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The Story of ‘Night’

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By Rachel Donadio

• Jan. 20, 2008

This fall, Elie Wiesel’s “Night” was removed from the New York Times best-seller list, where it had spent an impressive 80 weeks after Oprah Winfrey picked it for her book club. The Times’s news survey department, which compiles the list, decided the Holocaust memoir wasn’t a new best seller but a classic like “Animal Farm” or “To Kill a Mockingbird,” which sell hundreds of thousands of copies a year largely through course adoptions. Indeed, since it appeared in 1960, “Night” has sold an estimated 10 million copies — three million of them since Winfrey chose the book in January 2006 (and traveled with Wiesel to Auschwitz).

But “Night” had taken a long route to the best-seller list. In the late 1950s, long before the advent of Holocaust memoirs and Holocaust studies, Wiesel’s account of his time at Auschwitz and Buchenwald was turned down by more than 15 publishers before the small firm Hill & Wang finally accepted it. How “Night” became an evergreen is more than a publishing phenomenon. It is also a case study in how a book helped created a genre, how a writer became an icon and how the Holocaust was absorbed into the American experience.

Raised in an Orthodox family in Sighet, Transylvania, Wiesel was liberated from Buchenwald at age 16. In unsentimental detail, “Night” recounts daily life in the camps — the never-ending hunger, the sadistic doctors who pulled gold teeth, the Kapos who beat fellow Jews. On his first day in the camps, Wiesel was separated forever from his mother and sister. At Auschwitz, he watched his father slowly succumb to dysentery before the SS beat him to within an inch of his life. Wiesel writes honestly about his guilty relief at his father’s death. In the camps, the formerly observant boy underwent a profound crisis of faith; “Night” was one of the first books to raise the question: where was God at Auschwitz?

Working as a journalist in his mid-20s, Wiesel wrote the first version of “Night” in Yiddish as “Und di Velt Hot Geshvign” (“And the World Remained Silent”) while on assignment in Brazil. But it wasn’t until he returned to Paris and met François Mauriac, a noted Catholic novelist and journalist, that “Night” took the shape we know today. Mauriac urged Wiesel to rewrite the book in French and promised to write a preface. Still, “it was rejected by the major publishers,” Wiesel recalled in a recent interview, “although it was brought to them by François Mauriac, the greatest, greatest writer and journalist in France, a Catholic, a Nobel Prize-winner with all the credentials.” Les Éditions de Minuit brought it out in 1958, but it sold poorly.

The American response was similarly tepid. Georges Borchardt, Wiesel’s longtime literary agent and himself a Holocaust survivor, sent the French manuscript to New York publishers in 1958 and 1959, to little effect. “Nobody really wanted to talk about the Holocaust in those days,” Borchardt said. “The Diary of Anne Frank,” published in the United States in 1952, had been a huge success, but it did not take readers into the horror of the camps. Although “Night” had sophisticated literary motifs and a quiet elegance, American publishers worried it was more a testimonial than a work of literature. “It is, as you say, a horrifying and extremely moving document, and I wish I could say this was something for Scribner’s,” an editor there wrote to Borchardt. “However, we have certain misgivings as to the size of the American market for what remains, despite Mauriac’s brilliant introduction, a document.” Kurt Wolff, the head of Pantheon, also turned “Night” down. Although it had qualities “not brought out in any other book,” Pantheon had “always refrained from doing books of this kind,” meaning books about the Holocaust, he wrote to Borchardt.

Finally, in 1959, Arthur Wang of Hill & Wang agreed to take on “Night.” The first reviews were positive. Gertrude Samuels, writing in the Book Review, called it a “slim volume of terrifying power.” Alfred Kazin, writing in The Reporter, said Wiesel’s account of his loss of faith had a “particular poignancy.” After the Kazin review, the book “got great reviews all over America, but it didn’t influence the sales,” Wiesel said.

The trial of Adolf Eichmann in 1961 brought the Holocaust into the mainstream of American consciousness. Other survivors began writing their stories — but with higher visibility came the first glimmerings of criticism. In a roundup of Holocaust literature in Commentary in 1964, the critic A. Alvarez said “Night” was “beyond criticism” as a “human document,” but called it “a failure as a work of art.” Wiesel, he argued, had failed to “create a coherent artistic world out of one which was the deliberate negation of all values.”

By the early ’70s, the Holocaust had become a topic of study in universities, spurred in part by the rise of “ethnic studies” more generally and a surge of interest in Jewish history after Israel’s dramatic military victory in the Israeli-Arab wars of 1967 and 1973. Wiesel, who had moved to New York in the mid-’50s, began lecturing regularly at the 92nd Street Y in Manhattan and teaching at the City University of New York. (Since 1976 he has taught at Boston University.)

Although his books were all reviewed respectfully, some critics questioned Wiesel’s role as a self-appointed witness. “His personal project has been to keep the wounds of Auschwitz open by repeatedly pouring the salt of new literary reconstructions upon them, and thus to prevent the collective Jewish memory — and his own — from quietly letting the wounds heal,” Leon Wieseltier, now the literary editor of The New Republic, wrote in Commentary in 1974. Reviewing Wiesel’s novel “The Oath,” about a pogrom, Wieseltier criticized Wiesel for “turning history into legend.” His characters were “archetypes of the varieties of Jewish pain,” Wieseltier wrote, so “what remains is ... a kind of elaborate superficiality which does justice neither to the author’s intentions nor to his terrible subject matter.”

