Night (Oprah's Book Club)

Amazon.com

In Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel's memoir Night, a scholarly, pious teenager is wracked with guilt at having survived the horror of the Holocaust and the genocidal campaign that consumed his family. His memories of the nightmare world of the death camps present him with an intolerable question: how can the God he once so fervently believed in have allowed these monstrous events to occur? There are no easy answers in this harrowing book, which probes life's essential riddles with the lucid anguish only great literature achieves. It marks the crucial first step in Wiesel's lifelong project to bear witness for those who died.

Book Description

A New Translation From The French By Marion Wiesel

Night is Elie Wiesel’s masterpiece, a candid, horrific, and deeply poignant autobiographical account of his survival as a teenager in the Nazi death camps. This new translation by Marion Wiesel, Elie’s wife and frequent translator, presents this seminal memoir in the language and spirit truest to the author’s original intent. And in a substantive new preface, Elie reflects on the enduring importance of Night and his lifelong, passionate dedication to ensuring that the world never forgets man’s capacity for inhumanity to man.

Night offers much more than a litany of the daily terrors, everyday perversions, and rampant sadism at Auschwitz and Buchenwald; it also eloquently addresses many of the philosophical as well as personal questions implicit in any serious consideration of what the Holocaust was, what it meant, and what its legacy is and will be.

Customer Reviews:

Night: A movie in a book!.......2007-10-17

Night is a memoir of Mr. Wiesel's horrible experience during the Holocaust. I read this book during my middle school years, and I vividly remembered one particular section of the book very clearly, even 10 years after I had read it. It is a section where Wiesel describes how a couple of German SS agents were hitting his father, because he was so weak to move. He recalls how he didn't even move a finger to help his father. Part of him even wished his father would die so that he didn't have to carry the burden of caring for his father.

The next morning, Wiesel awakened to see the empty bed of his father, whom had passed over night and been moved out early in the morning. This exeperience alone would haunt even the strongest human being and probably ruin anyone's possibility of even a remotely bright future. However, Eli Wiesel understands that the days of the Holocaust and WWII were not just any other days. They were days when human beings no longer acted like human beings. Pain, evil, and apathy ruled the Earth during this time.

This is certainly not the only section of the book that is graphic and almost too painful to read. The entire book is full of such events. It is extremely important for us to keep books and movies that re-tell the suffering of the Holocaust fresh in our mind so that we may never allow ourselves to comitt the same mistakes. Suffering of this magnitude should never, ever, ever, ever afflict any human beings ever again. Please buy and read this book, you will not regret it.

Note: I suggest reading this book along with the Diary of Anne Frank and watch Schindler's List. Together, they will offer you at least a small glimpse of the hell that was the Holocaust.

Powerful. No other word to describe it........2007-10-14

I read this book well before I found out it was on Oprah's book club. My tenth grade English teacher had us read it for her class when we did a segment on the Holocaust and do a report on it. Like everyone else in the class I was reluctant to read it mainly because this teacher was known for given out poor quality books on subjects that were either boring or not powerful enough. And usually when it comes to the Holocaust you can count on the book being good.

But this one surpassed the rest. Not only was it moving and an honest tear jerker but it was a quick read, one that could be read 50 times over and still never the power of the words. If you're in the mood for a good book that will tug at your heartstrings, pick this one up. He captures the Holocaust in a new, moving light and you'll never forget it.

I'm just upset that this book is now famous only because Oprah says it's "cool".

never forget.......2007-10-14

I don't think I can explain how much I love this book in ways that are as poetic or well-written as others have, but I had to add my two cents and make it known that this is a book that should not be missed. I read this book not long after Oprah did a special on it with the author, but yet I haven't forgotten anything that was written. That right there is the true gift that Elie Wiesel has given to each of us.

Don't read this book thinking you have to (maybe because Oprah told you to). You don't have to do anything to live except breathe. Read it so you can appreciate it and keep the memories of our world alive. It's our history, no one else's.

NIGHT.......2007-10-03

This new translation of NIGHT is not just a book, it's a gift. A gift of Elie Wiesel's memory, memory of such horrific atrocities committed against him, his family, and others. We can use this gift as a tool to evolve as a human race - or not.

Night.......2007-10-02

This book was both wonderful and disturbing. The translation was smooth and easy to read. The body of the book gives a further glimpse into the terrors of that war, and the suffering people had to endure; especially children. I finished this book in less than a day, and when I was done, I was able to appreciate my life even more, and be grateful for everthing I have.

Average customer rating:

A simple, succinct, harrowing story
incredible
Great book...influenced the epic
Night
Book CLub Book

Night
Elie Wiesel
Manufacturer: Bantam
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Mass Market Paperback

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ASIN: 0553272535
Release Date: 1982-03-01

Amazon.com

Book Description

Night -- A terrifying account of the Nazi death camp horror that turns a young Jewish boy into an agonized witness to the death of his family...the death of his innocence...and the death of his God. Penetrating and powerful, as personal as The Diary Of Anne Frank, Night awakens the shocking memory of evil at its absolute and carries with it the unforgettable message that this horror must never be allowed to happen again.

Customer Reviews:

A simple, succinct, harrowing story.......2007-09-10

This is the true story of Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel. A religious Jew, Wiesel was a young boy during the German invasion. He and his family were taken captive by the Nazis and put into the concentration camps where he witnessed atrocities that destroyed his family and shattered his faith.

