Academic piece: Words from the Basement: Markus Zusaks The Book Thief

Notes on Contemporary Literature. January 1, 211.

For an academic piece, I decided to dump the first academic article I read Into Eternitys Certain
Breadth: Ambivalent Escapes in Markus Zusaks The Book Thief for Dr. Susan Koprinces more accessible,
less ambivalent Words from the Basement (2011). Koprince has been a professor at the U of North
Dakota since 1987. She holds a BA from Stanford, two masters (English and education) and a PhD in
Literature from the U of Illinois. Her background includes teaching methods and American Literature.
She has published on twentieth century playwrights Tennessee Williams and Neil Simone. Notes of
Contemporary Literature is published through West Georgia College in Carolton, Georgia, a doctorate
awarding school of --------------. I assume readers for this article include high school and university
instructors and others with interests in contemporary literature. Interestingly Notes is available for free
at freelibrary.com. With notes in the title, the majority of the articles are brief, quick reads that people
can use rather than long (50-100 page) academic articles heavy on garcon and discourse community
specific prose.
Koprince opens her article with a brief survey of the literature/they say on the concept of basement.
From the very first sentence she cites French philosopher Gaston Bachelards work on basement as a
place of fear or madness. She seems to assume her readers are familiar with Bachelard, as well as Edgar
Allan Poe and Henri Bosco. Koprince counters the basement as gloomy archetype in her I say thesis
introduced by the strong transitional word however: However, in this compelling story of a foster
childs coming of age during World War II, Zusak alters and subverts the archetypal image of the
basement, picturing it instead as a shelter, a home, a setting in which words can provide salvation.
Further, Koprince amplifies basement as positive place: a shelter, a home, a setting in which words can
provide salvation.
Koprince continues her argument with some synopsis of The Book Thief. She incorporates six direct
quotes from the novel such as She is a girl. In Nazi Germany. How fitting she has discovered the power
of words, which add color, interest, and evidence (logos) to the article. Koprince incorporates logos into
her argument by providing further details form the Book Thief of basement as home. Liesel, the
protagonist, brings Max crossword puzzles
In paragraph two of three, Koprince contrasts Zuckas basement with Poes again (using the adjectival
Poesque a nod to academic speak) and quotes Bachelard again. She illuminates the contrast more by
the use of indeed: Indeed, for Max, the basement ultimately becomes a kind of writers den or artists
studio.
The third paragraph brings in another basement from The Book Thief, the air-raid shelter , and how
Liesels reading aloud eases the anxiety of the townspeople hiding there. Here Koprince brings another
voice into the conversation, Janet Maslin of The New York Times by incorporating Maslins quote that
Book Thief unfolds as symbolic or metaphorical abstraction.

After reviewing the sad events of the book: Maxs march to Dachau, the deaths of most of the main
characters, Koprince closes by stating that Zusak presents his readers with a counterbalancing, hopeful
message: that any basementwhether real or metaphorical-- can be transformed into a shelter where
goodness reigns; that any place of darkness and walled-in tragedy can be transfigured, in the end, by
the extraordinary power of words.
Koprince counters the archetypal scary basement as one of light, learning, and growth quickly drawing
her reader in and arguing her points with examples from the texts as well as joining ranks with NYTs
Maslin. As a genre, her note illuminates her readers understanding of Thief. Her signal words however ,
indeed and therefore light the way.