In 1978, President Carter appointed Wiesel to a commission that eventually created the Holocaust Museum. In Wiesel’s mind, the “real breakthrough” that brought “Night” into wide view came in 1985, when he spoke out against President Reagan’s planned visit to the Bitburg military cemetery in Germany, where SS members were buried. While Reagan was awarding him a Congressional Gold Medal at the White House, Wiesel told him: “That place, Mr. President, is not your place. Your place is with the victims of the SS.” The next day, Wiesel’s words were on front pages worldwide. (Reagan still made the trip.)

Wiesel was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize the following year. The Nobel committee called Wiesel “a messenger to mankind,” teaching “peace, atonement and human dignity.” Wiesel’s “commitment, which originated in the sufferings of the Jewish people, has been widened to embrace all repressed peoples and races.” By the late ’90s, “Night” was a standard high school and college text, selling around 400,000 copies a year.

Yet some critics have homed in on the very qualities that have helped “Night” find a broad readership. Some have criticized Wiesel for universalizing — and even Christianizing — Jewish suffering. In “The Holocaust in American Life” (1999), the historian Peter Novick cites crucifixion imagery in “Night” as evidence of the “un-Jewish” or Christian tenor to much Holocaust commemoration. Others have suggested Wiesel may have revised the book to appeal to non-Jewish readers. In a 1996 essay, Naomi Seidman, a Jewish studies professor at Berkeley’s Graduate Theological Union, detected strong notes of vengeance in the Yiddish version. In the final scene, after the camp has been liberated, Wiesel writes of young men going into Weimar “to rape German girls.” But there’s no mention of rape in the subsequent French or English translations. Wiesel said his thinking had changed between versions. “It would have been a disgrace to reduce such an event to simple vengeance.”

To Lawrence L. Langer, an eminent scholar of Holocaust literature and a friend of Wiesel’s, what sets “Night” apart is a moral honesty that “helps undermine the sentimental responses to the Holocaust.” To Langer, “Night” remains an essential companion — or antidote — to “The Diary of Anne Frank.” That book, with its ringing declaration that “I still believe that people are really good at heart,” is “easy for teachers to teach,” Langer said, but “from the text you don’t know what happened when she died of typhus, half-starved at Bergen-Belsen.” Wiesel takes a similar view. “Where Anne Frank’s book ends,” he said, “mine begins.”

Rachel Donadio is a writer and editor at the Book

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Reviews of Night by Elie Wiesel

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by Elie Wiesel

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An autobiographical narrative in which the author describes his experiences in Nazi concentration camps, watching family and friends die, and how they led him to believe that God is dead.

Night is Elie Wiesel’s masterpiece, a candid, horrific, and deeply poignant autobiographical account of his survival as a teenager in the Nazi death camps. This new translation by Marion Wiesel, Elie’s wife and frequent translator, presents this seminal memoir in the language and spirit truest to the author’s original intent. And in a substantive new preface, Elie Wiesel reflects on the enduring importance of Night and his lifelong, passionate dedication to ensuring that the world never forget man’s capacity for inhumanity to man.

Preface to the New Translation by Elie Wiesel

IF IN MY LIFETIME I WAS TO WRITE only one book, this would be the one. Just as the past lingers in the present, all my writings after Night , including those that deal with biblical, Talmudic, or Hasidic themes, profoundly bear its stamp, and cannot be understood if one has not read this very first of my works. Why did I write it? Did I write it so as not to go mad or, on the contrary, to go mad in order to understand the nature of madness, the immense, terrifying madness that had erupted in history and in the conscience of mankind? Was it to leave behind a legacy of words, of memories, to help prevent history from repeating itself? Or was it simply to preserve a record of the ordeal I endured as an adolescent, at an age when one’s knowledge of death and evil should be limited to what...

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Night by Elie Wiesel

E lie Wiesel was 15 when the Nazis came for the 15,000 Jews of his hometown of Sighet, Transylvania, in May 1944. Upon arrival at Auschwitz-Birkenau, his mother and sister were murdered within hours, while he was put to work as a slave labourer. Eight months later, the Germans evacuated the camp and forced the survivors on a death march that ended at Buchenwald. Wiesel was one of the few still alive when the Americans arrived in April 1945.

One of the most horrifying memoirs ever written, Night was first published in English in 1960. To mark Wiesel's 80th birthday, the Nobel laureate's wife, Marion, has produced a new translation. In stark, simple language, he describes what happened to him and to his family. It is hard to imagine anything more hellish than the picture he paints of his arrival at Auschwitz-Birkenau: "Huge flames were rising from a ditch. Something was being burned there. A truck drew close and unloaded its hold: small children."

Throughout, Wiesel conveys a collective sense of disbelief that "disciplined, educated men" could commit such crimes. In a key scene, he tells how one of Sighet's Jews, Moishe, had been deported to Poland in 1942. Moishe and his companions had dug their own graves before being shot and left for dead. But Moishe had somehow survived and returned to Sighet to warn his friends. Yet nobody would believe him.

As the events of the 1940s slip ever further away, they become harder to comprehend and imagine. In his foreword, Wiesel explains why he felt compelled to write Night , saying his "duty is to bear witness for the dead and for the living". He has done more than most to keep alive their memory.

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Night by Elie Wiesel: Book Review

Honestly, I can’t help but feel that for me to sit in judgment of a memoir of the Holocaust would be terribly presumptuous. We can’t ever forget the Holocaust, and any work that reminds us of what happened is important and should be read as widely as possible. The style is a little sparse for me, but do we really need lavish descriptions of crematoriums? I didn’t think so. What is important is that Wiesel laid out his thoughts and feelings for all the world to see, an act of unimaginable courage. It is amazing to me how quickly he and the other prisoners were stripped of their very humanity. It is also amazing how tiny acts of kindness stand out in his memory. But we all know those were too few and far between. Just read this.

Today, April 11, 2010, is Holocaust Remembrance Day.

