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Night

Night

List Price: $5.99
Your Price: $5.39
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Wrestling with God
Review: Elie Wiesel was a twelve-year old Jew who was completely devoted to learning all he could about his religion. In Night Elie's faith is shaken when he sees his people suffering, so he has to reevaluate God in his life.

The God of Elie Wiesel's Jewish belief is the same God addressed by David in Psalm 22. Feeling like God may not hear, or may not exist, even, is nothing new. It is certainly not a novel idea uniquely occurring to Mr. Wiesel as a fifteen-year old prisoner. David wrote:

My God, my God! Why have you forsaken me?
Why do you remain distant?
Why do you ignore my cries for help?

Every day I call to you, my God,
but you do not answer.
Every night you hear my voice, but I find no relief.
(Psalm 22:1-2, New Living Translation)

Elie is actually echoing his faith tradition, by honestly seeking God, and giving voice to his doubts that God hears. So it is easy to see his record of doubt as recorded in Night as a snapshot of what he is going through, not a systematic refutation of the existence of God. But that is exactly how it strikes him at the time.

Elie says his God is murdered. He refers to the hanging of the 'angel' boy as symbolizing this. Yet the angel boy was killed by people, just as the first murder victim, Abel, was killed by Cain. A more appropriate reference might be the killing of Jesus, since Christians (and some Jews, at the time) believe Jesus shared God's nature. The implications of actually killing God, then, do not necessarily imply the end of God. In Elie's view towards life, however, there is no resurrected God. He quotes the rabbi (Page 73): 'It's the end. God is no longer with us.' Wiesel then (two paragraphs later) refers to Calvary (his only Christ reference): 'Poor Akiba Drumer, if he could have gone on believing in God, if he could have seen a proof of God in this Calvary'' Yet, this is Elie quoting others. Does he himself say God is no more, if God ever was? Elie may feel that his belief is drained from him, like his tears, (Page 106) which do not flow after his own father finally dies, but Elie, as a fifteen-year old, is not ready to really personally say that he believes God is dead. Yet he dwells in the same turmoil documented by David in the Psalms. He comes close to renouncing God (on pages 64 and 65), but looking at it closely, he deflects a categorical rejection of God. He simply rejects the idea of the new Jewish year of Rosh Hoshana possibly being 'happy.' He also feels a void on the day of atonement (Yom Kippur) he chooses not to celebrate, as he feels a great 'void' in his heart (Page 66).

Elie says he feels like Job. Yet Job believed God existed. The book of Job records Jobs conversations with God. Elie's reference to Job is just a partial thought: 'How I sympathized with Job! I did not deny God's existence, but I doubted His absolute justice.' In fact, Elie prays to the God he says exists: 'I thanked God, in an improvised prayer, for having created mud in His infinite and wonderful universe.'(Page 35). This same universe confronted Job, who is told by God: 'Who is this that questions my wisdom with such ignorant words? Brace yourself, because I have some questions for you, and you must answer them. Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Tell me, if you know so much.' (Job 38:2-4). Elie does not take the full measure of Job, when he refers to him. But this is understandable under the duress of concentration camp. Indeed, the first thirty-seven chapters of Job are filled with the exact same kinds of complaint against God.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Night
Review: Night by Elie Wiesel is a book witch lets you peer into and have a look at what the consintration camps were like. The book is about survival, and what you may do to survive. Elie Wiesel uses supurb imagery throught the book, from the senery to describing a haning taking place in the camp. The book tells of the death of Elie's God through the trials of the camps and how he coped and how others strugeling with him copes with the terrors they faced by there Nazi pursucators.
When reading this book it makes you stop and wonder of how such otrosities could ever take place, and how the human mind could ever have the capacity to survive a hellesh place such as Auschwitz.
I recomend you read this book and try to put yourself in Elie Wiesel's place through every page. This book is a must have and a must read.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Night
Review: Night was an amazing and terrifying account of the Holocaust. It was such an intense book that I felt that I was part of the camps prisioners. For the first time I realized the hatred and torchure the Jews really went through. The words Wiesel used provided such great imagry that I could see myself watching the hangings, smelling the smoke of the burning bodies, witnessing beatings and starvation. Night teaches you so much about power, survival, and staying with who you truely love. I recommend this book to anyone looking for a wonderful book with good messages.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Life in a concentration camp
Review: "Night" was an interesting account of what went on in the concentration camps during World War Two. Elie Wiesel is the main character in the book. He tells us of his touching story, and how hard life was for him. You can't help but be touched by this book. Elie struggled to keep himself, and his father alive.

