The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas

John Boyne's The Boy in Striped Pyjamas will no doubt acquire many readers as a result of the subsequent film of the novel, but viewers of the latter would do themselves a favour by going back to the spare and powerfully affecting original book. Bruno is nine years old, and the Nazis’ horrific Final Solution to the ‘Jewish Problem’ means nothing to him. He's completely unaware of the barbarity of Germany under Hitler, and is more concerned by his move from his well-appointed house in Berlin to a far less salubrious area where he finds himself with nothing to do. Then he meets a boy called Shmuel who lives a very different life from him -- a life on the opposite side of a wire fence. And Shmuel is the eponymous boy in the striped pyjamas, as are all the other people on the other side of the fence. The friendship between the two boys begins to grow, but for Bruno it is a journey from blissful ignorance to a painful knowledge. And he will find that this learning process carries, for him, a daunting price.

A legion of books have attempted to evoke the horrors of the Second World War, but in this concise and perfectly honed novel, all of the effects that John Boyne creates are allowed to make a maximum impact in a relatively understated fashion (given the enormity of the situation here). The Boy in Striped Pyjamas is also that rare thing: a novel which can affect both children and adults equally; a worthy successor, in fact, to such masterpieces as To Kill a Mockingbird and The Catcher in the Rye -- both, of course, books, dealing (as does this one) with the loss of innocence. --Barry Forshaw

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Chilling - Rated
I think this book would have been even more chilling if I had had no pre-conceptions as to what it was about. I think it's a shame that the front cover of the current edition gives it away so easily.
There were points in the story when I wondered whether Bruno was not admitting to himself what was going on around him and what his father was involved in, or whether he was genuinely too young and too sheltered to understand. I think the ending answered this question for me.
I think this is a brave way to address the piece of history that noone really likes to talk about; through the eyes of a child. The story is very sad - it stayed with me for a long time after I read it. But I would definitely recommend it as I think it is important that we don't forget.

the boy in the striped pyjamas - Rated
Read this book within 2 days and now I want my daughter to read it.

Special Educational Needs child meets sticky end - Rated
[Warning: story spoilers]

This is one of the most over-praised books I've read for a long time. I think its success must be almost entirely due to the fact that it relates to that most fashionable of horrors, the Holocaust. (Sorry to any Jews reading; I don't mean that the Holocaust should not be taken seriously. But taking it seriously is one thing, and cashing in on it is another.)

For one thing, a reader, child or adult, who doesn't know anything about the Holocaust will find the whole thing baffling from end to end, because nothing about the Holocaust is explained, except a vague bit of blether from the hero's sister about the people behind the fence being Jews. Unless you know the historical background already, you can't make sense of the story and you can't appreciate the author's far-from-subtle irony.

The irony comes from the fact that the hero, nine-year-old Bruno, is the son of the newly appointed commandant of Auschwitz (who I presume is modelled on Rudolf Hoess, said to have been a devoted dad when he wasn't busy supervising mas murder). So monumentally thick is Bruno that although he's lived his whole life in Hitler's Germany and is the son of a fanatical and highly successful Nazi, he can't recognise Hitler when he sees him, has never seen the 'Heil Hitler' salute, and thinks that Hitler's title is 'the Fury' (which unintended pun works in English, but not in German, which Bruno presumably spoke). And although this is 1943 and Bruno lives in Berlin, he seems completely unaware of the fact that Germany is at war. Indeed he has not the slightest understanding of any aspect whatsoever of the current situation, and has never been told anything whatever about Jews. He apparently goes to a school, but even in Nazi terms it must have been a lousy one.

Then when he comes to live by Auschwitz he's so thick that he assumes - and goes on asuming for a year - that the barbed wire encircles a holiday camp, and it never occurs to him, even when it's spelt out to him in letters a mile high, that the inmates are thin because they're starving, and bruised because they're ill-treated. Of course nine-year-olds are not all-knowing and all-understanding, but were you as paralysingly stupid and ignorant as that when you were nine? I jolly well wasn't.

I have my doubts about the portrayal of Auschwitz as well. For one thing, there are lots of kids about who don't appear to be doing any work. I thought the idea was 'work or die'. Moreover, Hoess says in his memoirs that 'children were invariably exterminated since owing to their tender years they were unable to work.' However, it may be that kids were around in 1943. What is certain, however, is that when the wind blew from the crematoria in Birkenau the stench could be smelt for miles, and even a kid like Bruno who spends all his time stuffing himself with roast chicken and chocolate cake would surely notice something disagreeable in the air from time to time.

There are odd moments of pathos: the prisoner boy, Shmuel, does seem to have more than two neurons in his head and is quite endearing, and one feels sorry for old Pavel. But as a book about the Holocaust, this is pathetic. Perhaps you have to tone down the horrors if you're to appeal to nine-year-olds, but I don't think it's right to tone down the horrors and I don't think this is a suitable subject for a tweely sentimental book for nine-year-olds, or indeed anyone else. You need to grow up, learn about Auschwitz in the proper historical context, and then read Primo Levi. And then get down on your knees and thank God that you weren't born a Jew at that time.

A Must Read - Rated
This is written in such a beautifully simple (almost child-like) way that you can't put it down. It may have some historical inaccuracies (which several reviewers seem unable to accept), but I think it's an important book nevertheless. A must read.

The Boy in the striped pyjamas - Rated
Set in the Second world war, The Boy in the striped pyjamas is a book which can be read in a day but has a story and moral that will stay far, far longer.

Easy use of words draws the reader quickly into the storyline and makes the emotional punch all the stronger.