Six million Jews were killed in WWII.  Six million . How do we even begin to wrap our minds around that kind of loss? It’s as if everyone in the cities of Los Angeles and Chicago were gone. No longer there. Because of violence and ignorance and prejudice.

We cannot forget the loss of these people.  The Jewish people are the chief mourners, but we should all mourn their loss.  The victims weren’t “only” Jews, they were citizens of the world.  My world.  Your world. Our world. Who knows how things might be different now if such a staggering loss hadn’t occurred then?

Read Elie Wiesel’s 1986 Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech.

Visit the US Holocaust Museum’s Days of Remembrance page.

Visit the US Holocaust Museum’s Holocaust Encyclopedia.

Here are links to other books I’ve read, both fiction and non-fiction, that focus on the Holocaust.

Maus I: A Survivor’s Tale: My Father Bleeds History Maus II: A Survivor’s Tale: And Here My Troubles Began Art Spiegelman wrote these graphic novels chronicling his father’s concentration camp experiences. These would be a good introduction to the Holocaust for younger readers. They’re also packaged together as The Complete Maus .

The Hiding Place by Corrie ten Boom–Corrie endured the camps after sheltering Jews.  She makes me wonder if I would have that kind of courage. 

Sarah’s Key by Tatiana de Rosnay–Tells the little-known story of the Vélodrome d’Hiver, the stadium in France where Jews were held for days and days without food or water before being deported.

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak–My favorite book, period. It’s worth reading for the story of “The Word Shaker” alone.

Those Who Save Us by Jenna Blum–Wasn’t exactly about the Holocaust, but the camps play a huge part in the story.

The Postmistress by Sarah Blake–This isn’t exactly about the Holocaust either, but it shows the early days of the war when Jews were trying to flee and other countries wouldn’t let them in.

I’m currently reading Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl for the first time. Hopefully I’ll have a review up today or tomorrow.

I haven’t read Schindler’s List by Thomas Keneally, but the 1993 Spielberg movie adaptation was powerful. I highly recommend it.

Do you have any recommendations to make or thoughts to share on this topic? Please leave them in the comments.

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I read this book in high school and it broke my heart. I've always wanted to read the other two in the trilogy-Dawn and Day but have never gotten around to it.

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Themes and Analysis

By elie wiesel.

'Night' is a short and incredibly impactful novel that uses direct language and avoids metaphors and other figures of speech to tell its story.

About the Book

Article written by Emma Baldwin

B.A. in English, B.F.A. in Fine Art, and B.A. in Art Histories from East Carolina University.

Wiesel depicts his experiences in the Holocaust through the eyes of Eliezer who conveys the terrors of what he endured and saw. Readers will likely note reoccurring themes of faith, silence, and inhumanity, as well as symbols that include corpses, fire, and night. 

Night Themes 

Faith .

Throughout the novel, Elie is forced to question his faith in God. When God does not step in and stop the horrors around him, Elie has to consider that his faith may have been wrong all along. He learned that God demands sacrifice but is, in the end, compassionate and loving, that’s far from what he learned firsthand during his experiences in the novel, Night . Despite the fact that Eliezer says he’s lost his faith several times, Wiesel includes religious allusions and figurative language that suggest that that’s not completely true. By the end of the novel, while his understanding of the world and religion has shifted, he’s not completely without faith. 

Silence/Indifference 

This is one of the primary themes in the novel, and one that can be found in Wiesel’s other works as well as lectures. Elie is constantly bothered by the silence of God and the silence of other men and women in Europe throughout the novel.

There are numerous examples of indifference throughout the novel. Elie notes the village’s indifferent reaction when Moishe returns with news of what he’s seen, the German people’s ability to ignore what’s going on right in front of their faces, and of course, the Nazi soldier’s indifference to the lives they were destroying. One of the most telling scenes comes towards the end of the novel when the prisoners are running toward Gleiwitz and are being shot down by guards if they paused for even a moment. 

Inhumanity 

Indifference and silence go hand in hand with inhumanity in Night. It’s impossible to read this novel and not walk away feeling horrified by the inhuman practices promoted and carried out by the Nazi regime. Eliezer has trouble making sense of the world after seeing some of the terrible things that happened inside and outside the camps. One such scene comes after he’s arrived with his father and they walk past a pit in which S.S. soldiers are burning the bodies of children.

Additionally, the prisoner on prisoner violence and hate is another aspect of the inhuman environment Eliezer had to endure. The men in his camps were so desperate they turned on one another, even sons on fathers. This is seen quite clearly at the end of the novel when the prisoners beat Eliezer’s father and effectively end his life. 

Analysis of Key Moments in Night

• Elie studies with Moishe the Beadle. Moishe is expelled from Sighet. 
• Moishe returns and tells everyone what he saw and experienced. 
• German soldiers come to Sighet and place restrictions of Jews living there. 
• Eliezer and his family are moved into a ghetto
• Eliezer and his family are transported to Birkenau on cattle cars. 
• Elie is separated from his mother and sisters . 
• The men are taken to Auschwitz. 
• Elie is given number r A-7713. 
• Everyone goes to Buna. 
• Elie is beaten and has his gold crown removed. 
• Elie watches a young boy executed. 
• Elie’s father barely passes inspection. 
• The death march begins from Buna to an abandoned village and then Gleiwitz. 
• Everyone gets on a train to Buchenwald and very few survive the journey. 
• Elie’s father dies of dysentery and a beating from the other men. 
• Elie is liberated from the camp. 

