The Book Thief:

The Role of Embedded Narrative

!   Earlier this term, we discussed Embedded Narrative and how it tends to work within adolescent literature: As a hidden adult.

!   The primary example we turned to was found in Blume’s Forever when Katherine’s mother gives her the following article: “What about the right to say ‘no’?” (102).

!   The article went on to list the following questions:

!   “1—Is sexual intercourse necessary for the relationship?

!   2—What should you expect from sexual intercourse?

!   3—If you should need help, where will you seek it?

!   4—Have you thought about how this relationship will end?”

What emotion surfaces in the reader when seeing this?

What emotion surfaces for Katherine?

What is the importance of the hidden adult here?

!   The Book Thief, on the other hand, is a book that features numerous embedded narratives; in fact it is a book that nearly hinges on the presence of these embedded narratives and their effect on the characters, particularly Liesel.

!   What would our reaction be to Forever if there were over 25 embedded narratives within it?

The Big Question: !   What is the role of the embedded narrative

in The Book Thief?

!   71—“She saw it but didn’t realize until later, when all the stories came together. She didn’t see him watching as he played, having no idea that Hans Hubermann’s accordion was a story. In the times ahead, that story would arrive at 33 Himmel Street in the early hours of morning, wearing ruffled shoulders and a shivering jacket. It would carry a suitcase, a book, and two questions. A story. Story after story. Story within story.”

!   74—“The day of the announcement, Papa was lucky enough to have some work. On his way home, he picked up a discarded newspaper, and rather than stopping to shove it between paint cans in his cart, he folded it up, and slipped it beneath his shirt. By the time he made it home and removed it, his sweat had drawn the ink onto his skin. The paper landed on the table, but the news was stapled to his chest. A tattoo. Holding the shirt open, he looked down in the unsure kitchen light.

‘What does it say?’ Liesel asked him. She was looking back and forth, from the black outlines on his skin to the paper.

‘Hitler takes Poland,’ he answered, and Hans Hubermann slumped into a chair.

!   381—“A voice played the notes inside her. This, it said, is your accordian.

The sound of the turning page carved them in half.

Liesel read on.

For at least twenty minutes, she handed out the story. The youngest kids were soothed by her voice, and everyone else saw visions of the whistler running from the crime scene. Liesel did not. The book thief saw only the mechanics of the words—their bodies stranded on the paper, beaten down for her to walk on. Somewhere, too, in the gaps between a period and the next capital letter, there was also Max.”

!   444—450—The Word Shaker: Liesel—I almost scribbled this story out. I thought you might be too old for such a tale, but maybe no one is. I thought of you and your books and words, and this strange story came into my head. I hope you can find some good in it.

!   “Rather than coming to terms with trauma, she says, we pass trauma along to the next person (here, the next theorist), keeping trauma unconscious and always moving. Caruth sees this transmission as an enabling sort of anxiety of influence (and in fact she thanks Harold Bloom in her book's acknowledgements). Such transmission is not just productive; it's also ethical, in her view…. For Caruth, the impossibility of sufficient response to and representation of trauma is itself traumatic, and inaugurates an ethics of collective memory and cultural work.”

from Kidd’s Article

!   Is it possible that the embedded literature in this novel, if not in all novels, serves a dual purpose? That it both creates depth and richness while simultaneously allowing an escape?

In this book, we have a story told by Zusak, but it is told by a very prominent narrator, Death. Death, in turn, tells Liesel’s story through a close 3rd person P.O.V. Within Liesel’s story we get snatches of the books Liesel reads and the stories Liesel hears. Then, finally, we get the story Liesel writes. It is through this book that Death knows her story so well.

Liesel has transferred her trauma onto Death, who prefers to be (or simply knows enough about his profession to try to remain) unaffected.

Zusak Death Liesel Books Liesel reads Book Liesel writes

!   Look at one of the following pages which features an embedded narrative, or refer to an embedded narrative to see the role that that particular narrative plays:

!   77, 86, 147, 181, 213, 223-226, 249, 279, 323, 328, 354, 359, 398, 418, 433, 444-450, 473, 504, 512, 519, 525-528.

!   What is the reaction to this embedded narrative? (Either in the novel or in your reading of it.)

!   In what context is it found?

!   What does it contribute to the depth of the book? Create an escape?

Dr. Tarbox’s Question:

!   Transference of trauma from the text to the reader so that the reader becomes both witness and actor?

!   When Liesel learns Max’s story, does she not become both a witness and an actor within it?

from Kidd’s Article

!   “These stories are effective precisely to the degree that they capitalize on our conviction that historical trauma should be personal, in ways that are often surprising or unpredictable. Although I don't know enough about the genre, my sense is that historical fiction for children has become more than ever a metadiscourse of personal suffering that in turn demands pain from readers as proof of their engagement.” (Emphasis Dr. Tarbox)

A Dr. Tarbox Question: “What makes this subject/thesis/book important?

!   Liesel’s life

!   Our lives with The Book Theif: This is a narrative now embedded within our lives.

The Gravedigger’s Handbook, The Word Shaker, The Standover Man, The Whistler, The Last Human Stranger, Duden

Dictionary

Dick and Jane, War and Peace, Love in the Time of Cholera, The Book Thief, Where the Red Fern Grows, etc.