Product Description
A GREAT BOOK IN A NEW PREFACE BY ROBERT MCAFEE BROWN ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Poor condition
The book was in poor condition-scribbled in it and highlighted sections. It was not as expected-"like new"

Disturbingly Compelling
This is a must read for humanity!Wiesel's description of the concentration camps, the stories and the struggle, all the while dealing with his faith, his God and his family are disturbingly compelling.The truth and horror of the Holocaust is captured without the potential gore, but the devastation and the description of what young Elie witnessed is not water-down in order to be palatable. There is a lot of power packed into this little book!

Honest and True -- Very, *Very* Powerful
The quote from the New York Times on the cover of this book has it exactly right: "a slim volume of terrifying power." Wiesel's retelling of his experiences in the Auschwitz concentration camp is concise and seemingly artless. But the absence of sentimental pathos only makes the story so much more moving, so much more powerful. I first listened to this novel as an audio book some five or six years ago, and the experience was overwhelming. Since then, I've listened to it again perhaps five times, I've read it in the French original twice, and I've read the English translation by Stella Rodway once. I now know it almost by heart. Certain passages from the book would haunt my imagination for weeks, leaving an indelible imprint on my soul. For instance, I feel I know with certainty that I will remember the fate of Moshe the Beadle -- a human being of flesh and blood who once lived and breathed, and whose story is told here in but a few pages -- until my dying day. 'Never shall I forget that night' -- this is a very, *very* powerful book.

For what it is worth, I would recommend this translation rather than the new one by Marion Wiesel, the author's wife. However, I say this without actually having read the newer translation, so I should probably admit that my judgment here doesn't carry much weight. I only read the first pages of both books side by side, and this gave me the impression that Rodway's rendition was somehow more poetic, and perfectly accurate when compared with the French version. For instance, Rodway's "I loved his great, dreaming eyes, their gaze lost in the distance." sounds better to me than Marion Wiesel's "As for me, I liked his wide, dreamy eyes, gazing off into the distance." (he's talking about Moshe the Beadle), and the French does have the verb 'love.' But perhaps I only prefer the earlier translation because this was the one I first encountered and grew attached to. Nevertheless, since it seems likely now that most new readers will first turn to the translation endorsed by Oprah's Book Club, I think there is at least a point in exhorting people not to forget about the earlier version.

Holocaust Believer
Elie Wiesel is a survivor of Auschwitz and details his experience in this book.Elie was not only a young man when he was taken to Auschwitz but a young man who lost his innocence and childhood.Elie and his family was Jewish and that was the reason for their imprisonment.True story and the book goes into great detail about his experience, feelings and horror that occurred. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (33)

Night
Loved Night but had not read the other two.Decided to get the trilogy and loved the other two books as well.Very haunting, memorable and touching stories.

Night is moving
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.
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 his Nobel Prize might have awarded as much for Literature as for Peace?

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

Product Description
Elie Wiesel, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, brings together his first three books in this one volume: a young boy tries to survive Auschwitz; a member of the Israeli underground has to face the prospect of murder; and a near-fatal auto accident changes a man's outlook on life. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

A powerful coping tool
I read this book when going through a particularly difficult loss.While I share very little in common with the author, I found all three stories to be profound and touching.While I cannot be thankful for the suffering and tragedy that Elie Wiesel experienced, I will always appreciate that he wrote about it.

Night/Dawn/Day
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.

The Fire!The Furnace!Look, over there!
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 recountshis deportation to the death camps where the rest of his family perished. The tragic weight of his witness to this obscene cruelty burdens the readerwith 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 youtoo..." (p.106), and becomes intimate with death.

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

Until, in "Day", he survives a terrible accidentand is faced with his own complacent acceptance of mortality.He struggleswith the urge to explain to his talented young doctor the futility offighting againstdeath, and reaches an epiphany when he understands thetragedy of splashing others with his suffering."Suffering brings out thelowest, the most cowardly in man.There is a phase of suffering you reachbeyond 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 amoment of oblivion, of sleep." (p.247).

These stories are powerful andfrightening,.Death is an implacable enemy, but also a partner for lifewho never goes away and will always win in the end.Wiesel has stared atevil, his stories are wrenching.

The most emotional account of the Holocaust
This book should simply be read by everyone interested in Judiasm or the Holocaust.Just read it! ... Read more

Product Description
A profoundly moving novel about a Holocaust survivor's struggle to remember both the heroic and the shameful events of his past, and about his American-born son's need to assimilate his father's life into his own. "A book of shattering force that offers a message of urgency to a world under the spell of trivia and the tyranny of amnesia."--Chicago Tribune Book World. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Enjoy reading!
It was a good book.It took me a couple chapters to get into it but then wanted to keep reading to see what happens next.

The Remembrance of Things Past
As always with an Elie Wiesel book, the topic of the Holocaust and its aftershocks are explored in lyrical depth."The Forgotten" is no different, as it explores the memories of Elhanan Rosenbaum, just as he struggles with losing his memory to an incurable disease.He desperately tries to pass his memories onto his son so that they will never die, even if he does.

"The Forgotten", like most of Wiesel's books, weaves back and forth through time and between different narrators.At times the transitions between these various changes is a little choppy, but the stories all interconnect in the end.Elhanan's son, Malkiel, struggles with the task his father has assigned him.He cannot fathom how he is to possibly hold and retain his father's memories along with his own.And when his father asks him to take a pilgrimage to his hometown, both are unsure as to what to look for, but know that an answer must exist there that will free Elhanan's painful memories and grant him peace.

Wiesel has devoted his life to searching for meaning in what has happened to the Jewish people.As a survivor of the Holocaust, he has a tremendous witness to bear.That aspect of being a witness plays a large role in "The Forgotten".As Malkiel finally realizes, he must do what his father no longer can."I will bear witness in his place; I will speak for him.It is the son's duty not to let his father die."And it is the duty of the world not to let the past slip into oblivion.Lest we forget.

Moving on several levels
The Forgotten explores both the holocaust experiences of the aging father, and his new horror of losing his memory.Both are intensely moving, whether seen through his own eyes, or those of his son struggling tofulfill a difficult obligation. Like all of Elie Wiesel's writings, thisbook stays with you and influences your own thinking on many topics.A sadstory, unforgettable.

Professor Wiesel did me the honor of writing a blurb for my novel, The Heretic (Library of American Fiction), which describes anti-Judaism on the eve of the Spanish Inquisition. I also invite you to consider my new novel, A Good Conviction, the story of a young man in Sing Sing prison, wrongly convicted of a crime he did not commit. ... Read more

Product Description
Conversations with Elie Wiesel is a far-ranging dialogue with the Nobel Peace Prize-winner on the major issues of our time and on life’s timeless questions.

In open and lively responses to the probing questions and provocative comments of Richard D. Heffner—American historian, noted public television moderator/producer, and Rutgers University professor—Elie Wiesel covers fascinating and often perilous political and spiritual ground, expounding on issues global and local, individual and universal, often drawing anecdotally on his own life experience.