Style, Tone, and Figurative Language in Night

Throughout Night, Wiesel writes about Elie’s experiences in a detached tone. He uses short sentences and clear words to report on what Elie saw and what he felt. Wiesel was trying to put his experiences into words, in a way that accurately represented them but allowed him to keep some distance from the character of Eliezer. The text is sparse, with very few complex passages or examples of figurative language. Elie Wiesel chose to speak directly to the reader in a way that could not be misunderstood.

Often, Wiesel does take a step back from a terrible scene, talking around it rather than directly describing it. For example, when he speaks about an S.S. guard shooting a prisoner. 

The tone in the novel is serious throughout . There are no light or happy moments. Even when the novel concludes and the camp has been liberated, Elie concludes the novel with a striking scene of loss and sorrow with Eliezer standing in front of a mirror. 

Analysis of Symbols in Night

Night .

One of the most obvious and important symbols in the novel is night. By naming the novel “night” and pushing themes of religious doubt, it’s important to consider Genesis and the passages regarding God’s creation of the earth. First, the Bile says, there was “darkness upon the face of the deep.” It’s this darkness, with the absence of God, that Eliezer lives through. Light is absent from some of the most important scenes in the novel, such as when Eliezer’s father is talking to him about the deportation of the Jews and when they arrive at Birkenau/Auschwitz. 

Fire is a symbol of death and destruction in Night. It is used by the Nazis to destroy evidence of their genocide. It first appears in a horrifying passage when Madame Schächter cries out “ Fire! Look at the flames! Flames everywhere ,” when the train arrives in Birkenau. When the train pulls in, Eliezer can smell burning flesh immediately. This is something that haunts the rest of the novel. The fire is an ever-present reminder of the deaths waiting for those able to escape the initial threat of the crematorium. 

Corpses 

Corpses appear throughout the novel, bringing into the light the true extent of the horrors the Nazi regime perpetrated on the Jewish people. Eliezer is forced to witness deaths and sees piles of bodies. The image of a corpse also appears at the end of the novel when Eliezer looks at himself in the mirror and thinks that he looks more than a corpse than he does a living person. It’s a symbol for the death of who he was, the strength of his faith, and the loss of the 11 million who did in the Holocaust . 

About Emma Baldwin

Emma Baldwin, a graduate of East Carolina University, has a deep-rooted passion for literature. She serves as a key contributor to the Book Analysis team with years of experience.

Cite This Page

Baldwin, Emma " Night Themes and Analysis " Book Analysis , https://bookanalysis.com/elie-wiesel/night/analysis/ . Accessed 5 April 2024.

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by Elie Wiesel & translated by Marion Wiesel ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 16, 2006

The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...

Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children. 

He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions. 

Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006

ISBN: 0374500010

Page Count: 120

Publisher: Hill & Wang

Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006

BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | HISTORY | HOLOCAUST | GENERAL HISTORY | GENERAL BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR

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BOOK REVIEW

by Elie Wiesel ; edited by Alan Rosen

by Elie Wiesel ; illustrated by Mark Podwal

by Elie Wiesel ; translated by Marion Wiesel

THE PURSUIT OF HAPPYNESS

From mean streets to wall street.

by Chris Gardner with Quincy Troupe ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 1, 2006

Well-told and admonitory.

Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.

Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.

Pub Date: June 1, 2006

ISBN: 0-06-074486-3

Page Count: 320

Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006

GENERAL BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | BUSINESS

INTO THE WILD

by Jon Krakauer ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 1, 1996

A wonderful page-turner written with humility, immediacy, and great style. Nothing came cheap and easy to McCandless, nor...

The excruciating story of a young man on a quest for knowledge and experience, a search that eventually cooked his goose, told with the flair of a seasoned investigative reporter by Outside magazine contributing editor Krakauer (Eiger Dreams, 1990). 

Chris McCandless loved the road, the unadorned life, the Tolstoyan call to asceticism. After graduating college, he took off on another of his long destinationless journeys, this time cutting all contact with his family and changing his name to Alex Supertramp. He was a gent of strong opinions, and he shared them with those he met: "You must lose your inclination for monotonous security and adopt a helter-skelter style of life''; "be nomadic.'' Ultimately, in 1992, his terms got him into mortal trouble when he ran up against something—the Alaskan wild—that didn't give a hoot about Supertramp's worldview; his decomposed corpse was found 16 weeks after he entered the bush. Many people felt McCandless was just a hubris-laden jerk with a death wish (he had discarded his map before going into the wild and brought no food but a bag of rice). Krakauer thought not. Admitting an interest that bordered on obsession, he dug deep into McCandless's life. He found a willful, reckless, moody boyhood; an ugly little secret that sundered the relationship between father and son; a moral absolutism that agitated the young man's soul and drove him to extremes; but he was no more a nutcase than other pilgrims. Writing in supple, electric prose, Krakauer tries to make sense of McCandless (while scrupulously avoiding off-the-rack psychoanalysis): his risky behavior and the rites associated with it, his asceticism, his love of wide open spaces, the flights of his soul.

Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1996

ISBN: 0-679-42850-X

Publisher: Villard

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1995

GENERAL BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR

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I definitely recommend, important lessons, good educational value, best thing to learn about, a necessary read, difficult times, overall a really great book.

Night by Ellie Wiesel Essay (Book Review)

Introduction, review/analysis, works cited.

During the Second World War, a number of scholars and writers came up with various writings to express their opinions, views, and standpoints. The Night, by Ellie Wiesel, is one such book that expresses the views of the writer.

Life was unbearable during the Second World War, particularly in Germany whereby concentration camps existed. Wiesel describes the state of affairs in the Nazi concentration camps at Auschwitz and Buchenwald.

Many people lost their lives, including property. Families broke up because family members had to be taken to different places. Others were unable to escape and found themselves in death camps whereby they could provide cheap labor without payment.