Told simply and succintly, this first person account is haunting. Wiesel speaks with a numb detachment, sensationalizing nothing. He asks for no pity. He simply describes what he saw.

It is only one person's point-of-view of perhaps the most important event in modern history, but his testimony feels as big as the Holocaust itself. That this is one of millions of stories that could be told is shocking again, even if you've seen movies or read other books on the topic. You come away from this book with a better understanding of what happened, and many unanswerable questions as to why it happened.

As other reviewers have suggested, this book should be required reading for all high school students.

incredible.......2007-08-23

This was amazing book. This book takes you on the journey of a Jewish boy during the Nazi reign. You may know the stories of the concentration camps but you really can't imagine what they felt like. I would recomend this book to any one.

Great book...influenced the epic.......2007-08-12

Read a book like this and it might influence you to write a concept piece.
By the way the title of this is Night not "darkness" Ted Leonard.

Night.......2007-07-09

The author is such a good writer that you'll almost hear the squeak of rusty railroad cars along with muffled sounds of hopelessness from within as they roll down the tracks to the concentration camps.

You can almost smell the odors of less than humane living conditions mingled with the acrid smoke from the crematoriums upon arriving at the death camps.

You'll almost be able to see the look of death in the eyes of the living who have given up as well as the emaciated bodies of those whose suffering had finally ceased.

You'll almost feel the nagging hunger pains of those who sometimes must go without food for days at a time and the bone-drilling cold ache of hands and feet not protected from the sub-zero temperatures.

But you'll also sense the author's strong will to persevere the inhumane cruelties inflicted upon his people to return to the land of the living one day. He did survive and tells his story in a non-fiction selection that reads like a novel.

"Night" by Elie Weisel relates the atrocities of the Holocaust through the eyes of a teenage Jewish boy. As in "The Diary of Anne Frank" and "Schindler's List", it's an unforgettable story that should never EVER be forgotten.

Book CLub Book.......2007-06-02

Great telling of a sad story, but factual and interesting. Enjoyed this book and shared it with others

The Night Trilogy: Night, Dawn, The Accident

Average customer rating:

Night is moving
Life after Death.
Night and Dawn
The Night Trilogy-Elie Wiesel
Well written

The Night Trilogy: Night, Dawn, The Accident
Elie Wiesel
Manufacturer: Hill and Wang
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0374521409

Book Description

Night is one of the masterpieces of Holocaust literature. First published in 1960, it is the autobiographical account of an adolescent boy and his father in Auschwitz. Wiesel writes of their battle for survival, and of his battle with God for a way to understand the wanton cruelty he witnesses each day.

In the short novel Dawn (1961), a young man who has survived the Second World War and settled in Palestine is apprenticed to a Jewish terrorist gang. Command to execute a British officer who has been taken hostage, the former victim becomes an executioner.

In The Accident, (1962), Wiesel again turns to fiction to question the limits of the spirit and the self: Can Holocaust survivors forge a new life without the memories of the old? As the author writes in his introduction, "In Night it is the 'I' who speaks; in the other two [narratives], it is the 'I' who listens and questions."

Wiesel's trilogy offers meditations on mankind's attraction to violence and on temptation of self-destruction.

A Hill & Wang Teacher's Guide is available for this title.

Customer Reviews:

Night is moving.......2006-07-02

This was one bound volume of Wiesel's first three books, which concern the Holocaust, survival, and humanity. Night is Wiesel's personal memoir, which relates his personal story before and during World War II, as he and his father are separated from his mother and sister and interned in a series of concentration camps. Dawn is the story of a member of the movement to free Palestine from British occupation and Day concerns how one could move from a past that consumes one's every thought (or even if one should).

Quote: "Never shall I forget these things, even if I am condemned to live as long as God Himself. Never."

I read Night in high school, and always think of it as being a particularly long book, which it is not. Wiesel manages to pack more than I would think possible into a little over a hundred pages, which relates the story of himself and his family during the Holocaust. It is a beautifully written work that relates a terrible story. I found the story of Wiesel's loss of faith and the relationship he had with his father particularly memorable. If you somehow missed this in high school, pick it up, if you didn't, find it again. It's worth it. Dawn and Day are not as catching as the first work, but are still interesting in their own way.

Life after Death........2006-06-10

Elie Wiesel won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986, for his tireless work in addressing the Holocaust, wrestling with its almost incomprehensible moral questions, and most importantly working to ensure that it never happens again. NIGHT, his memoir of his own experiences in Auschwitz and Buchenwald, was perhaps the earliest first-hand account to be widely published. Totally authentic, written in blood and tears, it quite defies criticism. To assign four, five, or even ten stars to it would be an obscenity.

And yet Wiesel followed NIGHT by two very short fictional works, novellas rather than novels, called DAWN and DAY. Clearly he wanted to explore issues that could not be addressed in a factual memoir. And these two later books are fascinating in showing Wiesel's first steps as a novelist, rapidly gaining confidence and skill. In this respect alone, I feel that criticism is indeed germane.