We hear from Wiesel on subjects that include the moral responsibility of both individuals and governments; the role of the state in our lives; the anatomy of hate; the threat of technology; religion, politics, and tolerance; nationalism; capital punishment, compassion, and mercy; and the essential role of historical memory.

These conversations present a valuable and thought-provoking distillation of the thinking of one of the world’s most important and respected figures—a man who has become a moral beacon for our time.


From the Hardcover edition.Amazon.com Review
Elie Wiesel, the 1986 Nobel Prize Winner, Holocaust survivor, and author of more than 40 books, has something to say about almost everything. Conversations with Elie Wiesel, containing highlights from more than 20 television interviews with journalist Richard D. Heffner, gathers some of Wiesel's best thoughts on subjects such as "The Intellectual in Public Life," "On Being Politically Correct" "Religion, Politics... and Tolerance." Thebook has a few broad, unifying themes--most notably the dynamics of individual and community responsibility, and the proper role of the state in ourlives. But Conversations contains no sustained arguments. It is, instead, the record of a mind in action--the passionate thoughts of a person whoseconfidence in the significance of his own life is the ground of his generosity towards others:

I have the feeling, honestly, that my life is an offering. I could have died every minute between '44 and '45. So once I have received this gift, I must justify it. And the only way to justify life is by affirming the right to life of anyone who needs such affirmation.

Customer Reviews (3)

A moral voice for the Mankind
Elie Wiesel here speaks with Richard Heffern on major questions of our moral and ethical life. The fourteen chapters of this work discuss such questions as "Am I My Brother's Keeper" " The Role of the Intellectual In Public Life" " The State: Its Proper Role in Our Life " " On Being Politically Correct" "Nationalism and Upheaval" " The Anatomy of Hate"
"Taking Life Can it be an Act of Compassion?" " Making ourselves over in whose Image?" " The Mystic character of Memory" " Anti-Semitism"
Heffern a veteran broadcaster is an extremely intelligent moderator. Wiesel is as always wise and humane . He for instance in the opening dialogue talks about the problem many of us face, of where to focus our attentions in a world in which there are so many problems, so much suffering, so much need for help. Wiesel the witness of the 'Shoah' whose book 'Night' perhaps more than any other made a wider publc feel the horror of the 'Holocaust' is not simply a spokesman for the Jewish people, but for all of Mankind. He is a person who cares and has done much to help. His description of his first efforts in Biafra shows once again how he extended his caring for all of mankind.
Anyone who wishes to have real insight into the moral and political dilemnas facing Mankind today should read this outstanding book.

Written by a master
How does one review a book by Wiesel? He speaks the truth,is a modern day "righteous Jew",and makes one think of the meanings of life

Thought-provoking conversations
Elie Wiesel is an extraordinary figure in history and literature.As a Jew who survived the Holocaust and horrors of the concentration camps when he was but a child, he has spent his life questioning the very nature of his faith and his fellow human beings.In "Conversations With Elie Wiesel" readers are given the opportunity to hear his viewpoint on a wide range of topics that concern America, and the entire world, today.

These conversations have been honed from numerous interviews with Richard D. Heffner, moderator of the public television show "The Open Mind."Together these two men discuss religion, tolerance, hate, compassion, capital punishment - almost every so-called hot button that exists in the political, social and moral concerns of our world.Elie Wiesel proves himself to be a thoroughly intelligent man, who raises questions even while recognizing that some may never be answered.His distinct experiences and his Jewish faith play a role in all that he says or does.

These conversations are interspersed with interludes that give true Wiesel fans insights into the inner workings of his mind.Wiesel argues for the necessary role of compassion in human interactions.We need to care about our brothers, in spite of our differences, if there is to be any peace and understanding within our world.He holds out hope for the day when everyone could come together and put aside all the differences and squabbles that separate us and tear us apart.This truly is a thought-provoking read for anyone interested in religion, philosophy, and the fate of our world. ... Read more

Product Description
In this powerful and wide-ranging collection of essays, letters and diary entries, weaving together all the periods of the author's life -- from his childhood in Transylvania to Auschwitz and Buchenwald, Paris, New York -- Elie Wiesel, acclaimed as one of the most gifted and sensitive writers of our time, probes, from the particular point of view of his Jewishness, such central moral and political issues as Zionism and the Middle East conflict, Solzhenitsyn and Soviet anti-Semitism, the obligations of American Jews toward Israel, the Holocaust and its cheapening in the media. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Unforgettable
I was touched by this book. I didn't know a book could change your life. After all, it's only words. And we live in an era ruled by the power of images.But Elie Wiesel, despite all suffering and humiliation that he facedduring his life, brings us joy and hope . Joy and hope is his answer to theashes of the holocaust.If the jews are the chosen people, then Elie Wieseis my vote for role model. ... Read more

Product Description
Elie Wiesel's bestselling tale of the beggars and madmen, survivors and fighters, victors and victims who congregate at the Western Wall in Jerusalem in the days following the Six-Day War brilliantly weaves together myth and mystery, parable and paradox. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

It's Not "Night"
Elie Wiesel is stuck in Buchenwald. The book keeps harking bsack to his days in the concentration camp. This is understandable, but his musings about the past interrupt the flow of his writing which was smooth decades ago in "Night." It is not smooth here. I stopped reading after about 50 pages because Wiesel had trouble getting into the story.

The Beggar's Tale
Elie Wiesel has always had the uncanny ability to compassionately bring to life the horrific history that the Jewish people have suffered.His personal accounts and his novels return time and again to the mysteries of the Holocaust and the impact it has had on its survivors and the world in general.His novels are always lyrical in nature and disjointed in structure, moving between time and place with little distinction."A Beggar in Jerusalem" may be the most unstructured novel that Wiesel has written, for it is a tale of a beggar who does not know any longer what is real and what is imaginary.

"A Beggar in Jerusalem" is narrated by David, a beggar who has witnessed numerous events that he relates to the reader along with stories of his people and friends he has lost.His closest friends are the local madmen who populate the street.Through his ramblings, and the stories that these other madmen tell, the reader is given a tour of what ties Jewish history with the present and the future.Wiesel himself said that in this book he attempted to show "what cannot be shown, to explain what is not to be explained, to recapture an experience that cannot be relived."If that is possible, Wiesel has achieved it, showing the effects of the Holocaust, explaining the dreams of the dreamers, and portraying scenes of the Six-Day War.

At times throughout the novel, it is difficult to tell who is doing the telling, since the narrator seems to shift between various characters, and the narrator himself seems to change identities, especially at the end of the story.This makes for a very disjointed reading as the novel skips from one event to the next, so while it is a short book it is not necessarily an easy read.With "A Beggar in Jerusalem" Wiesel seems as much a prophet as his main character, bringing to life the overwhelming peace that is possible in the end, or perhaps even in the beginning.

Compassion Compassion Compassion..and True Love
As i watched Elie Weisel on the Oprah show i cried..when ivbought his first book Dawn** i cried, and with every purchase i intend..i will cry and say thank you GOD!! and Mr Weisel..
I am a descendant of slaves, and i can now look back on what was done by MLK, Nelson Mandela, and others who have dedicated thier lives to freedom..for all people and dedication to our own cultures..Thank you Mr Weisel..Thank U..
U have opened my own eyes to the fact..that there is something i can do..
I also thank the Jewish people of this world who have survived to tell thier stories..

