Is there anyone else on here who didn't love The Book Thief?

[TunipTheVegedude]

I was told to persevere with it and I'm now 63% through and it's annoying me more than ever.
I'm finding it pretentious and dull and while some of the characters are fine, the girl is totally unconvincing - she reads like someone has sat down and decided on some interesting characteristics to give her ('I know! I'll make her good at fighting and football!') rather than the character growing naturally.
Is it going to get better in the last 37%?

Really lrd?

It makes complete sense to me...

I was delving into a bit of Daktarin the other day. I only saw the stuff about warts though.

Didn't Daktarin do safari type stuff?

Really, yes.

Don't worry, you can simply write me off as one of those ignorant medievalists who doesn't know Proper Lit.

Nothing I study ever won the Booker, so god knows it must be crap.

BOF - So, basically, you have come and said that we didn't get The Book Thief, and that it must have gone over our heads. And now rather than explain what you meant, you want people to read a 1000-word essay about snobbery.

Brilliant

Is the Book Thief actually shorter than 1000 words?

Or do you always need the Readers' Digest version?

I thought that post was really pertinent. I don't follow why it should be dismissed just because it isn't a twitter-length soundbite.

book thief vair disappointing. Boy with striped pajamas, however, superb.

The book thief seemed to me a book by creative writing course numbers...

Cote- I am pulling your leg, lighten up.

I think it has an essential lack of integrity that was insulting.

How do you mean, Madame?

Its where the concept of the book overrides the experience of it.

"I want to write a book about the holocaust, and I am going to use one central conceit to carry my philosophical apercues, and to make sure everybody knows what I am talking about I am going to use every overused concept to do with childhood, war and the holocaust, and draw upon magical realistic techniques to underline the ambiguity of the experience of reality in situations of horror. I will make a really good plot plan and I will stick to it. I will overwrite it, however, and lose the heart of my story through my concentration on technique.

It was, at heart, an empty experience for me. I think the author drowned the book in cleverness and faux naivity.

Thank you!

I get what you are saying.

yeah

shite, see?

yup.

Oh no I liked it but can't remember much about it. But then I only went up to English A level. I also didn't sleep for nearly 2 years and think it caused irreversible damage. I can barely follow a mumsnet thread let alone critique a book.

when I first started reading it,I thought it was an interesting way of writing but I soon got annoyed with both the style and the content.

I think (and I did only flip through it despite wanting to get into it as a result of this thread) that the author was enjoying himself too much. It was too lush and sensory, and I found that odd with the subject matter. I don't know if that's similar to what you're saying about the whole book, madame, but when you say it, it definitely strikes a chord.

It's odd because I've read books about horrible events that were very sensory and stylistically fancy, but didn't make me feel a bit disgusted.

The author was showing off and it showed, basically. Hence the feeling of disgust. I felt I was colluding with narcissism.

That's brilliant, MadameDefarge, that's what I thought too. I think.

I also like HullyGully's succinct summing-up.

All those years of reading slush piles and writing reports and book reviews has paid off finally!!!

BOF - Not really, you are not. But you can't be bothered to engage in a talk about the book and I can't be bothered to read your friend's verbose blog post, so that's that, I guess.

You need to change your name to ColludingWithNarcissism.

"the author was enjoying himself too much. It was too lush and sensory, and I found that odd with the subject matter"

I'm just amazed that you can say so much about a book that you have not read.