Day

By Elie Weisel

Book Review by Nicole LaMarco

Day was previously titled The Accident, but was changed to Day and now has a new preface by the author, Elie Weisel. Eisel has authored more than forty books of nonfiction and fiction works. In this book, Day is a wonderful conclusion to his fantastic Night trilogy.

The previous title did fit well, but with the amazing way this author can turn one incident into a breath-taking novel, it deserves a better title than The Accident. The base of the story is about an accident the author did experience in real life. He was hit by a cab driver while crossing the street to see a movie with his love. The narration in this novel is wonderfully detailed, one who has survived the Holocaust. Weisel did survive the Holocaust in real life, but refuses to write about most of his experiences because he was a prisoner for what he thinks was just a short time while others lived out their last breaths there. His guilt and angst is very evident in his works.

While in the hospital the character finds himself again troubled with his past and haunted by the experiences of the Holocaust. He finds it incredibly difficult to move on in life when he can’t move past his experiences in the past, and the past feels so close. He fights to begin a new life in New York, but can’t seem to because all he can think about is his horrific past and how all of that has made him who he is today.

Day goes through a wide variety of struggles, reflections and depression. Remembering the past it is so hard for one to create a new future. Day goes through an astounding and randomness of this man’s thoughts and feelings from the profound thoughts of suicide to the memories that haunt him, as well as how he thinks about the past and the people who were there with him.

Weisel amazes me when I read his work because he is such a talented and simple writer. Page by page I keep reading just to find out what the man’s next thoughts will be, or what problem he shall face next. Day is much more interesting when you know and feel that Weisel has taken his own experiences from the Holocaust and has written his sorrows and reflections into his books. It makes the reading much more personal and interesting to read. It takes the reader not only to another place and time; it takes him or her to someone else’s thoughts and feelings.

His writing is solid, yet somewhat so delicate you cannot even skip one word for it all fits together like a puzzle, and if you leave even a single word out you will miss out on the whole story. There is no fluff in Weisel’s writing. He writes only what he needs to in order to eloquently tell his story and nothing more.

Reading Day after Dawn was especially intriguing and I certainly plan on reading Night to finish off the trilogy. How could I simply leave my readings of Weisel to just two books when he has authored more than forty books? I admire this writing because it is so simple and eloquent all at the same time! Not only is he a talented writer, he has also found an astonishing way to vent his thoughts, his anguishes into beautifully written, award winning novels.

Weisel has been awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the United States of America Congressional Gold Medal, the French Legion of Honor, and, in 1986, the Nobel Peace Prize. He is now a professor in the Andrew W. Mellon Humanities and University Professor at Boston University.

To meet this man in person and be able to converse with him must be such an experience and an honor. His words and advice could be the best thing anyone could ever receive. Those being taught and guided by Weisel in the Andrew W. Mellon Humanities and at the Boston University should feel such a gratefulness to even be in his presence, not because I think he is a celebrity of sorts, but because he has such wisdom and pure talent.

Sean Connery will be in Scotland on Monday (on his 78th birthday) to launch his autobiography title Being a Scot. It’s not a very creative title for his book, but I am sure the Scot and former James Bond actor will sell many copies. I am looking forward to reading it myself.
We will get a peek at what it is like to be a proud Scot and have a little reading experience with Sean Connery’s childhood.

He has been a great actor in many movies including the first James Bond, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, The Hunt for Red October, and The Untouchables.

Sean Connery will be in Edinburgh, Scotland with his co-author, Murray Grigor to reveal his brand new autobiography, Being a Scot.

Dawn

By Elie Wiesel

Book Review by Nicole LaMarco

Weisel’s writing is amazing to read. He strings words together like a beautiful rhythm where you do not want to stop because you might break that rhythm. However, when you return to reading the story you find that the same rhythm is still there and that brings about a sense of relief and familiarity.

Wiesel was way ahead of his time when he wrote these two books. The way he switches so effortlessly between the current time in the book and the past story of the main characters is sweet and so entertaining. In this sense, Wiesel’s writing reminds me of the way Quentin Tarantino puts together scenes in his movies – where there is a beginning, middle and an end, but not necessarily in that order. It keeps the reading interesting and up to speed with your thought pattern as you are reading.

I am amazed at how Weisel is able to put the simplest words together to make the most wonderful prose. He truly is a storyteller and has the incredible talent to do so.

Dawn is a novel about a young boy (Elisha) who has been through the holocaust, lost his family, and then is made a fighter in the resistance. He fights with teams, together in the night. They take orders and go on missions to take down the military. However, now he finds himself waiting for dawn to arrive because he has been ordered to execute a British man. There are no more groups fighting in the dark, it is just he and another man condemned to death. Elisha is now faced with fears, old memories, and even the dead who are there to help him through this.

Weisel is an amazing writer with true talent for words. He brings life to his story so easily with his descriptions. Dawn focuses on the changing of a boy – how a boy can change and know he will change with what is to come, with his actions. I found a greater theme in this book I like to call kill or be killed, and the boy in this book encounters this at all levels. He becomes the boy who must kill or be killed, however, the boy feels so many different things in his world. They bring sense to a world filled with death, destruction and chaos, and at the same time it merely discusses how death affects us.

Weisel’s storytelling is amazing in that once you begin to read one line of his work you will have this feeling inside yourself that will not allow you to stop reading until there is nothing left to read. Although this story is focused on one main event of a boy’s life, Weisel can fill a novel with the boy’s feelings, thoughts, inner uproar, and regret. Although this story is about a moment in history we would all like to forget about, it takes us right to the people who had been there and lost everything. They not only lost the lives of their loved ones, they lost hope, a desire for life, and gained an incredible insight to life, mankind, and the workings of all men as a whole. This boy, at such a young age, has the thoughts and feelings of a much older man. What he experiences is the things we experience when we can look at life knowing all too well about the inevitable death that walks within us all. The struggles this boy goes through and creates for himself are fascinating, as we have all experienced some type of suffering at one point or another. We can all relate to this boy with his grown up feelings and thoughts. We can all learn from his actions and experiences.

Sometimes I will get frustrated reading a book because of the way it begins or ends, but Weisel knows mankind more than he would like to, I think. Even with what is going on today – what we see on the news, what we hear on the radio – it can all be related to what Weisel is telling us in this book called Dawn.

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Nicole LaMarco