The work of a great spokeman for moralmankind
1986 Nobel Prize Peace Winner Elie Wiesel is one of the great moral figures in the modern era. His classic work 'Night' perhaps more than any other work made horrifically clear the pain and suffering of the Holocaust. He has written over fifty works of literary and moral testimony, a number of which are not simply classics of literature but which changed the course of history. One of those was his 'Jews of Silence' on the fate of Russian Jewry.
This present work is written about the Six- Day War of June 1967. It is written with the same humane quality, the same mystical lyricism that pervades much of his work. It expresses something of the relief felt in the Jewish world in 1967 when Israel overcame the threat of destruction from the Arab world initiated at Nasser's closing of the Suez Canal.
The work moves back and forth from the Jerusalem of the present to the small Eastern European village world Wiesel lived in before the Holocaust. The work despite its poetic and revelatory qualities is confusing in its narrative line, and in my judgment far from one of Wiesel's best. Yet it does express something of the longing of hundreds of Jewish generations to return to their ancestral home in Jerusalem, and the land of Israel - and to dwell there in peace with their neighbors. It is a book written in the same humane and generous spirit ( And thus follows the ancient Jewish adage- that the greatest triumph is to make a friend of a former enemy) of all Wiesel's works.
This work does give some feeling of that great exaltation the Jewish world felt in 1967 at its escaping existensial danger and returning to its holiest places.

wiesel's brilliant 4-dimensional masterpiece
a powerful trip across the mind of a holocost surviver wandering the haunted and enchanted streets of the old city in search of a lost friend. rich with emotion and stunning prose, this narration tells the story of the beggars and madmen who gather at dusk in the shadow of history, allowing the narrator to question his very memories. this is a text which lies on your table demanding to be read again and again, revealing bits of its mystery. ... Read more

Product Description
In this modern classic, a young journalist steps off a curb and into the path of a speeding taxi. Is it an accident, or has a tormented past driven Eliezer, a German death camp survivor, to attempt suicide? Torn between choosing life and death, he must come to grips with the catastrophe that befell him, his family, his people. Written by a Holocaust survivor. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (15)

Not worth reading, Wiesel is hopeless
In "The Accident" Wiesel attempts to prove that life is pointless because of the Holocaust, and that he's "dead."I personally can't help but agree with him, that he is psychically dead--but I couldn't stand this book because Wiesel refuses to look beneath the surface and face the painful potential of rebirth.(And I'm not talking about religious rebirth, rather, healing from ancient trauma.)Instead of considering a solution for his psychic deadness, Wiesel just gets further lost, and uses his writing to obfuscate the point.

In reality, I think Wiesel strongly wants to LIVE (which is why he expends so much energy writing), but is too terrified of the vulnerability inherent in just coming out and admitting it.

So my overall assessment of this book:It's not a worthwhile read, because Wiesel is an unresolved, traumatized person (primarily traumatized by his family of origin, secondarily by the Nazis) who remains in a bitter, largely hopeless state.

Wiesel writes eloquently and calmly about the personalities of death camp survivors
Survivors of the death camps of World War II were extremely dehumanized, willing to sell their soul and the souls of righteous people, simply for a slice of bread and the opportunity to eat it in peace. While in the camps, their lives are mechanical, they follow orders and simply hope to be alive and have a full stomach at the end of the day.
After liberation, much of the uncaring attitude remains; they go through life wanting to love, needing to love yet they exhibit a coldness when presented with the opportunity. There is an underlying death wish; to have life ended so they can join their predecessors that they watched them pass by into the place of killing.
Eliezer is a survivor of the death camps and the story opens with him being hit by a taxi and severely injured, at first it is unlikely that he will live. When he shows promise, he is placed in a body cast and begins to heal. This flashes him back to his past relationships with Karen, where the affair could hardly be prefaced with the word "love" and with Sarah, a woman he met in Paris after the war. When Eliezer encounters Sarah in a cafe, she offers to have sex with him and they go to her apartment. Once there, everything is mechanical and Sarah recounts her experience of being a prostitute for the German camp guards when she was 12.
Since Wiesel is a survivor of the death camps, what he describes is a realistic transformation into the after-camp personalities of the survivors. Their personalities are those of people whose bright lives have been burned away, replaced by something of an automaton-like existence. It is clear that Eliezer being hit by the taxi was not an accident, but the expression of an only slightly suppressed death wish. This is a powerful story of the aftermath of what is no doubt the most extreme of traumatic stress.

A little bit confusing......
This book was a little bit confusing to follow. I understood that he was a holocaust survivor, and it was sad what he went through. I didn't like how the author left it up too us when he got hit by the taxi. Did he do it on purpose or was it just an accident?

This book did give me a better prespective on what life was like for the survivors and how much suffering they went though after the holocaust. I thought this book was ok.

What I thought of The Accident
The Accident was a well-written book. It showed a life that I don't hear much about, life after the Holocaust. I didn't realize what happened to the survivors and how their lives were changed forever. This book was a little confusing at first but it all made sense in the end and was great. It was a sad story but a story that people need to hear to fully understand the effect the Holocaust had on people. I am glad I read this book.

Review
I do not agree with most of the other reviews.

The greatness in this book lies Elie Weisel's ability to come so close to answering unanswerable questions. He has a perspective that none of us will ever attain. An unspeakable suffering is captured in mere words. Living is the horror, not death. The living mourn the dead; the dead mourn no one.

The main character sees every aspect of life from an unnatural perspective. He cannot love, he sees death in everything, he yearns for silence, he lives in his past. We are jealous of his severance from a pitiful humanity. He is almost a true stoic.

As a technical note: No, as the other reviews stated, the character did not try to commit suicide. Suicide is killing yourself. He was walking a few feet behind his girlfriend, and although, out of the corner of his eye, he saw a car speeding toward him, he did not try to save himself. This is not suicide. It is an indifference toward life. Death was his only chance for freedom. The true accident was that the doctor was able to save him. ... Read more

Product Description
Searching for the friend who saved him during the Holocaust, a man is compelled to question the very meaning of survival, in a story of memory, loss, and madness that reflects the history of the twentieth century. Reprint. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (6)

