The Book Thief and Accordion

When I opened my Google browser today, there was an interesting doodle, I have always enjoyed the Google doodles, but have been too occupied lately to notice them on many occasions. Today’s doodle did catch my attention and I checked to find out that today’s – May 23 Google doodle is celebrating accordion.

This further piqued my interest as it brought back the memories of a book – one of my favourites – that I had read when my reading choices were improving (from the immature reading that I had been doing until that point of time). I had started coming across some fine works of literature and was blown away by them. It was around this time that I had found (actually I like to believe the book had found me) ‘The Book Thief’ by Markus Zusak. It was in ‘The Book Thief’ that I had learned about an accordion. It wasn’t like the key part of the story but since this book was brilliant, a lot from the book has stayed with me.

I normally don’t write book reviews, but I did write one for this book. Read my thoughts or a book review of ‘The Book Thief’ here, if interested.

When I saw the Google doodle about accordion, the memories of that book’s world came rushing. Today I learned that it was on May 23, way back in the year 1829, the musical instrument was patented with the name accordion. This is different from the Accordion Day that is celebrated on May 6, every year.

It was only through the book I first learned the name ‘accordion’ and realised much later that accordions also featured in many old, black and white, classics of Indian cinema. I love how the vintage stuff continues to stay around even after hundreds of years – even if the forms change, and manages to evokes some unusual, maybe inexplicable, emotions and reflections.