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The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas by: John Boyne

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Publisher: Definitions
Release date: 11th September, 2008
Media: Paperback

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Editorial Review

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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Average rating - (more reviews)

Rating: - Identity crisis

I like the idea for this novel, I really do, and large parts of the middle of the book are of a very good standard. The problem is the beginning and ending which made it difficult for me to suspend belief.

First, the beginning, which was far from convincing. I have no problem whatsoever with historical inaccuracies in fiction - some of the greatest works of literature in the world are full of them - but character inconsistencies really turn me off and The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas was full of them. Bruno's level of naivety and ignorance was comparable to that of a five or six-year-old, not an intelligent well-educated nine-year-old. It was unbelievable that he wouldn't be able to recognise the leader of his country or know that World War II was taking place. But maybe his problem was that in The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas there was no evidence of war. Here, Berlin in 1943 is full of neatly-lined streets and fresh vegetable markets and boys' fathers are chefs and greengrocers rather than away at war.

Then there was the ending, which I was led to believe would be shocking and emotional. I found it implausible and faintly ludicrous.

This is a novel that doesn't seem to know what it should be. The blurb describes it as a "not a book for nine-year-olds" though the language and absence of descriptions of violence would beg to differ. But on the other hand, most of what happens in this novel occurs between the lines, so could only be comprehended by an adult or older child.

Overall, a good idea badly executed making this a major disappointment.

Rating: - Kids book

I'm not sure if this a kids book, the print was very large and with only 60odd pages it made me wonder at what audience it was marketed. Althought the story is good, there is a lot of repetition and obvious plot line.I would definatly give this to my kids to read as it subtly explains the effects on people in concentration camps, not sure about its adult read value.

Rating: - A novel that wallows in its own ignorance.

Bruno is a nine-year-old boy living in Berlin who is happy going to school and playing with his friends. When his father gets a new job, their family has to move to a place called 'Out-With', a cold and desolate place in the country, where Bruno and his sister Gretel have to be tutored at home. Ignoring warnings to remain close to the house, Bruno explores the edges of the huge wired-off camp next to their house and meets a boy named Shmuel who lives on the other side of the fence, with whom he becomes friends.

The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas is an un-researched, under-written, wholly unbelievable and rather insulting novel. John Boyne writes his book in an extremely earnest tone, using the horrors and misery of the Holocaust to...I'm not sure what actually. The book is extremely short (210 pages of extremely large type and unusually narrow margins) and appears to be completely bereft of any kind of point. Bruno moves next to Auschwitz (but doesn't know what it is), moans about leaving his friends behind, meets a Jewish boy and they swap some illuminating stories (except they aren't) and there's a few knowing moments when adult readers can work out some nasty things are going on off-page and then it ends on a note so contrived and unbelievable it is borderline comedic.

The book is based around a series of lies. A nine-year-old boy growing up in Berlin in 1943 would be close to the age for entering the Hitler Youth (by this stage compulsory) and would have been educated at school about the 'evils' of Judaism. The notion that a nine-year-old boy in Nazi Germany wouldn't know what a Jew was or that there was even a war on is completely farcical. His twelve-year-old sister definitely would, as she would be a member of the League of German Girls (the female equivalent of the Hitler Youth) and by this point would be pretty heavily indoctrinated in National Socialism. The idea that the daughter of a senior military official and someone personally earmarked for greatness by Hitler himself (who has dinner at the family house at one point in the book) would evade this compulsory service is also inconceivable. The notion that a prisoner of Auschwitz would be able to spend hours on end, day after day, talking to someone through a fence without a single guard or other prisoner noticing is also fundamentally unbelievable.

The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas (*) is a book that the author conceived of and wrote apparently in a deliberate effort to be worthy and artistic, but then did no research for the book (apparently written over a single weekend; it shows, badly) at all, making elementary errors that even the most casual student of WWII, Nazi and Jewish history will pick up on immediately. This is that most pitiful of books, a contrived narrative that makes an attempt to deliberately tug at the heartstrings by employing a real-life horror to make up for the writer's lack of ability. Definitely one to be avoided.

Rating: - "No offence", but.......

Please note, this is ONLY a personal opinion but to my mind, the book and film both fail spectacularly for this very simple reason. Using the Holocaust as a background, a story is contrived whereby the Commandant`s (perhaps that should be Kommandant`s) son, intrigued by the Jews imprisoned in the camp attached to his property, dresses up as a prisoner and then `breaks into` the camp, where, with his young pal and others, he is rounded up and then killed in the gas chamber. Is it just me or is this just a little bit unsubtle, "oh, no, we thought it was alright to exterminate millions of our enemies but when even one of our own little children dies alongside with them, we suddenly realise the horror of our actions"? My objection to this is that it is almost exploitative of the events that happened in real life, with a little bit of fiction thrown in for titillation and tantalisation, and in my opinion, though others may think I am merely oversensitive, the work of a REALLY sick mind. Why, for example, couldn`t the innocent boy have been rescued at the last minute, which would still have caused his errant father to rethink the policies he was carrying out, but wouldn`t have necessitated the almost gratuitous sight of loads of men and boys stripped naked to await their fates? Certainly not one for the squeamish, and I would say, a definite no-no as a "children`s" book

Rating: - Innocence and ignorance

I dug this out of the shelves immediately after having watched the film adaption which I thought powerful and moving. I have to say that, compared to the film, I found the book disappointing. I appreciate that it was written for children (wasn't it?) with a message about the horrors of the Holocaust and man's capacity for evil, but I thought that its central device was - ultimately - too contrived to be absorbing. This device is that the central character (Bruno) has no idea about where he his, or what his father does, or how his friend came to be wearing those pyjamas. Or, to be more accurate, he has less idea about these things than the reader, who's encouraged to re-examine the world as seen through the eyes of this unreliable narrator.

The contrast between Bruno's child-like innocence and the unrelenting wickedness of his father's world is well brought out, but innocence isn't the same as ignorance. This latter quality is made manifest in his continued mis-identification of "Auschwitz" as "Out-With", a minor touch which I found particularly offensive, since I think the dreadful connotations of that awful name don't allow for any hint of playfulness, and it felt as if I was being nudged in the ribs each time the mistake was made. It's a device that's wisely eschewed in the film, which also gives a more plausible reason for Bruno's decision concerning his friend towards the end; to that extent, I thought that a more effective portrayal of this dreadful tale.

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