The Holocaust as Madness
This novel moves along slowly for the first three-quarters. But it picks up very quickly and becomes a very compelling read as Wiesel begins to introduce the character of Pedro, the novel's idealized hero who is present from the beginning but never escapes the memory of the protagonist, Raphael, to take the page as a living character. Pedro, who was known as Pinhas in Poland, earned his name in the Spanish Civil War, where he had gone to fight in the years before the Holocaust. After the war, he becomes a kind of secret agent for devastated Jewry, working with others to bring the survivors together and set them on their new life.
Painted in the tradition of the near messianic hero, familiar to readers of Mordecai Richler's "Solomon Gursky Was Here" and perhaps to a lesser degree Saul Bellow's "Humboltd's Gift," Pedro is instantly admirable and the reader shares Raphael's feeling for him. Wiesel uses Pedro as a character of unbridled potential who is never allowed to reach it, and is banished to the realm of Raphael's memory. In a novel about the Holocaust, that works to great effect because clearly there were many real "Pedros" who were either killed in the concentration camps or could not survive in the aftermath of the Holocaust.
This is a novel about memory and madness; the memory of those who died in the Holocaust and the madness of the hate that caused their deaths.
Along the way, we meet a character who stares at the sky trying to find the lost six million in the clouds and the stars, and there are some other excellent character portraits. But Wiesel also introduces a host of mad inmates of an insane asylum who think they are biblical figures. That last part is what the novel could have done without. These crazy want-to-be biblical figures are very unbelievable, especially compared to the more sane characters of Raphael, his wife Tiara and Pedro.
Instead, we get the sense that Wiesel is using these characters as a way to weave Midrash, or biblical legends, into a modern novel. Although it is an ambitious experiment, it falls flat for lack of believability.
Ultimately, the novel does well to explore the Holocaust as a kind of all-encompassing madness. It at times can be an engrossing read. And the pages that challenge God on how He could have allowed the Holocaust to happen are worth anyone's read. But it would have been a better book without much of the material set in the insane asylum.
The novel does finish well and leaves you with a glimpse of light beyond the Holocaust. And a good use of naming gives the reader the impression that even Pedro, nee Pinhas, could come back. According to some Jewish legends, Pinhas is in fact Elijah, the great prophet who never died.
When he followed up the novel "Night" with the sequel "Dawn," Wiesel explored how life can go on after the Holocaust without turning one's back on the horror of that worst period in human history. "Twilight" continues that theme but makes it more accessible to the average reader by setting the survivor in everyday life, instead of in the life and death struggles of nascent Israel.

The Twilight of Madness
Elie Wiesel is a man apparently haunted by his past. A survivor of the concentration camps and the Holocaust, Wiesel has turned his experiences into some of the most profound modern literature. "Twilight" is no exception to that rule, a novel that searches for the truth of humanity lost during the Holocaust.

"Twilight" tells the story of Raphael Lipkin, a lost and lonely man. He finds himself drawn to a sanitorium in upstate New York, which specializes in the madness of patients who believe themselves to be characters from the Bible. He is there to hopefully his friend Pedro, the man who saved him during the Holocaust and then disappeared from his life. As he studies these patients, who range from Abraham and Cain to Jesus and God himself, Raphael is torn between madness and sanity. He questions all that he knows to be true and all that he has experienced in his life.

Wiesel is a master storyteller, weaving complicated stories into a wonderous picture. "Twilight" fluctuates between the present time, to Raphael's memories, to his family's persecution during the Holocaust. The reader is shown the true horrors that Jews experienced, and how families are torn apart. Raphael never recovers from his experiences, and this becomes apparent in his questioning. His search doesn't necessarily bring answers; these are tough questions that might not be answerable. How can one see through the madness of the Holocaust when it is an event that the entire world still struggles to understand? Wiesel's purpose isn't to make one understand these tragedies or to give simple answers to questions of faith; rather, he wants the reader to think and question, and be content to know that not everything is for us to know.

In search of the Savior
This was a difficult book to rate.It is, to begin with, a fairly short novel; just over 200 pages.I felt one of the problems with this book was that the author moved us around too much in time, place and character.The brevity of the book made this confusing.We're one place then another before we got settled in with the former.The basic plot of the book is challenging but worth the effort to try and follow.A doctor (Raphael)who was a youthful survivor of the Holocaust is trying to come to understand his experiences.Through him we meet a wide array of characters of whom the most important is a man nicknamed Pedro.Raphael is in a search for Pedro and for meaning to the horrors that are beyond meaning.There is an irony in the duality of his search.On one level Raphael searches for a real savior that he has lost.On the other level, he searches for the savior that was never there.In the end he encounters both.We are left unfulfilled.Having gone this far with him, we expect more.We want a clear answer, a happy ending.We get neither and, in this ambiguity, we get a sense of Holocaust reality; there is no meaning, there is no happy ending.Night represents evil, day represents good.In the twilight lies the madness.

Insanity or Love?
Twilight seeks to explore the relationship between God and his creation in the context of a mental assylum whereby the accusation of God's insanity in the wake of the Holocaust is juxta-opposed against God's care. The book is filled with wonderful characters in the assylum who 'double' in their insanity as characters from Hebrew Scripture - Adam, Joseph, Cain, Abraham, the Messiah and God.The book is somewhat complicated in that the deepest questions concerning the nature of God and humanity are explored while historic 'flash backs' break up the intensity to tell the real struggle of the main character and his family under the Nazi regime.The book is written with an intense passion and stimulates emotions and arguments and insights concerning God's relationship to humanity in the light of the holocaust from all angles.God is seen as omni-present but veiled, simultaneously imminant and transcendent. Many times the question WHY? is thrown at God and options of God's insanity, cruelty, indifference and usury are expressed. Finally, the accusation of God's insanity in relation to the hohlocaust is defended through the patient who beleives himself to be God - 'When exactly was I suppose to stop it? Go on, tell me'

The novel evokes sympathy for God as a concluding note and in the face of anger and accusation because of the holocaust we are left with an unveiled God in tears and pain through the accusation 'you could have stopped it - you should have stopped it'.

This is a short novel the weaves a masterful tapestry of emotions, history, theology, accusation and theodicy. It's setting in a clinic is unique, the patients are loveable, understandable. Wiesel leads the reader to be on everyone's side, in everyone's shoes. A stunning novel - well worth coming to terms with and reading over and over again.

Not as Perplexing as kex86 found it!
This was my 1st Wiesel work and I did not find it to be "perplexing" or "weird". Actually, I found it to be a quite sane story depicting one of the 20thcenturies' most perplexing events.

For readers who have thoughtpreviously about the various shades of madness and those who findthemselves afflicted (Robert Persig's 'Lila' as an example) and for readerswho have spent any time reflecting on the inexcapable impact of theHolocaust on survivors and their next generation...then 'Twilight' is amystical and brutally real novel depicting the terror of just one familyout of the countless thousands. ... Read more

Product Description
From Elie Wiesel, a gripping novel of guilt, innocence, and the perilousness of judging both.

A plane en route from New York to Tel Aviv is forced down by bad weather. A nearby house provides refuge for five of its passengers: Claudia, who has left her husband and found new love; Razziel, a religious teacher who was once a political prisoner; Yoav, a terminally ill Israeli commando; George, an archivist who is hiding a Holocaust secret that could bring down a certain politician; and Bruce, a would-be priest turned philanderer.

Their host—an enigmatic and disquieting man who calls himself simply the Judge—begins to interrogate them, forcing them to face the truth and meaning of their lives. Soon he announces that one of them—the least worthy—will die.

The Judges is a powerful novel that reflects the philosophical, religious, and moral questions that are at the heart of Elie Wiesel’s work.


