Chattahoochee River
Wednesday, February 11, 2015
The Look in His Eyes
The final lines of the book can't help but leave the reader with a strange mix of relief, disillusionment, and contemplation. Though it definitely wasn't the most satisfying ending that I've read, it was unmistakably the realest. I don't know about everyone else, but I know that I still enjoy the whimsical, "fairy-tale" endings that can be found in children's books because they provide that sense of fulfillment and resolution that's often absent from life. They allow me to imagine that even as the story concludes, the characters continue to live on in happiness... Night is the complete opposite. And I think that's what's made it such a truly remarkable piece of literature. Unlike the idealistic books of my childhood, Night reminds me that life isn't all rainbows and sunshine... and even when it is, bows of color are dimmer and the sunshine feels more like a curse rather than a blessing. Night reminds us that the capacity of the human will, which is so beautifully dangerous, has the power to not only execute something as horrendous as the Holocaust, but to also author something as illuminating and powerful as Night.
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I agree with you Chinyere that it was such a real ending, but I'm not sure we can conclude that Elie Wiesel didn't have a happy life. The very fact that he wrote the book, that his wife translated it into English, that he went on to write many books I believe is the "silver lining" in a sense. I think the fact that he became a writer and brought this atrocity to light for generations of people (for an indefinite amount of generations, presumably) can be the blessing. What do you think?
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