We all know the advice to writers: show, don't tell. You can see Wiesel encountering the issue even in NIGHT, which is a mixture of simply reported facts and personal reflection. When he is simply telling his own story, the facts stand by themselves, and even at this date reveal aspects of the Holocaust that I did not understand: for example, why the Jewish communities did not move more proactively to resist their fate, and details of the social interactions among the camp inmates themselves. Occasionally the personal reflections get in the way of relating events, and yet how else is the author to tackle his loss of faith and feelings of guilt which seem to have been a heavier burden than any physical indignities? Wiesel's answer was to turn to fiction.

In his preface to DAWN, Wiesel makes it clear that the protagonist, Elisha, is not the author himself, although he admits that it easily might have been, had he been sent to Palestine rather than France after his liberation from Buchenwald. The fictional Elisha is recruited by freedom fighters trying to oust the British and form the state of Israel. After taking part in several guerilla actions, he is ordered to execute a hostage, a British army captain, in reprisal for the hanging of a Jew. The whole of this slim volume takes place in the night before the execution, and poses the question of whether a man who has escaped the hands of killers can ever be justified in becoming a killer himself. The theme is clearly important, and once more topical, but I cannot say that it works as a novel. The fictional background is sketchy and seems constructed with the sole purpose of presenting this dilemma. A large section of the book is devoted to Elisha's dialogue with ghosts from this past, which further diminishes reality. After a few pages, Wiesel stops showing Elisha through his deeds and social interactions, and concentrates instead on the moral dilemma in his soul; in novelistic terms, the result is to reduce rather than enhance the character's humanity. The book thus comes over less as a novel than as a parable.

DAY (originally published in English as THE ACCIDENT), Wiesel's second attempt at writing a fictional sequel to NIGHT is altogether more successful. This is partly because its theme is less absolute and more subtle: the difficulty of returning to a full loving life for somebody who has lived so long in the realm of death. His quasi-autobiographical protagonist (Eliezer, but the name is mentioned only once) is a rounded character with much depth. The book follows him as he recovers in a New York hospital from a near-fatal encounter with a taxicab. Although we still hear his inner thoughts, his situation is shown primarily in terms of his very real relationships with others, particularly his lover Kathleen. He has clearly led a varied and somewhat successful life in the dozen years since his liberation, but, though no longer a loner in practical matters, he still retains a huge void in his heart. Wiesel introduces quite a lot of psychological suspense, and has the wisdom not to make the ending too facile; if there is healing to come, it will still be a long process.

I have not (yet) read any of Elie Wiesel's later novels. Judging by the speed with which he ascends the learning-curve as a fiction writer here, I would expect them to be increasingly filled out in human terms -- perhaps even to the point where he might have been a contender for the Nobel Prize in Literature?

Night and Dawn.......2006-03-05

I was given the first two stories of the trilogy to read in my Nazi Germany and the Holocaust class this year and found them to be excellently written and very meaningful. With the help of an excellent teacher who posed all the right questions I was allowed to see the full meaning of these two stories.

I wasn't able to read the Accident, as my teacher chose for us to read the Sunflower by Simon Weinsenthal instead, although I do hope to someday.

Night and Dawn are two great stories which should be read by all.

The Night Trilogy-Elie Wiesel.......2006-02-17

This was one of the most moving book(s) I have ever read. Everyone should read this at some point in their lives

Well written.......2006-02-17

I thought this was a well written memoir and as hard as it was to read it is something that should be read by every living person. We need to step up and not allow this to happen in any country and it is so sad to see it happening everywhere. When will we learn our lessons?

Average customer rating:

Flawed, but still has it's moments
Confusion
Best of Trilogy
Not Wiesel's best work

Dawn
Elie Wiesel
Manufacturer: Hill and Wang
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0809037726
Release Date: 2006-03-21

Book Description

“The author…has built knowledge into artistic fiction.”—The New York Times Book Review

Elisha is a young Jewish man, a Holocaust survivor, and an Israeli freedom fighter in British-controlled Palestine; John Dawson is the captured English officer he will murder at dawn in retribution for the British execution of a fellow freedom fighter. The night-long wait for morning and death provides Dawn, Elie Wiesel’s ever more timely novel, with its harrowingly taut, hour-by-hour narrative. Caught between the manifold horrors of the past and the troubling dilemmas of the present, Elisha wrestles with guilt, ghosts, and ultimately God as he waits for the appointed hour and his act of assassination. Dawn is an eloquent meditation on the compromises, justifications, and sacrifices that human beings make when they murder other human beings.

Customer Reviews:

Flawed, but still has it's moments.......2007-09-20

This book would have been better served as short story in an anthology. I thought there was too much padding in order to make this a "short novel". Even as a short novel, "Dawn" barely exceeds 80 pages.

To address the content of the story, the main theme is the futility of the cycle of violence and reprisal. The narrator is assigned to execute a hostage in a nationalistic conflict. The story illustrates the narrator's internal moral stuggle in carrying out his task. There are some flashbacks to the narrator's youth, which I thought used some mixed metaphors and didn't contribute much to the story. But nevertheless, these are largely interpretive to the reader.

Certainly not as good as Night, and probably some of Wiesel's other works. But someone interested in reading more Wiesel might find some value in this book.