From the Hardcover edition.Amazon.com Review
Distinguished author, Holocaust survivor, and Nobel Peace Prize winner Elie Wiesel continues his exploration of guilt, innocence, history, and memory, but with a new twist. Wiesel moves the battle for the human soul from the Holocaust to the rarefied setting of a Connecticut parlor. There, five strangers, stranded during a snowstorm, find themselves manipulated by a sadistic host who calls himself the Judge and declares that one of them will die before morning. Through the long night, the characters take stock of their lives and indentify what inspires them to cling to life. There is George, the archivist who has discovered a dangerously revealing document and whose "ambition it is to evoke the memory of memory"; Yoav, the Israeli commando who believes that "each man was his own executioner and his own victim"; and Razziel, who lost the memory of his childhood to torturers and was on his way to meet the man who could unlock his past. While the characterizations are uneven (Bruce, the playboy, is stock stuff and the Judge's deification of evil is not entirely convincing), Wiesel's philosophical fable is powerful and thought provoking, and increasingly relevant in an age concerned with terrorism and the questions of good and evil. --Lesley Reed ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

Found Wanting
Through numerous novels, Elie Wiesel has proven himself to be a master storyteller.He is able to intermingle the fictional world with the all too real memories of the Holocaust that haunt almost every piece of writing he produces.While "The Judges" has an intriguing premise, it is not among his better works.

When a plane en route to Tel Aviv is forced down by a snow storm, five random passengers find themselves offered refuge in a nearby house.What at first appears to be a safe haven quickly turns into a nightmare when the host, who simply refers to himself as the Judge, tells them of the 'game' at hand.All five of those present will be judged and the one who is the least worthy among them must pay the ultimate sacrifice.The five strangers have trouble believing the Judge at first, simply thinking his pronouncement a farce, but when they discover that they are locked within the room, they quickly realize the seriousness of their predicament.They must try to work together to fight their way out, or decide who should be the sacrificial lamb for the others.

"The Judges" has many characteristics that trademark a Wiesel novel.There is the shift in narrative between various characters, and between past and present times.Yet unlike his other works, the narratives here have little cohesiveness - there is no thread that ties them all together and even though the five characters are forced to spend one night together under one roof, that is all that unites them.There may be commonalities among their pasts and their reasons for wishing to remain alive, but beyond that, this story is about disconnect.The ending is far too rushed for the story that is offered and the conclusion to the host's 'game' is trite and predictable.With that being said, "The Judges" is still a fine read, thanks in large part to Wiesel's intellect and his poetic use of language.

excellent book
first of all, i am not a kid, i am simply a person without a bunch of time floating around to fill out all that crap simply to write a review. second, this book was utterly facsinating and i was genuinly disappointed when i came to its end. i love how real elie wiesel makes his characters and really enoyed getting to know the five passengers as well as the judge and his little hunchback. a great read for anyone not afraid to think.

Mr. Wiesel should have just had "Q" show up.
Mr. Wiesel is pretty good at developing characters, however he doesn't pay attention to the reality of details.It is not just implausible for the characters to end up at the cabin it is virtually impossible.The events getting the characters to the cabin is simply not realistic.It would have been a better story and a more reasonable if "Q" (Star Trek) had showed up and transported them there.

I am a cowgirl from Arizona and I would have put up with the Judges nonsense for about 15 minutes max.Then I would have acted.Mr. Wiesel spend why too much time on thought and not enough on action.Whatever.

Like nothing I've read before
The plot seemed so real. While reading the book, my dad had told me my aunt had once had to stay overnight at someone's home because of a simlar event like the one in the book, the book kinda hit close to home. I never had read any of Elie Wiesel's books before, but checked the book out of the library after reading the inside cover and deciding that the plot would be interesting and make a good story. However, I was disappointed. I really felt that Wiesel could have expanded a lot more on the plot. I didn't feel like I knew the charcters well enough. I didn't understand why the ending ended the way it did. It wasn't the best book I read, but it wasn't the worst.

A cryptic novel that explores the value of a life.
In Elie Wiesel's novel, "The Judges," five airline travelers are flying en route from New York to Tel Aviv.They are forced to land in Connecticut because of a severe snowstorm.An apparently hospitable individual invites them to stay in his cabin until the storm subsides.What the five passengers do not know is that their apparently kind-hearted host has a hidden agenda that is anything but benign.

The travelers, four men and a woman, have secrets and worries that plague them.One of them is terminally ill, another seeks to regain memories of his earlier life, and a third carries a letter that may have serious political ramifications.The host, who calls himself "The Judge," starts to play a malevolent game with his guests.He cruelly informs them that after they reveal the intimate details of their lives, the least worthy among them will die.Also in the cabin is the Hunchback, the Judge's servant, who is a severely deformed man that the Judge took in when no one else would care for him.The Hunchback has secret thoughts of his own that he keeps carefully hidden.

This slim novel (approximately 200 pages long) is filled with convoluted philosophical musings.The travelers engage in verbal sparring matches with one another and with the Judge.Unfortunately, none of the characters come to life, and it is unclear what the Judge, the Hunchback and the travelers are supposed to represent.What is Wiesel trying to say about the significance of an individual's life?I was unable to detect a coherent message in this novel. After having read Wiesel's touching and deeply meaningful works on the Holocaust, I was surprised by how unmoved "The Judges" left me. ... Read more

Product Description
As this concluding volume of his moving and revealing memoirs begins, Elie Wiesel is forty years old, a writer of international repute. Determined to speak out more actively for both Holocaust survivors and the disenfranchised everywhere, he sets himself a challenge: "I will become militant. I will teach, share, bear witness. I will reveal and try to mitigate the victims' solitude." He makes words his weapon, and in these pages we relive with him his unstinting battles. We see him meet with world leaders and travel to regions ruled by war, dictatorship, racism, and exclusion in order to engage the most pressing issues of the day. We see him in the Soviet Union defending persecuted Jews and dissidents; in South Africa battling apartheid and supporting Mandela's ascension; in Cambodia and in Bosnia, calling on the world to face the atrocities; in refugee camps in Albania and Macedonia as an emissary for President Clinton. He chastises Ronald Reagan for his visit to the German military cemetery at Bitburg. He supports Lech Walesa but challenges some of his views. He confronts Francois Mitterrand over the misrepresentation of his activities in Vichy France. He does battle with Holocaust deniers. He joins tens of thousands of young Austrians demonstrating against renascent fascism in their country. He receives the Nobel Peace Prize. Through it all, Wiesel remains deeply involved with his beloved Israel, its leaders and its people, and laments its internal conflicts. He recounts the behind-the-scenes events that led to the establishment of the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C. He shares the feelings evoked by his return to Auschwitz, by his recollections of Yitzhak Rabin, and by his memories of his own vanished family. This is the magnificent finale of a historic memoir.
Amazon.com Review
And the Sea Is Never Full is Elie Wiesel's memoir of the period between 1969 and the present. Wiesel, an esteemed writer (his Night is among the greatest memoirs of the Holocaust) and political activist, begins the book remembering a challenge given to himself at age 40: "I will become militant. I will teach, share, bear witness. I will reveal and try to mitigate the victims' solitude." He defends dissidents in the Soviet Union; draws attention to the atrocities of Cambodia and Bosnia; and fights apartheid in South Africa. He attacks Holocaust deniers, stands with Lech Walesa in Poland, visits Albania as a representative of President Clinton, and wins the Nobel Peace Prize. Wiesel's tragic boyhood compelled him to work very hard to love the world. He has learned to do so, and this memoir, like all of his best writing, teaches its reader to love the world while looking directly at its greatest terrors. --Michael Joseph Gross ... Read more

