Review: The Boy in the Striped Pajamas by John Boyne

Title: The Boy in the Striped Pajamas
Author: John Boyne
Released: September 12, 2006
Publisher: David Fickling Books
Pages/Format: 224 (Hardcover)
Genre: YA, Historical Fiction
Source: Public Library

The year is 1942, Berlin. When Bruno returns home from school one day, he discovers that his belongings are being packed into crates. His father has received a promotion and the family must move from their home to a new house far far away, where there is no one to play with and nothing to do. A tall fence running alongside stretches as far as the eye can see and cuts him off from the strange people he can see in the distance. Bruno longs to be an explorer and decides that there must be more to this desolate place than meets the eye. While exploring his new environment, he meets another boy whose life and circumstances are very different from his own, and their meeting results in a friendship that has devastating consequences.

One Sentence Review: The Boy in the Striped Pajamas is an evocative story that will open your heart to experience the suffering of those affected by the holocaust in a whole new way.

In-Depth Review

Note: The Boy in the Striped Pajamas is the type of book best approached without much knowledge of the storyline. While there are no major spoilers in this review, you may wish to wait to read it until after you have finished the book.

The Boy in the Striped Pajamas is written in the third person from the perspective of Bruno, the nine-year-old son of a Nazi commandant who has been hand-picked by Hitler to superintend Auschwitz-Birkenau. Though Bruno is instructed not to venture from the grounds of his new home, his curiosity gets the better of him and on one of his covert exploratory jaunts he happens upon a secluded section of the camp’s fence and a boy sitting on the other side.

Critics have dismissed the book as being too unrealistic. Bruno is unbelievably naive for his age; he cannot even enunciate Auschwitz, calling it “Out-With,” and reffering to Hitler as “The Fury.” The idea that a nine-year-old boy from a well-to-do German family cannot not even pronounce Führer properly is pretty implausible. Shmuel is equally naif, and though he is clearly affected by the cruelty he has experienced in the camp, neither he nor Bruno are able to grasp the extent of the evil there. I would defend the book against this criticism on the grounds that it is a fable–a story that is written to teach a moral lesson. It should not be judged based on whether or not it fits well within the confines of plausible reality.

I think the boys’ limited understanding of their surroundings is useful for eliciting certain emotional responses from readers and for increasing the level of suspense in the story. Bruno and Shmuel live in a sort of idealogical bubble where they can be friends despite belonging to diametrically opposed people groups. Their friendship would not be possible if they mentally understood the physical barrier that divides them. One is constantly wondering when the bubble of ignorance will pop and what the consequences will be.

It was as if it were another city entirely, the people all living and working together side by side with the house where he lived. And were they really so different? All the people in the camp wore the same clothes, those pajamas and their striped cloth caps too; and all the people who wandered through his house (with the exception of Mother, Gretel and him) wore uniforms of varying quality and decoration and caps and helmets with bright red-and-black armbands and carried guns and always looked terribly stern as if it was all very important and no one should think otherwise. {The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, page 100}

The Boy in the Striped Pajamas was originally marketed as a children’s book, but the publishers soon relabeled it YA because of the adult themes is deals with. I think this was appropriate, even though there is no graphic content.

This is a very short book, almost a novella, and the plot moved along at a good clip. The writing is simple and fluid–elementary enough for a child to understand, yet colorful enough to engage an adult. Without giving anything away, I will say that the ending was intense and impactful, despite the fact that I anticipated what was going to happen long beforehand. I don’t think I’ve ever come away from a novel more shaken.

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About John Boyne:

John Boyne was born in Ireland in 1971 and studied English Literature at Trinity College, Dublin, and creative writing at the University of East Anglia, Norwich, where he was awarded the Curtis Brown prize. Boyne is the author of six novels which have been published in over 40 languages. He lives in Dublin.