This piece of writing revisits the works of Wiesel in the book titled Night. The paper summarizes the reasoning of the writer and goes a notch higher to analyze some of the themes in order to establish the relevance of the book to the modern political environment. In other words, the paper looks at the strengths and weaknesses of the book.

The writer explains that life in the concentration camps was unbearable. He wonders where God was when such injustices were mated out to the Jews.

He concluded that God might have died because he could have intervened could he be alive. To the writer, life had taken a new twist meaning that the relationship between family members had changed.

The writer complained that his father had burdened him since he had to take care of him in everything. This was a great challenge to the writer given that he was only sixteen years.

In the concentration camps, family relations had no meaning. This is captured in a statement where the writer complained that if he could only eliminate his father since the old man was a form of a burden to him.

However, he regretted using such string words on his father. In the book, the writer shows that life had taken a new twist meaning that moral values were no more. In the concentration camps, there were no fathers, no brothers, and no friends.

In 1945, the writer reveals that the US liberated Buchenwald, even though it was late for his father who had already perished in the hands of Nazi.

In the introduction, the writer gives a brief description of his life (Wiesel 35) He reports that he was born in a place referred to as Sighet, which is a town situated in a hill in Hungary.

Before invasion, laws had been passed aimed at suppressing the Jews. Things got worse when Adolf and his men invaded Hungary.

Wiesel was separated from his family as his mother was taken to the gas chamber in Auschwitz and his father and he were taken to Buchenwald. The mother could not survive the conditions of Auschwitz and passed on immediately while his father died some few days before liberation.

Moshe the Beadle

The narrator tells us the importance of religion in society in this section. He claims that he cried uncontrollably when he noticed that the Temple had been vandalized. Moshe the Beadle was a man in charge of marinating the Synagogue.

In other words, he was a caretaker who ensured that everything went well during prayers. The caretaker is presented as a humble man who never quarreled with any one in society. In 1942, the man of God was whisked to Poland but he managed to come back in order to pass the information to villagers.

However, the villagers never minded listening to him. The story of Moshe the Beadle shows that a political enemy always targets the soft sport, which is normally the religious leader.

The villagers could not listen to Moshe simply because he was not influential. In the section, the government of Hungary proved that it was part of the Nazi project since it ordered all non-citizen Jews to leave.

This is one of the strengths of the book since the Holocaust could not have materialized without the help of other Eastern European governments.

The Sighet Ghettos

Jews were restricted from participating in important societal activities and enjoying their lives to the fullest. In this regard, Jews were not supposed to own property or to practice their religion.

Wherever they moved, Jews were required to wear the Yellow Star, as a form of identification. The Hungarian administration came up with a decision to transfer Jews to one of the Ghettos for easier supervision.

The Jews were only restricted to two Ghettos and the rest of their residences were closed. This shows how the Nazi regime was ambitious to control the influence of Jews in other neighboring countries.

The Jews could not influence political leaders to come up with fairer laws since their movements were easily monitored in the Ghettos. The writer reports that the Ghettos were self-contained meaning that all social services were provided.

No Jew could move out in search of a social amenity. In fact, they were allowed to appoint their councils, referred to as the Jewish Council, which could arbitrate on any issue in the ghettos This was meant to facilitate compliance since the Nazi government could easily approach the council leaders and inform them about the new developments.

After sometime, the Ghettos were closed and the Jews were transferred to the concentration camps in Poland and Germany. The writer reports that the Hungarian police had no mercy since each person was mistreated irrespective of his or her societal standing.

The writer reports that he was moved to one of the concentration camps referred to as Auschwitz, together with other eighty members of his community, including Madame Schachter.

Schachter prophesized that the bodies of people were burning but the rest of the Jews could not believe her, just the way Moshe the Beadle had been ignored. People were put in different sections based on gender, age, and health.

Unfortunately, the narrator’s mother was send straight to the gas chamber owing to her old age and deteriorating health. The Auschwitz shows that political opponents will never have mercy because they will ensure that only relevant individuals are allowed to live.

The weak are eliminated immediately to avoid any costs. Children were eliminated right away since the writer reports that the lorry delivered children into a burning fire while he was watching with the father.

The political class and the politicians will never care about morality as long as their interests are well catered for by the existing policy. In the book, the main aim of the political class in Eastern Europe was to acquire wealth.

The political class never cared about the value of human life. They would allow the soldiers to strangle innocent children only to frustrate parents.

Buchenwald and Liberation

In the last section of the book, which talks about the Buchenwald camp and subsequent liberation, the writer does not explain the factors behind liberation. He simply goes ahead to describe how liberation came about but does explain the immediate and long term factors that were responsible for liberation.

In Germany, there had been some sort of resistance since some leaders wanted the government to close the concentration camps. In Europe, other world powers such as Britain and Russia had gained momentum and wanted to liberate their citizens who had been kidnapped by the Nazi regime as prisoners of war.

The writer does not explain all these factors. Furthermore, he does not give a brief explanation of how the US joined the war. There had been some developments in the international system, which could not allow Germany to continue oppressing the Jews.

In the beginning of the story, the writer explained that the old and those perceived to be unhealthy were eliminated immediately. However, he explains towards the end of the story that his father was ailing from dysentery.

The question is how comes the father was allowed to live yet it was against the policy of the Nazi government. This leaves us with some questions to answer.

The chapters of the book by Wiesel are arranged in a manner that would help the reader to comprehend the real meaning of Holocaust and how the Nazi unleashed terror on the Jews.

The book has some strengths including explaining how the Eastern European states contributed in implementing the Nazi policies. The Hungarian government declared that all immigrants would be deported in case they could not provide sufficient documents.