Customer Reviews (8)

Elie Wiesel: The Voice of the Jews
After ten years of silence about his experiences in the hell of the Nazi reign, Elie Wiesel has unleashed a literary and humanitarian career, utilizing his pen and memories as means to spread peace and stop hate and violence.And the Sea is Never Full, the memoirs of Elie Wiesel from the year 1969, is more than the attempt of a Holocaust survivor to come to terms with the world that betrayed him; it contains lessons learned by one who has seen the worst of humanity and who still finds the avenue for having faith in people.That avenue, for Elie Wiesel, is God.
Born to devout Jewish parents on September 30th, 1928 in Sighet, Hungary, Elie Wiesel spent his childhood absorbed in literature and the study of Hasidic Judaism by request of his father, Shlomo Wiesel, who encouraged Elie to take upon the knowledge of Judaic history and culture.He lived his life very peacefully in Sighet, a town with an enormous population of Jews, with his parents and his three sisters.This happiness was viciously torn away from Elie when the Nazis invaded Hungary in 1944 and the Wiesel family was sent to the Nazi concentration camp Auschwitz.This time marks the beginning of the observations and influences that would lead Elie to devote his life to human rights and nonviolence work, as he narrates in And the Sea is Never Full.10 years pass.These memoirs are an addition to the endless list of literary works that Elie Wiesel began after writing Night in 1958, his first narrative about his experiences in Auschwitz and Buchenwald, the vision of his father's torture to death, and the deaths of his mother Sara and sister Tsipora.Taking on an extensive amount of literary writings and responsibilities, Elie Wiesel's writing and political activism for the African apartheid, Israeli, and other conflicts earns him the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986 for the influence of his pressure for peace.
The memoirs have one clear focus, and that is on the power of hate, indifference, and religion.And the Sea is Never Full relates the actions and thoughts of Elie Wiesel molded by his Holocaust experience, though it is filled with Judaic parables dispersed throughout the text as Elie Wiesel encounters new people, each one portrayed in a very raw and human light, each one a child of God.Elie Wiesel presents himself, more than anything, as a Jew and unyielding worshiper of God.He lives his life by the ideals that his Jewish childhood taught him: "It is because it is difficult if not impossible to sing, to pray, to hope that we must trip.[...] Let one person, just one, extend his hand to a beggar, a fugitive, a refugee, and life will be become meaningful for others" (Wiesel 29).
His words constantly spell out his own reflections on the events that occur in his life after 1969; And the Sea is Never Full is more a diary, a journal into the mind of a man struggling to do everything in his power to prevent the repetition of the Holocaust.Wiesel is a master traveler in his text, darting from country to country, city to city to participate in committees for Holocaust remembrance events, UNESCO planning, and to teach at City College in New York and at Boston University.We meet and lose Bea, one of Wiesel's sisters who survived the Holocaust; we meet Gorbachev, Francois Mitterrand, Hiroshima survivors, and officials of the KGB.We visit Israel and become completely involved in the strategy and hardships of securing an Israeli state, while learning about Wiesel's observations and involvement in the world events of the time.No unpleasant descriptions or life characterizations are spared.The writing is opinionated and passionate.The story is true.
While And the Sea is Never Full achieves its goal for being the personal statement of a Holocaust survivor, a global activist, and a writer, it leaves the reader confused as to what Wiesel's thoughts are concerning violence.He does not leave any room for doubt on his beliefs for peace and the importance on avoiding human indifference, but he contradicts himself with his pride in the Israeli army and its military strategy.It leaves us wondering what he respects more, an ideal or a country.What does he believe is the solution to the hate and conflict in the world?As a leader, educator, and activist, his memoirs would do well to present more of his opinion on the state of the world.
And the Sea is Never Full is a captivating account of a man who saw much of the world and created a change in every place he visited.It leaves the reader wanting to learn more about Elie Wiesel's past and the little events and images that led to his activism and writing.Night is a common educational tool, but rarely is Elie Wiesel as commonly discussed as Martin Luther King, Jr. and Gandhi.And the Sea is Never Full presents his thoughts loud and clear, pushing for more knowledge and understanding into the influences of human evil and human forgiveness.

Fascinating
I do appreciate an author with a point of view about things and if nothing else Wiesel has that. His autobiography tells the story of a man with a mission, a passion, and strong convictions.

The continuation of a great man's story
Elie Weisel in my eyes is a great man. He is the witness of the most horrible evil in human history , who somehow managed to help make the character of that Evil known to the world. He is a devoted writer and a foremost spokesman and defender of the Jewish people. But he is also has a special role in working to help the suffering and the persecuted throughout the world. Years ago in Biafra he was there to try and help the Ibo. And since then he has time and again placed himself at risk to help others. As a teacher and writer his work bears not only the mark of his poetic and G-d haunted soul, but of his enormous devotion to the good of humanity. This volume picks up the story of his life when at forty he decides to make a more determined effort to help the suffering of humanity. It tells the story of journeys and struggles .Often he is met by opposition but he is fueled by the determination to stand for the suffering. As a truthteller he dared confront the President of the United States over the obscenity of Bitburg . His deeds go before him and his words are a light to mankind. May G-d bless him and his work for the future.

very personal
I loved the first biography by Elie Wiesel, All Rivers Run to the Sea.I loved his objectivity, his detached but sharp view on the incredible and often cruel incidents that happened in his life, as well as his reserved but firm believe and philosophy you can see behind it.I was fascinated by the personal story of this incredible person and was impressed by the power of his quiet words that was much powerful than too emotional accounts on the tragedy that we often hear.

However this book, And the Sea is Never Full, is very different from the previous volume. It is much more emotional and more centred around his phiolosophy on his religion.I am givingonly 3 stars, not because it's not good - people who are interested in Wiesel's religious believe and stands most likely will find it interesting - but because I expected more stories on his life (and philosophy behind it) not believe itself, and found this book a bit too personal, as if written for himself rather than for readers.

An Inspirational Man, An Important Book
Easily one of the best autobiographies of the last half of the century (when coupled with Volume One).It is almost hard to believe that a man with such vision, such drive, such intelligence could have written almostan understated autobiography which reads as easily as any novel on yoursummer reading list.

I strongly reccomend that anyone who wants to learnand be inspired by one man's drive to remember and honor (amd ensure thatno one else forgets), read both volumes of this elegant autobiography. ... Read more

Product Description
When a Christian boy disappears in a fictional Eastern European town in the 1920s, the local Jews are quickly accused of ritual murder. There is tension in the air and a pogrom threatens to erupt. Suddenly, an extraordinary man—Moshe the dreamer, a madman and mystic—steps forward and confesses to a crime he did not commit, in a vain attempt to save his people from certain death. The community gathers to hear his last words—a plea for silence—and everyone present takes an oath: whoever survives the impending tragedy must never speak of the town’s last days and nights of terror.

