Night (Oprah's Book Club) | Elie Wiesel | Simple, thought provoking

Night (Oprah's Book Club) | Elie Wiesel | Great book

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Night (Oprah's Boo...

	Night (Oprah's Book Club) Elie Wiesel Hill and Wang, 2006 - 120 pages average customer review:based on 628 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Simple, thought provoking

I've never read such a short book with such a huge impact. When I read this as part of a college class, we learned that it was originally some 600 pages long. Then the author decided to cut it down to the absolute bare bones - and it worked brilliantly.

Too much writing could cushion the devastation - getting bogged down in details could allow a reader to become jaded. However, such stark minimalism forces a reader to think about what is being said. And significantly, Wiesel doesn't describe every horror. He leads us to the brink, and lets the reader imagine the next step. Rather like watching a horror movie and seeing a character walk into the dark without seeing what happens to them. Just as many Jewish families had to do during this time, when loved ones were taken away never to return. The intentionally large gaps between some of the paragraphs faithfully evoke the silence the author needs to convey so a reader must contemplate what has passed.

Much like "The Color Purple" evoked the reality of blacks in that time with the deceptively simple diary of one young black woman, "Night" reveals the tangible horror the Jews faced around WWII from the eyes of a Jewish boy. I have seen the film version of The Color Purple, and also Schindler's List. Both are strong films, but they lack the power of this simple narrative. The best book I have ever read about the tragedy of the Holocaust.

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Great book

If you haven't read this book then you must read it. I have nothing else to say about it than that. The feelings and emotions this book stirred within me are too great to put into words. At the end of the book there is a speech given by Elie Wiesel and there were two phrases that jumped out at me and that's what I will finish with.

Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented. Sometimes we must interfere.

Very moving, impactful, horrific......

Very well written. Gets to the point. This is the FIRST book I've read (other than Diary of Anne Frank) about the concentration camps & the horrific plight of those who endured them. I CAN say - Weisel does an excellent job of conveying what happened during the years being confined and moved among camps. And fortunately for us - he paints a good enough picture of the experience without having to go in to more details that he easily could have. It makes you want to go back in time & CHANGE what happened. It makes me NOT want to read anymore on this subject b/c of the unspeakable horrors that existed & no one did anything about.

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So sad, so much pain