This proves that the government of Hungary knew what was just about to happen to the Jews. One weakness of the book is that it does not give authentic information.

At one moment, we are told that the old and the sick were never allowed to see the day while at other times the writer tells us that the sick could be left to suffer.

Wiesel, Elie. Night . New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2012. Print.

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IvyPanda. (2024, January 19). Night by Ellie Wiesel. https://ivypanda.com/essays/book-review-night-by-ellie-wiesel/

"Night by Ellie Wiesel." IvyPanda , 19 Jan. 2024, ivypanda.com/essays/book-review-night-by-ellie-wiesel/.

IvyPanda . (2024) 'Night by Ellie Wiesel'. 19 January.

IvyPanda . 2024. "Night by Ellie Wiesel." January 19, 2024. https://ivypanda.com/essays/book-review-night-by-ellie-wiesel/.

1. IvyPanda . "Night by Ellie Wiesel." January 19, 2024. https://ivypanda.com/essays/book-review-night-by-ellie-wiesel/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "Night by Ellie Wiesel." January 19, 2024. https://ivypanda.com/essays/book-review-night-by-ellie-wiesel/.

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• Sep 9, 2020

Book Review: The Night Portrait by Laura Morelli

Book: 138/150

Rating: 4/5

The Night Portrait follows one of Leonardo da Vinci's most famous paintings, Portrait of a Lady with an Ermine . The story is told through two timelines and four points of view.

The story flips back and forth between Milan in 1492 and WWII. In Milan, 16 year old Cecilia becomes the mistress of the Duke of Milan, and fights for a place to belong in his life. At the same time, the Duke has invited Leonardo da Vinci to his palace, and he undertakes one of his most ambitious paintings to date by painting Cecilia.

Flash forward to WWII: Edith, a conservator, accidentally puts this famous painting in the hands of a Nazi leader at the time where the Nazis were stealing famous pieces of art across Europe. She then dedicates herself to recovering the painting, eventually teaming up with an American soldier Dominic, an avid drawer, who is a part of the Monuments Men team.

I don’t read a lot of historical fiction, and I’m not sure why because when I read it I tend to really enjoy it, and this one was no exception! I loved learning about art history: the inspirations behind Portrait of a Lady with an Ermine, and the work that the Monuments Men did trying to recover and save important pieces of art.

All of these characters are interesting to follow but this is definitely a plot driven book. The chapters are short and sweet and I found it really hard to put it down because it alternated through so many perspectives I wanted to keep up with what everyone was up to.

Thanks to Harper Collins Canada for an ARC of this book. It just published yesterday (9/8)!

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The Night Portrait

Written by Laura Morelli Review by Gail M. Murray

Art historian Morelli immerses us in 15 th -century Renaissance Italy and the mind of young Leonardo da Vinci as he paints Cecilia Gallerani, sixteen-year-old mistress to Ludovico il Moro, Duke of Milan. More enigmatic than the Mona Lisa , this masterpiece, Lady with an Ermine , the first modern portrait, shows the mind and personality of its subject. The portrait’s creation and preservation become the focal point of the story connecting the destinies of two women 500 years apart, and a symbol of hope.

Edith Becker, a Munich museum conservator, is assigned to assess and document valuables looted by the Nazis under Hans Frank, the Butcher of Poland. Hitler is amassing art for his high command and grand museum at Linz. Though disgusted, she keeps her head low, vowing to save this portrait. This novel stands out as a departure from the many WWII books about concentration camps and the Nazi occupation.

Despite dual timelines and four points of view, the story unfolds flawlessly. Richly detailed and well crafted, the chapters are short and tight. So fluid is the writing, we are caught up unawares. Morelli employs a unique device I call “echoing,” ending one chapter with the start of another: “Yes, Cecilia thought. It is time for me to leave this house. And this man [Ludovico il Moro]” and “It is time for me to leave this house, and most of all, this man [Hans Frank], Edith thought.”

American G.I. Dominic Bonelli is appointed to assist the Monuments Men, curators, art historians, and architects recovering art and artifacts plundered by the Nazis. Morelli foreshadows Edith and Dominic’s meeting. As the Allies enter Munich to cheering crowds, Dominic notices an old man (Edith’s father) clutching a stuffed toy dog. Art is the high point of civilization; war the lowest. The end is poignant and uplifting.

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Word of Mouth

Submitting a book for review, write the editor, you are here:, the night traveler.

Internationally bestselling author Armando Lucas Correa returns with THE NIGHT TRAVELER. This time- and continent-spanning work of historical fiction traces the paths of four generations of women through war, revolution and reparations, beginning with the Nazi occupation of Germany and ending with the fall of the Berlin Wall.

In 1931 Berlin, beautiful Ally Keller knows nothing of the dangers she would face if the world found out about her Black German lover, the jazz musician Marcus. Although they take precautions to protect their lives and budding romance, Ally often dreams of risking it all for the right to hold hands with, or even kiss, her partner on the streets of the city she loves. But change is coming to Germany with the rise of the Führer, and although Marcus is German through and through, they know that his race puts him in danger from the deadly ideology of racial purity taking hold of Germany’s citizens. Soon after Ally discovers that she is pregnant, Nazi control is in full swing. By the time she gives birth to a beautiful, bright-eyed mixed-race daughter, Lilith, Marcus is gone, arrested under suspicion of rebellion, never to be seen by Ally or her daughter again.

Conscious of the risks that Lilith takes just by existing with her father’s skin tone and coarse hair, Ally and Lilith fall into a careful routine. During the day they read, with Lilith devouring every book of science, poetry and philosophy she can get her hands on. At night, when all German citizens look the same under the nonjudgmental moonlight, they walk the streets of the city that once felt like home but increasingly feels like a prison.