Confusion.......2007-07-30

This book had a very slow start but as you read into it more, it got better. I did not have a very strong liking for this book because of the mindset the main character was in. He seemed to be going insane with his own thoughts and haunts of his past after he joined the Freedom Movement. Also the slow start to this book didn't have anything to catch my eye and reel me in. For people that like real life drama's and books that make you feel like your apart of the story, this is a good book for them.

Best of Trilogy.......2006-10-10

Dawn is my favorite book in Elie Wiesel's trilogy (Night, Dawn, The Accident). I believe it has the most literary value-it put me in someone else's head.

Not Wiesel's best work.......2006-07-12

Dawn, by Elie Wiesel, is an interesting character study, but not much else. The story revolves around a young Jewish man, a survivor of the Holocaust, which is only a year or so in his past, who is working as a Zionist terrorist in pre-Israel Palestine. He is new to the work, and as an initiation, of sorts, his job on the night the novel takes place is to execute a British officer being held in the basement of his building.

The entire novel takes place in one night (ending at dawn, the pivotal "moment of truth" in the novel), and in one room. The protagonist slips in and out of flashback, revealing his own dark past and the hold it has taken on him. He imagines all the people he has ever known sharing the room with him, waiting to see if he will murder the Englishman in the basement.

Wiesel's point is that we are the sum total of everything that has ever happened to us and everyone who has ever loved us or given us their time. An interesting point, to be sure. But the hallucinatory ghosts the narrator sees around him is a device that wears thin very quickly. The middle third of this very, very short novel seems like extra padding.

The book's brevity is probably its greatest asset. I read it in an afternoon, and I am a slow reader. Wiesel writes in a very spare style, with few unnecessary words, except for that middle part of the book, which was poorly paced and redundant.

Dawn is an interesting read, and a good book, but it is certainly not on par with Wiesel's other work. If you only read one of his books, read Night, which has the most meaningful things to say, and if you're still curious, you can pick up Dawn and decide for yourself.

Recommended.

Passover Haggadah: As Commented Upon By Elie Wiesel and Illustrated by Mark Podwal

Average customer rating:

Includes classic stories for your seder table
a passover haggadah

Passover Haggadah: As Commented Upon By Elie Wiesel and Illustrated by Mark Podwal
Elie Wiesel
Manufacturer: Simon & Schuster
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0671735411

Amazon.com

A Passover Haggadah, retelling the Exodus of the Children of Israel from Egypt, guides families every year through their Passover Seder. A Passover Haggadah faithfully renders the entire text of story, prayer, and song, with commentary by Elie Wiesel. Expertly interwoven, Wiesel's commentary (recalling memories of his own boyhood Seders and reflecting on Israel's place in the modern world) may be read aloud, along with the traditional text, in whole or in part. Drawings by Mark Powdal add joyous, fearsome, and poignant moments to the reader's experience throughout. At the beginning, just before the recitation of the Kiddush, one illustration depicts a contemporary Seder table whose length stretches into a path crossing a huge picture of the desert of ancient Egypt. The scene in the book is the beginning of the journey, the table is the destination, and, with this beautiful Haggadah, the story continues among us. --Michael Joseph Gross

Book Description

With this Passover Haggadah, Elie Wiesel and his friend Mark Podwal invite you to join them for the Passover Seder -- the most festive event of the Jewish calendar. Read each year at the Seder table, the Haggadah recounts the miraculous tale of the liberation of the Children of Israel from slavery in Egypt, with a celebration of prayer, ritual, and song. Wiesel and Podwal guide you through the Haggadah and share their understanding and faith in a special illustrated edition that will be treasured for years to come.

Accompanying the traditional Haggadah text (which appears here in an accessible new translation) are Elie Wiesel's poetic interpretations, reminiscences, and instructive retellings of ancient legends. The Nobel laureate interweaves past and present as the symbolism of the Seder is explored. Wiesel's commentaries may be read aloud in their entirety or selected passages may be read each year to illuminate the timeless message of this beloved book of redemption.

This volume is enhanced by more than fifty original drawings by Mark Podwal, the artist whom Cynthia Ozick has called a "genius of metaphor through line." Podwal's work not only complements the traditional Haggadah text, as well as Wiesel's poetic voice, but also serves as commentary unto itself. The drawings, with their fresh juxtapositions of insight and revelation, are an innovative contribution to the long tradition of Haggadah illustration.

Customer Reviews:

Includes classic stories for your seder table.......2001-03-12

Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel tells tales, his wife provides translations, and Dr Podwal includes his magical drawings. Wiesel's commentaries are printed in red (for example, for the Four Sons, he comments on the idea of Four Generations and the transmittal of heritage from knowing (wise) to not-knowing(cant even ask the question)). The classic Hebrew and English text of the traditional haggadah are in black ink. The Haggadah is in Right to Left format. While in English and Hebrew, there are no transliterations.

a passover haggadah.......2000-04-10

fantastic! a true eye opener! a cute book with really neat and fun information! this book will explain a lot about tradition and passover!

Average customer rating:

Builds to nothing but it still haunts us after we are done
The climax to the Night trilogy fizzles (2.5 stars)

Day: A Novel
Elie Wiesel
Manufacturer: Hill and Wang
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0809023091
Release Date: 2006-03-21

Book Description

"Not since Albert Camus has there been such an eloquent spokesman for man." --The New York Times Book Review

The publication of Day restores Elie Wiesel’s original title to the novel initially published in English as The Accident and clearly establishes it as the powerful conclusion to the author’s classic trilogy of Holocaust literature, which includes his memoir Night and novel Dawn. “In Night it is the ‘I’ who speaks,” writes Wiesel. “In the other two, it is the ‘I’ who listens and questions.”

