Fresh, bold take on an old story

The Boy In The Striped Pyjamas
By John Boyne
216 pages, David Fickling Books
Available at Fully Booked

It isn’t often that one comes across a book that turns out to be a small package deceptively carrying a potent and lasting wallop. John Boyne’s The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas is such a book. It’s a slim volume that reads almost like a novella or fable; and as the main character of this book is 9-year-old Bruno, one may mistakenly perceive it as nothing more than a children’s book. Certainly it is a story of children, but while children may read it and make of it what they wish, this is a book all adults should read.

The inner flap of the jacket of this hardbound book refuses to divulge the nature of the story found within. I am tempted to write this review without giving too much away, as truly, one of the most enjoying aspects of reading this book was the voyage of discovery, the gradual realization of what it was one was reading. Too often, we are given a head’s up in terms of knowing what this or that novel is all about. With The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, I would enjoin everyone to just convince your book lover of a friend to trust you, and pick up this book. It’s the sort of novel one can read in just one sitting; but the impact it makes, and the satisfaction it gives in terms of having read something truly precious, far outweighs the time spent finishing the book.

John Boyne is the writer responsible for two wonderful novels, The Thief of Time and Crippen; one a tale about a man who lives for 256 years, and the other an engrossing retelling of a 1910 murder that hit all the headlines in the United Kingdom. With all the research and historical fiction he packed into those earlier novels, it was surprising to have him come up now with The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, but if "the message" was now paramount to his writing, one can see why The Boy... is the perfect medium for bringing forth this message. In these times of 9/11, Iraq conflicts, the Middle East still percolating, and terrorism around every corner, it’s good to be reminded how we are all victims – how the lines between horoes and villains are constantly blurred, depending on perspective, and from "which side of the fence" one is talking and observing.

The use of the metaphor "which side of the fence" is especially apropos given the content of this impressive story. A fence does play a major role in the story that unfolds, and it becomes a symbol of all that is wrong and inevitable with this world of ours. Against this fence, innocence, the loss of innocence, prejudices and disillusionment, all have their day of reckoning. And when it comes within the historical context against which this novel is written, it so clearly becomes a metaphor for so much of what transpires daily in our modern world.

The story centers on 9-year-old Bruno. A typical second child (he has an older sister named Gretel, who he nicknames "the Hopeless Case"), Bruno is whisked away from his suburban home to a house in the countryside. Within the first two chapters of this book, it will dawn on most readers the historical context against which Bruno’s everyday happenings and events are thrust against. His father is in the Army, and when Bruno refers to his father’s commander-in-chief, he calls him the "Fury." When transported to his new home in the country, again he innocently mispronounces it as "Out-With." This is immersion into a 9-year-old’s sensibilities, and the realistic perception of how such a child faces his world.

The sleight of hand Boyne performs impeccably is in how he pushes the humdrum everyday affairs of Bruno onto the broader historical backdrop. The naivete, the emerging sexual awakening, the need for friendship, and how this friendship is defined and nurtured – they all make for fascinating plot developments that we read at the edge of our seat precisely because we are now aware of the greater horror that lurks in the shadows of every page. The simple act of a handshake between new friends, the incident revolving around hair lice, and the casual conversations that characterize the meetings betwen Bruno and Shmuel (the one Bruno befriends); they all carry such unspoken weight on account of the unique context.

"Unique" in the sense that this is a fresh approach to a subject that has been written about in so many ways over the last 60 years. This subject has had constant retellings, and the challenge truly was how to give it a fresh, bold, new perspective. This Boyne accomplishes with aplomb. So having done the difficult, reviewing a book by dropping hints and without blurting out what the book is all about, I can only enjoin you to get hold of a copy as quickly as possible, and then count yourself among the converted, telling others to read it. This is a book that, despite its simplicity, brings back to us the joy of reading.