Declare Books As The Wall

Original Title: The Wall
ISBN: 0394756967 (ISBN13: 9780394756967)
Edition Language: English
Setting: Warsaw Ghetto(Poland)
Literary Awards: Anisfield-Wolf Book Award for Fiction (1951), National Jewish Book Award for Fiction (1950)
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The Wall Paperback | Pages: 640 pages
Rating: 4.28 | 1871 Users | 66 Reviews

Identify Out Of Books The Wall

Title:The Wall
Author:John Hersey
Book Format:Paperback
Book Edition:Deluxe Edition
Pages:Pages: 640 pages
Published:March 12th 1988 by Vintage Books (first published 1950)
Categories:Historical. Historical Fiction. Fiction. World War II. Holocaust. War

Commentary In Favor Of Books The Wall

In the Warsaw Ghetto there was an underground group of archivists known as the Oyneg Shabbes. Their function was to chronicle the Nazi atrocities for posterity. These journals were famously buried in parts of the ghetto. Some were later discovered; others weren't. John Hersey writes this novel in the form of one of these fictitious journals. He reports the conversations he has with a group of disparate characters, including a Jewish Policeman, members of the Jewish council, smugglers, Gestapo informers and fighters. It's a form that allows him to load the book with information, cram in as much of his research as possible - in other words it gives him the overview scope of a non-fiction book. What's lost in this process is dramatic tension. The individual characters are dwarfed by all the historical information. Also, various genuine journals have survived so why write or read a fictitious one? If historical novels are to provide us with an experience that eludes non-fiction books, it's critical they press us up much more closely to the events described through an empathy with the central characters. In many ways The Wall is the novelist playing safe - he is admitting his own limitations by cocooning himself in a bunker and relying on other voices to tell him what happened. For me he could have been imaginatively braver; he could have embraced the spirit of fiction more daringly instead of submitting so conscientiously to chronicling facts. Fiction at its best transcends fact. (Lauren Binet playfully examined the fact vs fiction conflict so brilliantly in his novel HHhH.) I recently read a real journal of the Ghetto which got me interested in the subject and one of the fascinating things about it was the profusion of untrue rumour or, in modern parlance, fake news. Fake news abounded in the ghetto where virtually all contact with the outside world was cut off. The populace was made all the more insecure by not having a clue what to believe and what to disbelieve. Intelligence deteriorated into ignorance and ignorance is the first step to mindlessness, to dehumanisation. Hersey has the hindsight to correct all the fake news. So, most of what he writes is uncannily true - except, conversely, it wasn't true in spirit because often he was giving his archivist his own hindsight. What this means, is this novel occupies a kind of hinterland between fiction and non-fiction - but again without the irony Binet masters in HHhH. As I said, the form of the novel, reported conversations with his cast of characters, might allow him to load the novel with information from different perspectives but it doesn't favour dramatic tension. Never is this more apparent than during the uprising itself, perhaps the most difficult of all ghetto events to imagine, and this is the weakest part of the novel - probably because it's also the hardest part of the true story to research. Most participants died, survivors only experienced the fight against the Nazis in a piecemeal fashion. The most baffling aspect of the uprising was how so few individuals completely untrained in handling weapons managed to hold out longer against the Germans than the entire Polish nation. You can't help wondering why the Nazis fled so easily. It's hard to believe many were killed by individuals firing a loaded weapon with so little ammunition for the first time in their lives from great distances. Without wanting to belittle the achievements of the Jewish fighters in any way you have to assume that the SS regiments engaged in the ghetto fighting, unlike the Wehrmacht, were a cowardly bunch. Typical bullies in other words. They didn't like being shot at. There's a lot of wisdom in this novel and, despite its flaws, it does give a comprehensive picture of what life in the Warsaw Ghetto entailed so I'd recommend it if you're interested in the subject matter. I'd also recommend it to lovers of dystopian fiction as the Warsaw Ghetto might serve as the archetypal end of time experience for anyone who lived there.

Rating Out Of Books The Wall
Ratings: 4.28 From 1871 Users | 66 Reviews

Crit Out Of Books The Wall
I am not surprised if you have not heard of this book, but please, please read it. It's one of the most incredible pieces of literature I have ever picked up. It is the archives of a man named Noach Levinson who lived through the Warsaw ghetto and chronicled in minute detail his experiences and the lives of those around him. It is both fascinating and terribly heartbreaking to see the way in which the Jews in Warsaw were systematically destroyed through the eyes of one of their own. I have never

OMG! Everyone needs to read this book. It is an old, a true story. It is very important to know that although this book is a novel, it is based on true events, not loosely. Read the preface and you will see what I mean.There is an archive in existence that validates ALL of the factual information.This is a very, very important piece of history. There was also a movie and Broadway playmany years ago. The movie is still floating around out there. It did not lend itself wellto the live stage. The

One of the best and most important novels I've read. The story follows the lives (if you can call it life) of a dozen of the half million Jews trapped in the Warsaw ghetto during the war, their struggles to cope, to live life, to survive, as the wall is built, conditions steadily worsen in the face of hunger, disease, and Nazi "manhunts," and fellow citizens are "deported." Some try to persevere, some try to escape, some try to fight back, some just give up. Though this is a fictional novel, it

Not at all what I thought I remembered from my first reading mote than 50 years ago--almost clinical in its structure.

I found this book difficult, at first, to read due to many characters/honorifics/streets/locations/ in Polish, Yiddish, Hebrew. After fighting my way past this hurdle, this book is riveting. I've read many accounts of the Warsaw ghetto uprising, but the way that Hersey presents as a day by day account adds to the realism.

This was a very hard read emotionally, and it was also stunningly beautiful. I'll write more on my blog soon.

Tremendous. Hard to read, as any novel set in the Warsaw ghetto should be. And yet I could not put it down.