In its opening paragraphs, a successful journalist and Holocaust survivor steps off a New York City curb and into the path of an oncoming taxi. Consequently, most of Wiesel’s masterful portrayal of one man’s exploration of the historical tragedy that befell him, his family, and his people transpires in the thoughts, daydreams, and memories of the novel’s narrator. Torn between choosing life or death, Day again and again returns to the guiding questions that inform Wiesel’s trilogy: the meaning and worth of surviving the annihilation of a race, the effects of the Holocaust upon the modern character of the Jewish people, and the loss of one’s religious faith in the face of mass murder and human extermination.

Customer Reviews:

Builds to nothing but it still haunts us after we are done .......2006-06-27

There is not much to this novel but it's effective when you finish it. When I was done the book i thought what really happend what was the point of the book and I came to a cunclusion it's about life and to see how a memory will haunt you the rest of your life and it show us if we can forgive god and to see if we belive in god. Not much ahppend through out the book I enjoyed the holicost flashback. Overall it's not as good as night and I havent read dawn yet so ic an not say but it's enjoyable.

The climax to the Night trilogy fizzles (2.5 stars) .......2006-06-17

Day is superior to both Night and Dawn, the first two books in Elie Wiesel's Night trilogy. However, six aspects of Day really bug me:

First, Day's plot lacks cohesion and is out of chronological order, unlike Night and Dawn. The heart of a novel should either consist of either solid storytelling and an advancing plot or delicately crafted interwoven stories. In Day, it is instead largely a jumble of disparate memories - typically of women in steamy situations. This is not conducive to seamless communication.

Second, Wiesel originally wrote The Accident separately from Dawn and Night. As such, it is the least connected to the other two books. He decided at some point to change the title to Day, tack it on to his first two books, and call the resulting mumbo-jumbo a "trilogy." This is sloppy, self-centered, and ultimately irritating because now students at my school are required to read all three volumes.

Third, my same old complaint about Wiesel's writing holds true in Day: too much crying! I find it absurd how many times people cry in the Night trilogy - readers of Night and Dawn (as many of you readers this review are) can attest to this. Rather than making his readers more sympathetic to the feelings of his characters, Wiesel conditions them to indifference with this blatant overuse of sadness.

Fourth, Wiesel's comparisons in Day are too often uncreative at best, stale at worst. Too often he compares one woman to another, typically his mother or grandmother. Comparing one woman to another does nothing. These comparisons would be acceptable once or twice, but, one's patience wears thin after reading paragraph after paragraph of them. Wiesel should keep in mind that he is writing to other people who did not grow up with these women. Much more interesting and effective would be to compare the women to romantic inanimate objects such as the sun, the moon, or a budding rose.

Fifth, Wiesel shies away from many chances to show us a lurking literary prowess throughout Day. These opportunities crop up whenever somebody "talked for hours." It's hard to imagine that these terse, two-dimensional characters are really capable of speaking for hours without seeing the monologue on paper. Why does Wiesel hold these soliloquies back from us?

Sixth, and last, Wiesel doesn't vary his sentence structure enough, in Day or either of the other books in his Night trilogy. This is a run-of-the-mill high school error, and I'm surprised that neither he, nor Oprah, nor the legions of devoted oprah&wiesel fans pick up on this. His short, choppy sentences should be reserved those rare pulse-pounding moments, but Wiesel uses them everywhere.

I will quote from the text to illustrate my points:

Kathleen's face was twisted with pain. She looked like a sorceress who has lost her true face from having put on too many masks. A great fire burned around her. Suddenly she cried out and began to sob. My mother, I had never seen my mother cry. (p.74)

Kathleen. Tears were coming to her eyes. My mother didn't cry. At least not when other people were there. She only offered her tears to God.
Kathleen looked a little like my mother; she had her high forehead, and her chin had the same pure lines. But Kathleen wasn't dead. And she was crying. (p.89)

These selections are the concluding paragraphs of two back-to-back chapters. And yet they say the same thing. That's not any kind of plot advancement that I've ever heard of. I hung my head upon reading the following, though I agree with it:

Nothing is more sacred than life, or healthier, or greater, or more noble. To refuse life is a sin; it's stupid and mad. You have to accept life, cherish it, love it, fight for it as if it were a treasure, a woman, a secret happiness. (p.67)

This "profound" realization flies in the face of what the narrator previously thought - that life wasn't worth fighting for. However, I knew that "life is all we have" before I even knew who Wiesel was. I know we humans must simultaneously struggle for our lives while still finding time to cherish them. I don't need an emotionally-estranged Holocaust-survivor narrator to take me by the hand and lead me through the way he discovered that truth, which is essentially the only task that Day accomplishes for society. Day certainly doesn't make one happier, unless one derives pleasure from knowing one can write better than a Nobel Peace Prize winner. I cannot speak for how this book affects other readers, however. Perhaps this book will save someone from suicide someday?

