THE BOY IN THE STRIPED PAJAMAS Reviewed by Stefanie Edwards

Relating the experience of a nine year old boy named Bruno in 1942 Nazi Germany, Boyne attempts to show what the events of the time might have looked like through the eyes of a child. This was one novel I couldn’t quite get a grip on. While I understand what the author was trying to do, I was left empty and unsatisfied.

With the first third of the novel Boyne introduces the various characters, Bruno’s family: Father (high ranking official in the Nazi army), Mother, Gretel (eleven year old sister), along with the various help that is employed to maintain their five story home in Berlin. When the family leaves their home to accompany Father at his new assignment in a place called “Out-With”, everyone must adjust to the new surroundings. While young Bruno can sense the cold, harshness of the environment, he doesn’t understand why. Why a fence divides his family from all the other children. Why everyone on the other side is wearing the same “striped pajamas”. My dilemma with this scenario is buying into the complete naivety and ignorance with which Bruno is portrayed. The gimmick with his not being able to pronounce various words and ideas of his native tongue (such as “Out-With” in place of “Auschwitz” and “fury” in place of “Fuhrer”) is an absurd attempt at irony, especially considering that the pun only works in the American language which they were obviously not actually speaking.

The tedium of listening to a nine year old’s narration began to set in as I reached the second third of the novel, but I admit I was curious enough to want to finally meet “the boy in the striped pajamas” who finally was introduced far too far along in the story. Meeting young Shmuel, sitting on the other side of the fence during an exploration of the grounds one day, turns out to make the long, lonely days in this new place more bearable and even pleasantly exciting for Bruno…and the reader. After many days of meeting and long talks at the fence, Shmuel and Bruno learn that they have many things in common and begin to question why a fence should come in the way of their newfound friendship.

It becomes pretty predictable where the story is going at the last third of the book but I felt too committed in the story to stop. Considering the subject matter of Boyne’s fable, one obviously expects a heart-wrenching, tear-jerking experience. Now, I am by nature an empathetic person who admittedly will readily express such feelings even for fictional characters. The characters in this story are not only supposed to represent a possible reality; the final fate of the two young boys was a terrible one to consider… yet I felt nothing but a matter-of-fact sense that this was “sad”.

Ultimately Boyne failed to develop the characters in a way that I could truly relate with and in turn become truly emotionally invested in. Apparently Boyne wrote this novel in its entirety in only two and a half days on an impulse… perhaps this lack of considerable thought is why there is something missing.

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