Madison Hahamy: "Dear Vina Jie-Min Prasad: Existential Endings Are Not for Fourth Graders"

Dear Vina Jie-Min Prasad: Existential Endings Are Not for Fourth Graders

By Madison Hahamy

When I was in fourth grade, I read The Book Thief for the first time, and I absolutely hated it. It was too long, too dense, too morbid, and the ending sucked. It was one of my first experiences with the death of a character that I had grown attached to, and as much as I wanted to pretend like I was mature enough to handle that type of content, I most definitely was not. And so, The Book Thief became that book, the one that I would audibly groan about whenever a teacher suggested that I read it, the one that I would google “Why I hated The Book Thief” so I could read blogs and thus have more than just a nagging feeling to articulate whenever I had to explain why I refused to pick up the book again. This continued for four or so years until I acquiesced after repeated urging by an English teacher. The second time around was a transformative experience, to say the least. The aspects of the story that I disliked in fourth grade became some of my favorite parts, especially the ending. It was beautiful in that heart-wrenching way where you hate the author for how wonderfully they’ve managed to tie everything together while also subjecting you to emotional manipulation that causes you to question your entire existence.

I think that the ending was so well done because of how unassuming it was. It didn’t hit me right away: I finished the book, hated my fourth-grade self for not loving it, and went about the rest of my day. Instead, the ending waited until I was lying awake at night before infiltrating my thoughts, my dreams, my subconscious. The very last line of the book is spoken by Death, the narrator: “I am haunted by humans.” In fourth grade, this line made no sense and, in the grand scheme of a story where the girl who just loved to read, like me, was killed, the line seemingly had little significance. Four years later, during my second reading, I had begun to grow numb to death. I had never experienced the loss of a loved one before, and the idea that life could ever cease was a mere speck in the distance, seen only in quick flashes in television episodes or PG-13 movies. What I remember most from the reading is how much that line scared me. It wasn’t even that nothing seemed worse than death, but more so that the very idea of death was unimaginable. I wasn’t afraid of it because it would never happen. And then I read this book narrated by the elusive Death and see that he is scared. Of me. Of what I am capable of. And that was absolutely terrifying.

I read The Book Thief again, this year. This is a time in my life where I feel invincible, that nothing bad can ever happen to me because I have so much more to offer. However, I also feel resigned. I know that I will die. I would prefer it to be when I am older, but not too old that I lose control of my mental faculties. I don’t want to die, and the thought of ceasing to exist is still terrifying, but death is no longer the worst thing that can happen to me. I, too, am haunted by humans, because we are capable of massive atrocities. However, there is also good. Death understands that, and I believe that I am beginning to as well.

The final sentence of The Book Thief doesn’t have just one meaning: as I grew, its significance to me changed as well, but what’s important is that it remained significant. The ending is timeless, and one that I am sure will mean something completely different when I pick up the book and reread it in five years. An ending doesn’t have to be about death to be well done, but it does need to have relevance: it needs to keep readers awake at night as they whisper the last words and marvel at how much more beautiful the world seems for reading them.