I will make you suffer though one more irresistible passage before I quit:

In the beginning she didn't cry. We were on the same level. We dealt with each other like equals. We were free. Each one free from himself and free from the other. When I didn't feel like keeping a date, I didn't. She did the same. And neither of us was angry or even hurt. When I didn't talk for a whole night, she didn't try to make me explain. The familiar question asked by lovers, "What are you thinking about?" didn't enter our conversations. Hardness had become our religion. Nothing was said that wasn't essential. We tried to convince each other that we could live, hope, and despair, alone. Each kiss could have been the last. At any moment the temple could have collapsed. The future didn't exist since it was useless. At night we made love silently, almost like our own witnesses. A stranger watching us in the street could easily have taken us for enemies. Rightly so, perhaps. True enemies aren't always the ones who hate each other. (p.90)

I prefer that my novels not read like Chicken Soup for the Soul.

Gyula arrives near the end of the book, providing the comic relief and fog-cutting outsider's insight that the rest of Wiesel's Night trilogy needed so desperately to keep from being the bore that it was. In Gyula's laughing light and portrait-mirror, the narrator sees himself for who he truly has become and discovers that he needs to change his outlook. Day was a more satisfying novel than either Night or Dawn in part due to this resolution and promised change in attitude.

I have concluded my reading of the Night trilogy, and of Wiesel, for good. I can't wait to discuss this trilogy in English class - fur will fly, for sure, as most readers of Wiesel whom I've met become insta-fans. I will conclude by saying this - if you enjoyed Night and Dawn, then Day will be right up your alley.

Night, Dawn, and Day (B'Nai B'Rith Judaica Library)

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Night/Dawn/Day
The Fire! The Furnace! Look, over there!
The most emotional account of the Holocaust

Night, Dawn, and Day (B'Nai B'Rith Judaica Library)
Elie Wiesel
Manufacturer: Jason Aronson
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Customer Reviews:

Night/Dawn/Day.......2006-04-11

The Fire! The Furnace! Look, over there!.......2000-06-01

The cries of a madwoman on an Auschwitz-bound cattle car are just one of many portents shepherding doomed souls on their way to Nazi furnaces. In "Night", the first of three books in this collection, Elie Wiesel recounts his deportation to the death camps where the rest of his family perished. The tragic weight of his witness to this obscene cruelty burdens the reader with the fates of the inmates and his reflections on the meaning of evil. Wiesel questions his god and his faith. He sees sons kill fathers: "Meir. Meir, my boy! Don't you recognize me? I'm your father... you're hurting me... you're killing your father! I've got some bread... for you too... for you too..." (p.106), and becomes intimate with death.

In "Dawn", Wiesel has migrated to Palestine and faces the duty to execute a captured prisoner. His long night of contemplation and uncertainty exposes his preoccupation with killing and killers and again with death: "Death," Kalman, the grizzled master, told me, "is a being without arms or legs or mouth or head; it is all eyes. If ever you meet a creature with eyes everywhere, you can be sure that it is death." (p.140). It is a preoccupation to be squeezed only from one who has not fully lost his faith or his humanity. A beggar explains the face of the night: "Listen," he said, digging his fingers into my arm. "I'm going to teach you the art of distinguishing between day and night. Always look at a window, and failing that look into the eyes of a man. If you see a face, any face, then you can be sure that night has succeeded day. For, believe me, night has a face." (p.126) Fear, night, suffering, and evil are his companions, and he explores them constantly. "Being afraid is nothing. Fear is only a color, a backdrop, a landscape." (p.174).

Until, in "Day", he survives a terrible accident and is faced with his own complacent acceptance of mortality. He struggles with the urge to explain to his talented young doctor the futility of fighting against death, and reaches an epiphany when he understands the tragedy of splashing others with his suffering. "Suffering brings out the lowest, the most cowardly in man. There is a phase of suffering you reach beyond which you become a brute: beyond it you sell your soul - and worse, the souls of your friends - for a piece of bread, for some warmth, for a moment of oblivion, of sleep." (p.247).

These stories are powerful and frightening,. Death is an implacable enemy, but also a partner for life who never goes away and will always win in the end. Wiesel has stared at evil, his stories are wrenching.

The most emotional account of the Holocaust.......2000-04-25

This book should simply be read by everyone interested in Judiasm or the Holocaust. Just read it!

After the Darkness: Reflections on the Holocaust

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after the darkness
Yes of course, ""Reflection on the Holocaust""!!!
Powerful, Haunting
Excellent Book
A short overview of history's greatest evil

After the Darkness: Reflections on the Holocaust
Elie Wiesel
Manufacturer: Schocken
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0805241825
Release Date: 2002-10-22

Book Description

A poignant, powerful distillation of the Holocaust experience from the internationally acclaimed writer and Nobel laureate.

In his first book, Night, Elie Wiesel described his concentration camp experience, but he has rarely written directly about the Holocaust since then. Now, as the last generation of survivors is passing and a new generation must be introduced to mankind’s darkest hour, Wiesel sums up the most important aspects of Hitler’s years in power and provides a fitting memorial to those who suffered and perished. He writes about the creation of the Third Reich, Western acquiescence, the gas chambers, and memory. He criticizes Churchill and Roosevelt for what they knew and ignored, and he praises little-known Jewish heroes. Augmenting Wiesel’s text are testimonies from survivors, who recall, among other moments and events: the establishment of the Nurembourg Laws, Kristallnacht, transport to the camps, and liberation.

