives in urban areas or is of non-European descent. Letuimanu'asina Dr. Emma Kruse Va'ai, herself both an educator and author, tells of the introduction of books featuring Samoan culture, stories, and mythology into the predominantly colonially imposed educational system.Not only do these instill "a sense of confidence born of recognition" among Samoan children, but "the same books and stories travel beyond the blue horizon to tell of faraway islands in the Pacific, of boys and girls, parents and children…living a different way of life but perhaps facing similar challenges, like the shared currents in the ocean." Perhaps the most compelling chapter, to this reader, is Elisa Duder's chapter on "what it means to be literate in the Māori world." A New Zealander of British descent (a "Pākehā" in the Māori language) with a Māori partner, she brings a personal angle to the discussion through her observation of her teenage son's gradual assimilation of Māori culture. That involves much more than reading and writing, she says, and encompasses learning to "read" a host of cultural cues, participate in tribal performing arts and ceremonies, and much more. "As a literate member of his communities," Duder writes, "my son will be expected to know his songs, and the songs of others." Interestingly, each of the chapters on the South Pacific brings up literacy efforts relating to indigenous communities, but none consider the growing presence of Asian immigrants and refugees, who constitute a major source of their increasing diversity. To their credit, the authors in this collection allow for complexity in their approach to multiliteracy. Samoa's Kruse Va'ai notes...

Literacy And Power Of Words In Markus Zusak’s The Book Thief

The work selected for the study, The Book Thief (2005) by Markus Zusak, belongs to the category of indirect Holocaust literature.The Book Thief is a moving story written by Markus Zusak from the German perspective of everyday civilian hardships and survival under the Third Reich. It celebrates the power of words and love in the face of unutterable suffering. This is the tale of the book thief, as narrated by death. It’s just a small story about, amongst other things: a girl, an accordionist, some fanatical Germans, a Jewish fist fighter, and quite a lot of thievery.The most important theme in “The Book Thief” is the idea that words can give people a sense of security, power and expression. The first theme is the power of words accomplished by the book thief Liesel.

The Main Character’s Loss,Emptiness and Object of Desire in Markus Zusak’s The Book Thief

This thesis shows the result of the analysis toward Markus Zusak’s novel The Book Thief by using psychological approach. The focus of this research is Liesel Meminger’s personality as the main character which is assumed suffers from trauma and anxiety after losing the important people in her life. This research uses psychoanalytical theory by Lacan about human’s real, symbolic and imaginary; and also theory of anxiety by Freud. This research concludes that Liesel indeed suffers from trauma and anxiety which is shown by some symptoms found in her that caused by the loss of her parents and brother at young age. This loss has created a situation as if Liesel felt empty and she unconsciously longs to fulfill that emptiness. A book she had stolen in her brother funeral gives significant contribution toward Liesel’s desire in symbolic order to fulfill her lack and emptiness, but the book has also caused her to get trapped in her imaginary order until in the end, Liesel could finally find self-realization and heal from her trauma.

Gender and Age Aspects within the Pragmatic Potential of the Epistemic Modality Markers

It is well known that the representatives of a certain gender and age groups are distinguished by various perceptions of the world, evaluation of the objective reality events as well as by operating facts as reliable. The purpose of the research is to reveal the speaker’s gender and age characteristics affecting the confidence level in reliability of facts provided and as such the epistemic modal markers (modal words and modal verbs) chosen by him or her. To achieve the objective of the research there were used some linguistic methods such as a communicative-pragmatic and the descriptive ones. The illustrative basis consists of the situations expressing the meanings of epistemic possibility and epistemic necessity. Two types of literary characters from two fiction resources (J. Banville «The Sea» and M. Zusak «The Book Thief») were chosen to analyse: a middle-aged man and a teenage girl. The research identifies that the man mostly deals with markers of epistemic possibility if his statement is based on retrospection, intuition, or faith / conjecture (unlike a girl), an assumption (similar to a girl). In case of having a convincing evidence base, the man uses epistemic necessity markers. The girl demonstrates the usage of modal markers of epistemic necessity if her statements are based on faith, desire to benefit or “female logic”. The desire to attract attention of the opposite sex interlocutor is marked by the usage of modal markers of epistemic possibility. It is also worth noting that strong emotions, which are common to a teenage girl rather than a mature man, can distort the reliability of the statements. The content of the article is of practical value for the further epistemic modality researches in the field of linguistic pragmatics and sociolinguistics.