"...a sweeping, complex and ultimately cathartic work that is incredibly ambitious in scope yet lives up to every historic moment, impossible choice and singular character that Correa brings to life."

Rounding out their days is Herr Professor, their kindly older neighbor who, after devoting his life to education and progress, is struggling to watch as the written word, education and science are increasingly disputed, censored and finally forgotten. He becomes a sort of grandfather to Lilith, one who shelters and encourages her during the day while her mother writes poetry, dreams of Marcus and wonders what will happen when Lilith turns seven, the age that mixed-race children are measured, studied and tested for racial purity. The consequence of being deemed impure --- which Lilith, with her dark skin and hair, will certainly be labeled --- is sterilization. With the future of her daughter’s life and safety at guaranteed risk, Ally makes an impossible decision, one that changes the course of her matrilineal line forever.

In 1958 Havana, an adult Lilith has already witnessed more than her share of war, devastation and loss. The adoptive daughter of a kindly but depressed Jewish couple, Lilith has lived in Havana since she was a child, delighting in the musicality of the language and warmth of the Cuban people, even as her family is side-eyed for their German heritage. As she grows up, she makes forever friends with Martín Bernal, the son of a cabinet minister and friend to President Fulgencio Batista, commonly known as El Hombre, a self-taught peasant who rose to power through the military. Martín, a dreamer, has long maintained his goal of becoming a pilot. But as whispers of an American-backed rebellion begin to grow louder, Lilith starts to sense that the dangers she escaped in her childhood have found her once again.

The world enters and concludes a World War that draws Germany closer than ever before, but no amount of rebuilding and repatriating can undo the damage that has been done to Lilith or her adoptive parents. Just as her engagement to Martín is announced, tragedy strikes her family again, soon followed by her pregnancy, the birth of her daughter, Nadine, and Martín’s own capture and imprisonment as Fidel Castro rises to power. Once again, a mother must make an impossible choice that will separate her from her daughter forever. But even in this hardship, there is a poetic beauty as Correa makes clear the journey of forgiveness that Lilith has begun. For the first time, she understands the choice her mother made and is grateful for it. She only hopes that Nadine will feel the same way one day.

Nadine’s journey to salvation lands her in Queens, New York, the adoptive daughter of a pair of Catholics who house, dress, feed and even spoil her, but never show her the warmth she knows has been missing since her birth, perhaps even longer. A surprise visitor to their New York apartment sets Nadine and her adoptive parents on a course to Berlin, where her mother, Irma, is forced to reckon with the choices she made at the height of the Nazi regime. Nadine has always believed that the past is just a story, something that doesn’t have to touch, change or hurt you as long as you ignore it. But when she estranges herself from her parents and becomes a mother to bright, poetic Luna, she embarks on a path of rediscovery and reclamation, rescuing her ancestors from the past through the power of education and identification.

While the horrors of what happened in Nazi Germany are widely known and condemned, neither Nadine nor Luna are prepared for what they discover about their grandmother and great-grandmother, Ally. Or how a massive betrayal put Ally, her daughter, granddaughter and great-granddaughter in the crosshairs of some of history’s biggest and most traumatic events: the Nazi concentration camps, the Cuban Revolution and the fall of the Berlin Wall.

The bloodline of brilliant, courageous women whom Correa profiles in THE NIGHT TRAVELER is one of beauty, grace and complexity. From Ally all the way down to Luna, each carries the weight of generational trauma, prejudice and survivor’s guilt. Yet each is able to carve out a life for herself, bring a new daughter into the world, and face history’s latest trauma, all while reckoning with her own past. As Nazism destroys the family line and Communism robs them of their hard-fought lives, each woman descended from Ally must fight not only to work through the pain of abandonment, desertion and loss, but to find a reason to forgive, hope and trust again. These are stubborn, unique and fully fleshed-out women, though each carries the echoes of her mother, grandmother and so on. Readers will delight in finding the connecting lines between them: skin tones, interests and temperaments that skip generations but never waver from Ally’s matrilineal line.

Although none of the women are fortunate enough to know their mothers, each is touched at one point or another by a poem written by Ally, “The Night Traveler,” the work from which the novel draws its title. A testament to the power of art, historical record and legacy, THE NIGHT TRAVELER carries much of the same weight as this treasured poem. It’s a sweeping, complex and ultimately cathartic work that is incredibly ambitious in scope yet lives up to every historic moment, impossible choice and singular character that Correa brings to life.

A tidbit for readers of Correa’s previous novels: Although independent from THE GERMAN GIRL and THE DAUGHTER’S TALE, THE NIGHT TRAVELER is connected to the others through the MS St. Louis , the transatlantic ocean liner that left the port of Hamburg in 1939 carrying more than 900 passengers, the majority of which --- like Lilith and her adoptive parents --- were German Jewish refugees. While it is not necessary to have read Correa’s earlier works to enjoy his latest, I suspect that few readers will bypass the opportunity to marvel at his atmospheric prose, generational symmetry and strong, resilient female characters by delving into his backlist.

Reviewed by Rebecca Munro on January 13, 2023

The Night Traveler by Armando Lucas Correa

• Publication Date: November 7, 2023
• Genres: Fiction , Historical Fiction , Women's Fiction
• Paperback: 368 pages
• Publisher: Washington Square Press
• ISBN-10: 1501187996
• ISBN-13: 9781501187995

The shocking scars of the Civil War live on in ‘Night Watch’

Jayne anne phillips’s national book award-nominated novel is a haunting story of resistance.

The lasting damage inflicted by war has preoccupied Jayne Anne Phillips’s fiction since her first novel, “ Machine Dreams ,” which came out nearly 40 years ago. In that debut, she grappled with World War II and Vietnam, then with Korea in “ Lark and Termite ” (2009). Now she turns her attention to the Civil War in the beautiful, mournful “ Night Watch .”