With this book — richly illustrated with 45 photographs from the U.S. Holocaust
Museum -- Wiesel proves once again the ineluctable importance of bearing witness.

Customer Reviews:

after the darkness.......2007-02-16

I believe this book is a wonderful introduction to the history and events leading up to, and including the horrible years of the holocaust. I gave it to my grandaughter who is ten years old. I am a child of a survivor. The book is a valuable part of education of a time that now seems so distant, and when most of the survivors have died. It speaks for them to future generations
nd as always, Elie Wiesel is warm, and honest, but never bitter. We are now the witnesses for those who experienced hell.

Yes of course, ""Reflection on the Holocaust""!!!.......2006-10-10

Those who do not believe that there was, and still is, a legend in the name of 'Holocaust' are kindly invited to visit Ghaza and Lebanon (North and notably South) to look and see how such a word is actually pronounced.
They will see a thorough destruction involving extensive loss of life through a carnage of fire and cold-blood slaughter of civilians.

Thank you.

Powerful, Haunting.......2006-09-07

Dare to stick you head and heart into the cruelity of mankind and you come away from this powerful book enlightened--and looking over your shoulder at today's racism. An equally moving book is Walking the Trail, One Man's Journey Along the Cherokee Trail of Tears by Jerry Ellis.

Excellent Book.......2006-06-22

This is the third book I read by Elie Wiesel, first I read "Night" which is my favorite, second I read "The Forgotten" which I thought was very good too. Now this one, is much shorter but the tetimonials by other Holocaust victims and the photographs makes it an excellent book. The generation of WWII survivors are dying and we need books like these to keep reminding us and future generations of the horrors of the war, so we don't repeat it.

A short overview of history's greatest evil .......2005-05-04

Elie Wiesel is the writer who more than any other made the world aware of the Holocaust. He through the years has been a voice of remembrance for the victims, a voice of integrity and courage, a witness of what is the greatest example of Man's inhumanity to Man known in human history. For the Holocaust was the deliberate effort of Nazi Germany, a people sitting in the center of Europpean civilization to wholly destroy, man, woman and child the entire Jewish people. One third of the Jewish people was murdered in the years 1939-1945, and the greatest share of European Jewry destroyed.
Now in this work Elie Wiesel presents a small historical over-view of the Shoah, and accompanies this with testimonies of others who passed through this world of nightmare.
It is a short moving volume, another work of invaluable testimony.

Average customer rating:

The mind of a virgin killer
Dawn
Better than "Night"
Not Night, But Excellent In Its Own Right
Dawn

Dawn
Elie Wiesel
Manufacturer: Bantam
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Mass Market Paperback

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ASIN: 0553225367
Release Date: 1982-08-01

Book Description

Two men wait through the night in British-controlled Palestine for dawn--and for death. One is a captured English officer. The other is Elisha, a young Israeli freedom fighter whose assignment is to kill the officer in reprisal for Britain's execution of a Jewish prisoner. Elisha's past is the nightmare memory of Nazi death camps. He is the only surviving member of his family. His future is a cherished dream of life in the promised homeland. But at daybreak his present will become the tortured reality of a principled man ordered to commit cold-blooded murder. Resonant with feeling, Dawn is an unforgettable journey into the human heart--and an eloquent statement about the moral basis of the new Israel."

Customer Reviews:

The mind of a virgin killer.......2006-06-12

Elie Wiesel's second book, "Dawn," is a clear improvement over "Night." The former, rather than simply giving a gory firsthand account of history, explores the reasons behind the most terrible act of all - killing. However, this book is still written too tersely for my tastes. The first paragraph, for example, reads:

Somewhere a child began to cry. In the house across the way an old woman closed the shutters. It was hot with all the heat of an autumn evening in Palestine.

Much more interesting is:

The orphan's high-pitched wailing interrupted the sultry autumn evening like a burglar alarm. The airborne scream buzzed like a bumblebee across the way, colliding with the hag's eardrums. She slammed the shutters shut - this was more than she could bear on a muggy Palestinian night. All her life she had managed to eke out a paltry existence on her family's plot of land without complaint. She had never asked for much, only a quiet home in which to tell her grandchildren stories and to do her nighttime knitting...

If Eliezer from "Night" was not pitiable, then Elisha is downright despicable. He lets his superstition rule him (in giving Gad God-like qualities he falls victim to his propaganda), resulting in his suffering.

This book makes a more powerful case against religion than for it - if the terrorists did not believe in their religion, then there would have been no cause for their hatred, and nobody in "Dawn" would have had to die.

In "Dawn," Wiesel again picks a topic that transcends his ability to write.

Dawn.......2006-04-26

The book dawn is about Elie's life after the war and his stay in the concentration camps. He ends up being drawn to a Palestinian terrorist group. He joins this group and quickly learns their ways and becomes close friends with the leader and others. Elie ends up being told that he must a kill a man named John Dawson because their friend David Mosh was captured and is going to be hung at dawn. The group of Elie's friends and himself stay up until dawn to think about what is going to happen.

