in the stacks | wwII germany & communist north korea

The Book Thief 
Markus Zusak

Summary 
Nine-year-old Liesel Memminger watches her brother die on a train heading to Mulching, Germany before the start of World War II. At his funeral, she steals a book even though she can't read. Her mother is taken by Nazi's, and she's raised by her foster parents, Hans and Rosa Hubermann. She meets a poor neighborhood boy named Rudy Steiner in her first days in Molching, and the two quickly become best friends, stealing fruit to have enough to eat, playing soccer, and negotiating their way through a war that threatens to tear them, their families, and their town apart. The book is narrated by Death, who grows fascinated with Liesel on his many encounters with her while carrying off the souls of those she loves.

Quote(s)
"I wanted to tell the book thief many things, about beauty and brutality. But what could I tell her about those things that she didn't already know? 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."

My thoughts 
Markus Zusak has written a compelling, entrancing work of experimental fiction. It took me 50 pages or so to get into it and to understand the unique format - words are bolded, Death dedicates pages to definitions, inserts commentary about Liesel's life, and spoils parts of the ending. Death as a narrator offers an interesting paradigm shift - an opportunity to see humanity from 'the other side' so to speak. Liesel is a shy, quiet girl by most measures, but she has a ferocity and tenacity that builds throughout the novel and culminates in her being one of the truest heroines of modern literature. Zusak is a poet, too - there were entire passages I read and re-read to soak in them. Every character is developed with careful consideration, and I cried for Liesel, for Rudy, for Hans and Rosa, and for everyone I got to know and would miss when I closed the last page of this beautiful novel.

The Orphan Master's Son  
Adam Johnson

Summary 
Pak Jun Do swears he's not an orphan - a member of North Korean's lowest class. He believes his mother is a famous singer kidnapped to Pyongyang, the nation's capital, and his father runs the orphan camp in which he works as a child. He's later sent to work in underground tunnels, clearing pathways to the DMZ, and endures pain resistance training. The state regime detects his loyalty and picks him to rise in the ranks. He's sent to Japan as a kidnapper, taught English and sent to spy on American ships in international waters, and eventually picked to accompany a team of diplomats to Texas to recapture an item "stolen" from the Dear Leader, Kim Jong Il. Upon his return, he must decide what he's willing to do in order to stay alive and to save the woman he loves - Sun Moon, including challenging the Dear Leader himself.

Quote 
"I wonder of what you must daily endure in America, having no government to protect you, no one to tell you what to do. Is it true you're given no ration card, that you must find food for yourself? Is it true that you labor for no higher purpose than paper money? What is California, this place you come from? I have never seen a picture. What plays over the American loudspeakers, when is your curfew, what is taught at your child-rearing collectives? Where does a woman go with her children on Sunday afternoons, and if a woman loses her husband, how does she know the government will assign her a good replacement? With whom would she curry favor to ensure her children got the best Youth Troop leader?"

My thoughts
Adam Johnson visited North Korea as research for a short story he intended to write. He envisioned a fantastical, satirical account of a story that could be told over mandatory loudspeakers in homes across North Korea. As the original conception turned into a novel, he kept the short story, interspersing it throughout: the novel tells the protagonist's version, and the story told to citizens is North Korea's account of it. It's a powerful novel that shines light on the gross human rights violations in a country for which so little factual information is available. What's fiction and what's real, about the country itself, can only be imagined; Johnson admits that even after visiting, it's impossible to know what daily life is like for North Koreans outside of the areas of Pyongyang that the government allows visitors to see. While there are some fantastical elements to the novel that give it a lightness I didn't often feel it needed, it's a moving, captivating, engrossing read that I thoroughly enjoyed. It won the 2013 Pulitzer Price for fiction for a reason; it's that damn good.