The Book Thief (4½ Stars)

After watching this film today I had a rough idea what I wanted to write. Before starting my review I reread the first review that I wrote after seeing it in the cinema in 2014. Guess what? I'd written it all the first time. I don't like repeating myself, so I had to think of something new.

I'll concentrate on the book-burning. In 1939 the Nazi government decided that all books should be destroyed that were damaging to German society. These might be books written by Communists or Jews, but they also included any book that anyone didn't like for any reason at all. The book that Liesel Meminger  saves from the flames is "The Invisible Man" by H. G. Wells. He wasn't a Communist, he wasn't a Jew, and as far as I can remember there's nothing in the story that would contradict the political system of Germany. The book was only thrown on the fire because some stupid fanatic wanted everyone else to see that he took the book-burning seriously.

This is censorship at its worst. When a book is burnt it's gone. It can't be read again.

Today censorship is practised at different levels. The Internet isn't as free as it ought to be. People in power want to stop Internet content from one country being available in another. For instance, I bought Blu-ray discs in England with Ultraviolet codes. I want to watch the films that I bought online, but I can't because the Ultraviolet codes are invalid in Germany. They call it copyright, I call it burning books. Germany has learnt nothing since 1939. I want to watch the BBC News online, but England prevents BBC programmes from being viewed in Germany. The BBC is burning books.

On another level, the recent court cases over people's right to be forgotten is sickening. Google can be asked to remove search results if a person doesn't like web pages being suggested that say negative things about him. For instance, if a businessman was imprisoned for fraud but years later creates an honest and successful company, he might not like his shady past being visible online. It's wrong to hide your past. We all make mistakes, some of us bigger mistakes than others. There are things in my own past that I wish had never happened, but if they were published online I wouldn't deny them, I'd publicly apologise for them.

I've written a life story of my first 44 years. It isn't public yet, but it can be found by search engines. I've named a lot of people from my past, mostly good people, a few bad. The third part of my life story, from age 45 onwards, will be the most controversial, because I shall write about murderers and drug dealers. If any of the people I name have gone straight since then, I'm glad, but I'll still name them because of their past deeds. I've already received a request from one person who doesn't like being named in the first part of my life story. He claimed something I'd written about him was inaccurate and asked me to remove it. After checking the passage I could see that what I'd written could be misinterpreted, so I rewrote a few paragraphs. He's asked me another twice to remove all mention of his name. The answer is a clear No. I shan't burn books for anyone.

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