Thursday, May 21, 2009
A question?
What do you think is so important about the sky and its colors? Death mentions the sky early in the book, and scattered throughout the novel as well. Its colors distract him. But, Max appears to have an interest in the sky as well. He asks Liesel for frequent weather reports. Is the sky a distraction for him too?
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The sky is a distraction for both Death and Max, but for Max something the sky is something he's been deprived of because of hiding in the Hubermanns' basement. Max misses such a small part of normal life as looking at the sky (though something we take for granted) and wants to at least imagine the sky through the metaphorical descriptions that Leisel gives him.
ReplyDeleteAlso, while Mochling was being bombed and everyone else was in the shelters, Max peeked at the sky. Around that point in the novel the reader learns that Max hasn't seen the sky for 22 months,
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ReplyDeleteAdding onto Arda's comment, Max hasn't had many joys since he has been hiding, or for that matter, since Germany became Nazi Germany. The little weather reports Liesel describes to Max are one of his only happy points in hiding. I think he appreciates the forecasts so much because it is a child who is speaking and imagines clouds as "rope" and the sun as a "yellow hole" (249).
ReplyDeleteDeath has an interest in the sky and its colors because he "vacation[s] in increments. In colors" (5). This is a distraction for Death, like you (Alexandra) pointed out, from his job he has had forever. He needs some sort of variable in his "life" (if Death has one...) to make his job bearable, and this variable are the ever-changing colors in the sky.