I did not enjoy this book as much as I enjoyed the book Night. This book became very confusing at times and lost my interest when certain events would be drawn out for to long. The end of the book was also hard to follow. Another thing I did not like about this book is that a large piece of this book takes place in one room and all the thought revolves around one event that is going to take place. It did catch my attention and seem to be interesting in the first part of the book until it seemed to drag on and it lost my attention. I would recommend this book to anyone who likes complicated and hard to follow books.

Better than "Night".......2006-01-31

A wonderful book with great insight into the moral dilemnas of conflict and Israel's fight for independence.

Not Night, But Excellent In Its Own Right.......2005-07-19

Elie Wiesel's Night is one of the most horrifying, moving accounts of the Holocaust experience that I have read. This book, Dawn, is sometimes referred to as a sequel to Night; however, I think that is misleading. Though readers of Night will see the influence of the author's concentration camp experience reflected in this book, Dawn is something very different.

The most obvious difference, of course, is that Night is nonfiction whereas Dawn is a novel. Dawn tells the story of Elisha, a Holocaust survivor, who is recruited to a terrorist group in Palestine that is trying to drive out the British in the years after World War II. After participating in a number of terrorist activities without remorse, Elisha is assigned to execute a prisoner in retaliation for the execution of one of his comrades. As he waits through the night for his task at dawn, Elisha struggle (literally) with his ghosts.

When faced with an author like Wiesel who has written a classic piece of nonfiction like Night, it is often difficult to judge his fiction fairly. The fiction doesn't seem to have the same impact. And though I, too, prefer Night, I found this book to be powerful in its own right. Dawn gives real insight into how people can be haunted and changed by an unfathomable trauma. In addition, it addresses real philosophical issues such as when does killing become murder and how does becoming a murderer change a person? Does suffering unto death justify a (some might say) disproportionate response?

In these post 9/11 days, I also found the insight into the terrorist mindset very interesting. The American revolutionaries and the Zionists were considered terrorists in their day much as the Palestinians and al Queda are today and, though there are obviously differences between all these groups, there are some attitudes that run through all who can find it in themselves to use terror tactics. It is fascinating to see words come from the mouths of these young Jewish partisans that would fit equally well in the mouths of Palestinians today.

All in all, Dawn is an excellent work: brief but powerful.

Dawn.......2005-04-18

Dawn written by Elie Wiesel is a story about two men who are
meant to be killed at the same time, at dawn. David Ben Moshe is
Jewish and will be killed by the English at the same time as Elisha; a Jewish man will kill an English man John Dawson.Elisha and his friends wait all night for dawn, the book takes place with them in one room, thinking about what they have to do, they have little conversation between each other.

I did not find the book Dawn very interesting,I found it to move very slow, because Elisha and his friends stayed in one room during the whole story, and while one man was thinking about what he should do or how he felt, the reader did not know how the other people where feeling at that time. The part I found the most interesting was when there would
be conversation between Elisha and his friends, especially when they talked about their pasts, which was one of my favorite parts of the book, it was
interesting because there was more action happening when they when explaining their past.

Although I found this book boring for the most part it was very descriptive and therefore I would recommend it to anyone who likes very descriptive books.

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My favorite book
Disappointed
More than just nostalgia...
A journey through Hassidism

Souls on Fire
Elie Wiesel
Manufacturer: Simon & Schuster
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 067144171X

Customer Reviews:

My favorite book.......2006-05-12

This book is difficult for me to describe, I guess I can only say that along with 'Man's Search for Meaning' by Viktor E. Frankl, 'Souls on Fire' by Elie Wiesel is among the two books that have changed my life.In these powerful and beautiful stories of Jewish Hasidic masters Elie Wiesel teaches us to fight depression by deliberately cultivating joy,that we must enjoy life in spite of life,that death is never the answer,and that that life is sacred,so much so that in spite of anything we have suffered we must say yes to this life.
In sum this book (and Frankl's) should be read by all who struggle with sadness.It is a very poetic and life-affirming book by a survivor who has seen ultimate evil in man and yet still affirms the holiness of our lives.

Disappointed.......2001-11-26

I was disappointed with this work. It is more about Elie Weisel then about chassidic stories. Many of the stories are familiar to me, and in all cases they appear distorted and many times the point of the story is missing. To summarize, as one of the stories said, He didn't hear what was said, and didn't write what he heard.

More than just nostalgia..........2001-01-19

It's amazing how everything Wiesel touches turns to gold, and here, he's done it again.

The Chassidic masters Wiesel portrays were passionate about Judaism in a way any modern reader can relate to. Wiesel deftly brings that message home time and time again, evoking not only the syrupy nostalgia of most volumes of "Rebbe stories", but also a very immediate committment to Jewish life.

A masterpiece, this would also make an excellent gift for anyone interested in Jewish spirituality.

A journey through Hassidism.......1999-11-03

Hassidism, its tales, legends, and masters, has always been a source of mystery and confusion. "Souls on Fire" is a journey through Hassidism. Traveling from the source and further development of this unique Jewish religious manifestation is a joy when led by the mind and sould of Elie Wiesel. His personal and emotional input, the tales and legends included throughout the book, and his non-academic but rather humane approach (a typical Hassid) is the most sincere attempt in trying to understand and "speak of the unspeakable," sparkling light into a religious fervor born out of anguish and despair. The purpose is not to agree or understand, but rather to believe.

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