For fifty years the sole survivor keeps his oath—until he meets a man whose life depends on hearing the story, and one man’s loyalty to the dead confronts head-on another’s reason to go on living.

One of Wiesel’s strongest early novels, this timeless parable about the Jews and their enemies, about hate, family, friendship, and silence, is as powerful, haunting, and significant as it was when first
published in 1973. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

An Incredible Testimony
"The Oath" sets out to tell the story of the town of Kolvillag, a Jewish community that no longer exists and no one remembers.Exactly what hapened in that town has been repressed and kept a secret by any of those who survived.They will be cursed if they talk about the fateful events that happened in Kolvillag.Yet there is one survivor, Azriel, who finds that he must tell this story, even if it goes against the oath.

Wiesel's story unfolds in the very beginning, as a dialogue of sorts between Azriel and a young man who is ready to take his own life.This "dialogue" is somewhat confusing at first, as the reader is not sure whom is speaking which lines.Azriel is affronted by this man's desire to take his life, an action that goes directly agains the Talmud and the Jewish faith, and he believes the story of Kolvillag may save this young man.He therefore tells the story of his master and mentor, Moshe, the madman of Kolvillag.In the 1920s, a Christian boy is found murdered and the Christians in the community begin to spread rumors, and then to believe these rumors, that the Jews are responsible.(The term Christian could easily fall into quotation marks since it only implies ethnicity, not action; for the actions of these men are hardly Christian.)In order to preserve and protect the Jews, Moshe decides to take the fall and admit to the murder of a young boy he has never met.He hopes that his action will appease those who oppose the Jews.How wrong he turns out to be.The Christians, hungry for blood, might not be satisfied with the blood of one; they might demand the blood of all.

Wiesel is a master storyteller, weaving his faith so artfully with his fiction that "The Oath" reads as a factual event.Perhaps it is because it describes the seemingly endless plight of Jews and the persecution they have endured for generations.The holocaust of Kolvillag is the precursor for the Holocaust of World War II.Wiesel's words are often profound and philosophical and are rooted deeply in faith and tradition."The Oath" is an incredible story of the ties that bind us to our faith and traditions, and how hard it is to break those ties; it is even more incredible for the very possibility that Kolvillag (or a town just like it) actually existed at one time.

A topic which few dare to write about
The book, the Oath, was an exceptional book. It was filled with creative narrative, and was delivered in a way, that structured the book in a creative manner. If you are interested in a book about humanity at it's worst, Jews in their most volnurable stages, and the life of a poor child who makes an oath never to tell about his past, then this book is for you. It is based on true events which happened throughout history, and will open your eyes to the old world of hasidism, a world that has changed since the holocaust. The Oath is a great book which everyone should read. ... Read more

Product Description
Elie Wiesel is a master storyteller with the ability to use storytelling as a form of activism. From his landmark memoir Night to his novels and numerous retellings of Hasidic legends, Wiesel’s literature emphasizes storytelling, and he frequently refers to himself as a storyteller rather than an author or historian. In this work, essays examine Wiesel’s roots in Jewish storytelling traditions; influences from religious, folk, and secular sources; education; Yiddish background; Holocaust experience; and writing style. Emphasized throughout is Wiesel’s use of multiple sources in an effort to reach diverse audiences. ... Read more

Product Description
Gamaliel Friedman is only a child when his family flees Czechoslovakia in 1939 for the relative safety of Hungary. For him, it will be the beginning of a life of rootlessness, disguise, and longing. Five years later, in desperation, Gamaliel’s parents entrust him to a young Christian cabaret singer named Ilonka. With his Jewish identity hidden, Gamaliel survives the war. But in 1956, to escape the stranglehold of communism, he leaves Budapest after painfully parting from Ilonka.

Gamaliel tries, unsuccessfully, to find a place for himself in Europe. After a failed marriage, he moves to New York, where he works as a ghostwriter, living through the lives of others. Eventually he falls in with a group of exiles, including a rabbi––a mystic whose belief in the potential for grace in everyday life powerfully counters Gamaliel’s feelings of loss and dispossession. When Gamaliel is asked to help draw out an elderly, disfigured Hungarian woman who may be his beloved Ilonka, he begins to understand that a real life in the present is possible only if he will reconcile with his past. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (6)

Left to Wander the Earth
With all of the novels that Elie Wiesel has written, it may seem like a difficult task to write a story with a fresh take on Jewish history and the lingering aftermath of the Holocaust.Yet with "The Time of the Uprooted", Wiesel mangages to do just that, although in a slightly more convoluted and confusing manner than usual.Best known for his time shifting rambles through past and present, "The Time of the Uprooted" lacks a lot of cohesiveness that his other novels have to tie their stories up, not to mention jolting shifts between differing points of view.

The narrator of this tale is Gamaliel, a Hungarian refugee who lost both parents to the concentration camps while he was saved by a Christian cabaret singer named Ilonka.The reader gains insight into Gamaliel's distant past bit by slow bit; the majority of the narrative is taken up with the more recent past, and with tales told by his fellow refugee friends.When he receives a call to visit a dying Hungarian woman in the hospital, Gamaliel believes he may finally meet up with his war time savior, but the old woman's face is scared beyond recognition and he may be too late.All of this unfolds in the span of one day, but the quantity of stories that fill these pages distorts that time span.

Eloquently written as always with prose as beautiful as poetry, Wiesel proves yet again why he is a master storyteller worthy of his craft."The Time of the Uprooted", while definitely not his best novel, is an aching examination of despair and the meager glimpses of hope that get one through life's trials and tribulations.Will Gamaliel finally find what he has been seeking for his whole life and will he recognize it as such when he does so?It is a familiar question often with surprising and difficulty attained answers.

Uprooting the roots of the Holocaust
From May 25-28 2006 a pope from Germany, Benedict XVI, visited Poland, in part to honor the memory of his predecessor, John Paul II, in part to call upon the religious faith of this largely Roman Catholic nation to revitalize the Christian roots of Europe. During his visit to Auschwitz -- which called forth memories of my own visit on October 31, 1987 -- the pope noted that the Holocaust was an attempt to slay the God of Abraham.

Truly this is "The Time of the Uprooted."Any endeavor to identify the Christian roots of Europe must begin by uprooting the historic roots of that which renders us oblivious to the obvious, the three faiths of Abraham: Judaism, Christianity and Islam.How do we at once recognize and acknowledge one another's sameness and otherness?Is each faith set "apart from" the others for its own sake?Or is each faith "a part of" a Divine Providence to which Abraham chose to respond?

Apart from an uprooting of all that which sets us apart from one another, we are refugees on fragile planet that offers no refuge.

Pondering the "silence" of God during the Holocaust, I find refuge, during this, his centennial year, in the thought of Emmanuel Levinas, noting that both Wiesel and Levinas studied under Mordechai Chouchani.One-anothered into existence, we never cease one-anothering one another into the fullness of our humanity, a one-anothering that entrusts us with the responsibilities of Historical Providence.

