Colors

In the book, there are numerous of times where “color” is referred to. In the first few pages Death tells us that he likes to use color as a distraction- his saving grace. He wants to be able to enjoy every one of them, every single unique color of the spectrum (although his favorite is chocolate in the form of chocolate colored skies). This he says helps him cope. It helps him relax; to remain sane. But well of course from what? Certainly his job, but what else? Is it the just the monotony of it? Or the sheer annoyance that accumulates with time? What does Death need a distraction from? It can’t be us humans that are giving him a hard time. But this is precisely what he uses color to distract him from. Us. The ones still living, left behind by others who moved on ahead. Like the faded colors of a painting, still clinging desperately to the oil slick canvas while the bright ancestors were washed away from the passage of time.

Normally when humans perceive color, we remember the brightest one of all first. We are inclined to think of the neon yellows, sparkly hot pink, the light forest green first. Natural human perception this is. Remembering what stood out the most. However the colors that Death remembers are more basic. No shades of hues of different pastels but just the basic white, black, and red of the world.

White, Death claims is a color where as in the absence of color makes the color a color itself. (And you don’t want to argue with Death!). When one thinks of white, many think of nothingness, for isn’t white nothingness in itself? But then again is nothingness a something, an anything, or just a nothing?

Black is next. So what is black really? Others claim that black is the true absence of color where there is no hues of anything that it is just a void of nothing, just black empty black. So if black is the true nothingness, then white must be everything, right? Or is white the void and black the mixture of everything? Well, let’s talk in the metaphorical sense, no need to get scientific (but if you want then I can). In the book, I most definitely think white was the void of emptiness. This was when Liesel was left alone with nothing (Liesel Meminger is a young girl who was abandoned by her mother and left with her new foster parents on Himmel Street, the Hubermanns). You can argue and say that at that time she still had her mother, but I don’t think her mother really was there. Well, again, in the metaphorical sense. Her mother’s body was there; physically she was still with Liesel. But she wasn’t completely there. She was like a hollowed nut only the tough cracked shell remaining but the contents were all gone. However this leaves black. Black was when Liesel had everything. She wasn’t rich but she had everything she needed (again metaphorical sense, food does not fit in this equation). She had finally gained a family; she gained friends; she gained people who were still there, people who were in fact her whole life, her everything. But black is also when there was everything, but everything was all mixed up and spew out like a chaotic puzzle. You had the pieces, but you just couldn’t put them together. This was also when Liesel’s life was in a messed up jumble as well. The roads of her future, the paths of her past, and the inevitable present were all tangled up and the colors of each part of life were bleeding into each other creating the pit of black. But without the blinding white of her past, she would never get the black. These two colors are like the base of every pair, the perfect complements of each other. Without black there is nothing that is white. Without white there is nothing that is black. They are like the concept of yin and yang. You can say that without one there can certainly not be the other.

Finally this leaves us with red. How does red fit though? Black and white would be in everything. Every color had a bit of black or white. But not red. Red is untouched. It is in a different category of its own. Many people associate red with death or rather the passage of dying since red was the crimson color of blood. But to me red is linking between black and white. It was the middle of both extremes. With red, you would have something and you would have nothing. Red is the crossroads of one’s existence.

Death as the Business Man

Somehow I feel as though the persona of Death goes hand in hand with a businessperson. Death had already stated once that he was the average “Death” people love to associate him. He wasn’t the type to go around in a hood with a giant scythe. (However, I still love the giant scythe idea). Also sometimes, the book describes the act of passing on as like a business deal. It’s too systematic, too planned out. It’s almost like an assembly line type of work. A person would pass their life through the assembly line and at the end they would just be disposed of when they grew to “old”. But whenever someone would be disposed of, there would always be another person to take the original person’s place. It’s an endless cycle of birth, life, death, birth, life, death, birth, life, death, birth, life, death, birth, life, death, birth, life, death, birth, life, death, birth, life, death, and so on.

Somehow I feel as though life is too systematic. Death is too inevitable. This is why I always see death as like a business man. He always goes around in his suit arranging new deals, creating more factories, and more assembly lines. Each new deal seal would be another person dead. And then he would just collect the souls and another person would be born to fill the place. Too systematic, for my taste.

Death

One of the most interesting things about the book “The Book Thief” was that it was narrated from death’s point of view. I must say that this has got to be the first time I read such a quirk. However, since the narrator is death we get a very different point of view on the events in the book then we would get otherwise. And it adds a bit of humor (in a twisted deranged way) to a book centered on what was one of the most tragic events in history. And mostly it was just plain amusing.

"I am all truthfulness attempting to be cheerful about this whole topic, though most people find themselves hindered in believing me, no matter my protestations. Please, trust me. I can most definitely be cheerful. I can be amiable. Agreeable. Affable. And that’s only the A’s. Just don’t ask me to be nice. Nice has nothing to do with me.” [The book Thief, pg. 1]

At first I was a little more than surprise that the “I” who was talking was Death. But after the initial five second surprise I found that I rather liked the interesting plot twist so early in the novel. Death in this book was portrayed rather differently from what the general population’s idea of death. He was not a cruel devil who stole the souls of tormented humans but rather a guide carrying the lost souls on to a new life. A guide who loathes the monotony of his job, but ironically craves for color as a distraction to the curiosity of human nature.