It starts off in the village of Sighet, Romania. The authorities began pushing Jews into trains and sending them off to Auschwitz-Birkenau complex. In the cattle car Jewish villagers were struggling to survive with minimal food and water. Space was very limited also. One of the Jews began hallucinating visions of flame and furnaces. Elie and his father have to lie about their age so they can depart with the other men. Elie's mother and sisters depart to a different concentration camp. Elie and his father are struggling to stay healthy so they can keep working. They then have to start sorting electrical parts in a factory.

Darwin's theory of survival of the fittest clashes horribly with the Declaration of Independence, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. When Elie gets separated from his family you can tell he lost a part of himself, a part of his happiness. For some death was the only way out.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: a real account
Review: this is an amazing book, because the writer is not long-winded or flamboyant. he displays the horrors of those days dreadfully clear, to the people of today. his simple, yet explosive technique is what drove home the reality of this time period. how many people of this age can say they would react to this tradgedy the same way that all those brave souls did? the authors family is strong, and the book shows the strength of spirit in even the "simpliest" of men.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Heartbreaking view of a bitter reality
Review: what makes Elie Wiesel's "Night" so amazing is NOT that he writes about the Holocaust: plenty of authors have done so not nearly as well.

It's the terseness with which he writes, that makes this account so powerful. He writes this account so matter of factly, so unemotionally that one cannot help but feel the numbness that he must have felt while being a prisoner there. One gets the feeling that to be numb there was to survive. It is heartbreakingly truthful without all of the flowery filler that we are so used to in today's writing.

Not many books move me to tears. This one did.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Good Book, well written. Actually a 4.5 but I cant do that.
Review: Reading this book gave me a perspective I previously hadn't had, and answered some questions I had about the Holocaust in general, such as how they managed to do something so horrible to such a large minority. I hadn't previously realized that the Jews had their rights stripped first then were slightly mistreated, leading up to their being badly mistreated and eventually to their murders and the genocide that is now known as the Holocaust. After reading this book I'll never look at the situation from such an uninformed point of view and can more accurately what really happened.
Truly a masterfully crafted book relating a story, albeit with some fictional license, that appealed to both the emotional and intellectual. Emotional in that he told the story in such a way that it made the reader feel for the character, while telling the story in a well written easily readable format.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Horrificly Excellent
Review: This book was selected as the second book of the One Book, One Chicago series, and I am very pleased it was or I would have missed an amazing reading experience. The book details Elie Wiesel's own story of his life in the concentration camps during World War II. His story piercingly describes the horror and the pain that he fought every day to save his own life. Being separated from his mother and sister as soon as he arrives at the camp, the young Elie develops a deeply intense relationship with his father, a man he was never close too before the horror of the camps began. Wiesel lets you into the struggle of his life, showing the inhumane attrocities committed upon him and the other camp residents. Along the way, Wiesel becomes a man at the tender age of 13, caring for his father and becoming the strong one in the growing relationship. The book is short and powerful. It does not use any showy language and clearly speaks to the point in describing the situations Wiesel endured. This book deserves 5 stars for its clarity and the pure power of his story.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Important book
Review: A paragraph cannot possibly describe the profound importance of this book. A must read for the entire 'human' species.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A MUST READ for anyone interested in the Holocaust.
Review: Dark and disturing -- but an excellent read. Writing is superb as I saw before me, everything that the author described. A good quick read for anyone interested in the holocaust.


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