Very beautifuly written book, and yet...
I find that this novel is about a loser in life and I cannot stand reading about losers. Simply, the main character Gamliel had a "mild"experience as compared to others who survived the war. And yet for some reason Elie enjoys writing about losers in life who are searching for love, never happy, busy or accomplished. There is more to life than that and certainly more to Judaism.

Elie is at his best when he writes non fiction about real people such as in Souls on fire, Sages and Dreamers. It is a real shame that he wrote more novels than non fiction works and yet there is still time to rectify that... and yet...

BG

did not understand, buthow could I?
This book is one that will make you think.I cannot understand the history of the author, I was born in 1951.Because of that, I can also not understand the history of the characters as much as I would like... I can only imagine, and I don't always like what I see.

Gamaleil, the protagonist (sp?) speaks of what it means to be a refugee, and a stateless person.His words are powerful.

He also speaks of other persons who he met....some funny, some tragic and some religious.And, most important to me in this book, he spoke of where he did not belong.

Something I took from this book, and the reason that I would recommend it is...well...two things

first, and foremost....we must try do do the best we can, especially if we can do so with a sense of humor (after all, Gamaliel and friends named their group with humor, macabre though it was).

But also, we need to work together for good.The past is horrific, let's all work on the future.

Mr. Wiesel's book gave understated hope for our future.

It is a book well worth reading.... take your time... your time will be well spent.

A deeply moving meditation on hope and despair
Elie Wiesel's THE TIME OF THE UPROOTED shouldn't work. With its sudden shifts in point of view, disturbingly eloquent children, truncated storylines and generally convoluted, if scanty, plot, the book should be a disappointment. But the Nobel Prize winner's meditation on despair and hope in the face of both the unthinkable and the mundane is deeply moving.

Wiesel (and his translator, David Hapgood) skillfully controls the mood of the work, immersing the reader in the sadness of Gamaliel Friedman, a man whose life has been a series of struggles. A childhood spent in hiding from the Nazis and an adulthood spent in unhappy romances have left Gamaliel irreparably harmed.

Spiritual issues are pervasive in this book. A ghostwriter, Gamaliel is at work on a story of his own centered on a conflict between a rabbi and a priest. He is also enamored of a rabbi seeking to force the arrival of the Messiah. And he is preoccupied with a woman, near death, who he imagines might be the woman who protected him as a child. Each interlocking piece of his life adds heft to the book's spiritual themes.

Gamaliel's relationships with women, central to the story, are almost cursorily described. Each seems a rich vein of material that Wiesel barely mines. Indeed, the same could be said of many of the plot points.

THE TIME OF THE UPROOTED often feels like a slimmed down version of a potentially more ornately layered tale. Ultimately, however, Wiesel stirs the reader's emotions with economy and power.

--- Reviewed by Rob Cline ([...]) ... Read more

Customer Reviews (14)

loss of identity/triumph over despair
the gavriel/gregor failure to reconciliate shows a devastating loss of identity for the protagonist.at this point he believes he is a genuine
nowhere man.but...there is a "dot" left in his soul brought out by his
surroundings, the yeshiva boy, & zman shachris - the MORNING prayer time,
a time of resurrection of the spirit.so he dons the phylacteries & says
the kaddish reborn in the memory of Leib the Lion...

An incredible literary piece
Alongside 'A beggar in Jerusalem', in my opinion, this is the author's finest book. It is a rare journey into a vital yet hauntingly esoteric perspective on existence. I truly agree with the other reviews suggesting that this work should not be viewed as belonging solely to the Holocaust genre. The interplay of plot and undertone alongside the sane and the insane allow the mind to soar - and falter.

Into the Woods
As with his other fiction, Elie Wiesel has crafted a story that encompasses the Jewish history of suffering, with the Holocaust central to the tale. What separates "The Gates of the Forest" from other
works is its very nature, which consists of a story told through other stories.The main character, known as Gregor and not by his real name, exists and survives merely through the stories that others tell
him and the ones that he re-enacts as he tries to find himself.

Gregor goes into hiding that he might not be captured and sent to the work camps.He is holed up in a cave when he encounters another Jew, one who escaped from the transport, known as Gavriel.Through stories,
Gavriel helps Gregor to understand what is actually happening in the outside world, and sacrifices his own life so that Gregor might live.Gregor then searches out an old family friend, who hides his identitity
from the town by crafting a tale that he is her mute nephew.Gregor serves as a confessor for the townspeople, until he is called upon to enact the role of Judas in the local passion play and the tables are
turned.He then takes refuge with a band of partisans hiding in the woods, at last able to seek justice for his captured friend.Each tale unfolds like a season of Gregor's life, told in flashback, with many
questions raised before answers are found.In the final chapter, the reader meets Gregor as an old man, still searching for the meaning of his life, still searching for his real name, at last able to recognize
the path he needs to follow.

"The Gates of the Forest" will be familiar territory to anyone who has read Elie Wiesel's fiction.He has concerned his literature with the sufferings of the Jewish people, of survivors who are haunted by their
past, by what they did or failed to do.His own experience in the concentration camps and surviving the Holocaust has been a wellspring of creativity for his fictional accounts.The tale of Gregor and those
he encounters is that of every Jew, is that of anyone who has been lost and found their way.

Another amazing book by Weisel
Since Elie Wiesel's original trilogy he's been the quintessential Holocaust writer. This is a mixed blessing, since Wiesel is not just a Holocaust survivor but also one of the greatest philosophers of the 20th century, on par with Emmanuel Levinas. He has seen humanity at its worst and his love for G-d and the human race still runs through his writing.

This is a strange book about a nameless survivor running from place to place. He's haunted by a stranger who knows more than he's letting on. He takes a role as a deaf mute learning all the secrets that he never wanted to hear and he's both an observer and a victim of Europe. When the book ends the first thing you want to do is read it again. Much of it is confusing, but a lot of it is profound - and it just gets better on repeat readings.

A response to SOPHIA, and all the other Sophias out there
In response to Sophia's review - and for the benefit of those who might be misled by it - Wiesel's "Gates of the Forest" is powerful not because it is a story of the Holocaust, but because it is a story of Everyman. It is, at its core, a story of grappling with existence, yet without trying to label it as "the Absurd" (Camus), "Nausea" (Sartre), or "Dread" (Heidegger). Sophia, this is so much more than "just another Holocaust story," and I can't help but wonder if your zealous attempt to pigeonhole this incredible opus into that singular genre reflects a deeper fear you have of the themes of this book. After all, if this is "just another Holocaust story," you could explain away any bearing it might have on you as a person. But if it is more than that - and it IS MORE THAN THAT - then the book demands a reaction from you. To all the Sophias out there, this book is a life-changing read, but only if you are willing to live like someone who is alive. Your review saddens me, Sophia, but I am hopeful for you and others like you that one day you will wake up and decide to live deliberately. To those willing to think, this book is worth reading once a year, every year, for the rest of your life. ... Read more