This novel follows 12-year-old ConaLee and her mother through the year 1874 as they struggle to recover from the long-lived traumas of the war. A bravura depiction of the Battle of the Wilderness is the only combat scene, and the war is a decade behind them, but its specter looms over civilians and soldiers alike. “They are still fighting the war in some of these towns,” warns John O’Shea, the eponymous Night Watch. “The fire is only banked.” O’Shea works at the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum in West Virginia, which split from Virginia during the war to remain in the Union, although many open Confederate sympathizers still live there.

It doesn’t matter to ConaLee which side anyone was on during the war; to her, secessionists and abolitionists “were all ragged, drifting men.” She was born after her father went to fight for the Union in 1861, leaving his pregnant wife in a farm high on a western Virginia mountain ridge whose isolation he thought would keep her safe. But as “Night Watch” opens in April 1874, ConaLee is in a wagon headed for the asylum with her devastated mother, who hasn’t spoken or risen from her bed in months. The source of Mama’s catatonia, it quickly becomes clear, is the sinister man driving the wagon; ConaLee has been told to call him Papa, but as he leaves her and Mama on the path leading to the asylum, he says, “I am not yer Papa … and you don’t know my name.”

All 50 books nominated for the 2023 National Book Award, including "Night Watch."

“Papa” is one of those ragged men who drifted across the country during the war and its aftermath, taking advantage of the chaos it bred to pillage anything and anyone. Tired of abusing Mama now that she’s taken refuge in silence, he takes her and ConaLee to the asylum, instructing them to assume false identities as “a quality woman with no dependents nor family” and her young servant. ConaLee’s memories unfold to partially explain what brought them to this pass. These include the three “babbies” who were the products of Mama’s enslavement by Papa and have been taken in by others, as well as Dearbhla, their “neighbor granny,” who’s gifted with preternatural abilities and did her best to protect ConaLee and Mama from Papa’s grasp. Many mysteries remain, but we are already in thrall to a master storyteller who enmeshes us in the life of the asylum while tantalizing us with the promise of further revelations about the life that ConaLee and her mother left behind.

Moving back and forth between 1864 and 1874, expertly shifting the narrative point of view among multiple characters, Phillips gradually reveals details about ConaLee’s father, how he and her mother came to that mountain ridge with Dearbhla, and what enabled Papa to catastrophically occupy their farm. Her plot is so carefully and engrossingly crafted that the enormous coincidence that brings ConaLee’s father into the 1874 action is (almost) believable. Readers are likely to accept it without much quibbling simply because they need to know what happens to these compelling characters.

The intertwined stories embody a rich array of themes and ideas. Dearbhla recalls her years of servitude in the Lowcountry South, which brutalized both enslaved Africans and poor Whites. An extremely creepy sex scene depicts one of the most vicious ways men hold power over women, and Phillips suggests more than once that Papa was not the only man to exert it over Mama. Dearbhla’s preternatural gifts (which ConaLee may also possess) are shown to be a form of female resistance to this power. Maneuvers among the asylum staff and inmates take place in a postwar community that is less brutal but no less class-stratified than antebellum society. As Mama says when she finally begins to speak again: “War scars last. Generations …”

Nowhere is safe from these scars. Certainly not the asylum, despite Mama’s insistence otherwise — a belief proved tragically wrong in the novel’s violent denouement. The good suffer equally with the bad at this climactic moment, just as they did during the war. Phillips’s artistic conscience won’t let her flinch from this truth, but her generous heart won’t let it be the last word. She leaves readers with a rueful yet doggedly hopeful maxim that could easily serve as an epigraph for “Night Watch” as a whole: “Endurance was strength.”

Wendy Smith is a two-time finalist for the National Book Critics Circle’s Excellence in Reviewing citation and the author of “Real Life Drama: The Group Theatre and America, 1931-1940.”

Night Watch

By Jayne Anne Phillips

Knopf. 305 pp. $28

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I booked shared and private sleeper cabins on overnight trains in Europe. Only one was worth the price.

• I traveled by overnight train during two European backpacking trips.
• For my first trip, I booked a bunk in a sleeper cabin shared with three strangers for $84.
• For my second trip, I booked a private cabin with three bunks, a sink, and a vanity for $200.

I explored by day and traveled by night during my two backpacking trips through Europe .

In 2022 and 2023, I traversed the continent on sleeper trains operated by OBB Nightjet , an Austrian rail line that operates in more than 25 European cities.

Nightjet has three tiers of sleeping accommodations , from reclining seats to bunks in shared and private cabins.

During my first European train trip, I booked an $84 ride from Vienna to Venice in a shared cabin with six bunks. A year later, I booked a private cabin from Venice to Vienna with the same train line for $200.

Both trips were roughly 12 hours long, but the accommodations provided completely different experiences in terms of comfort and amenities. And there's only one I'd take again.

During my first European train trip in 2022, I slept in a cabin shared with strangers.

A step above a seating carriage , the 74-square-foot shared cabin had six bunks, a pullout table, and not much else. At $84 for one bunk, this is the cheapest Nighjet accommodation with a lie-flat bed.

The second time, I booked a private cabin.

For my second train trip through Europe in November 2023, I traveled from Venice to Vienna in a private cabin for $200 — Nightjet's highest tier of accommodation .

The 30-square-foot space had three bunks inside — one on the bottom and two up top. Across from the bottom bunk was a vanity and wash basin — a perk only included in private cabins.

On the bottom bunk, there was also a goodie bag of complimentary amenities such as a sleep mask, earplugs, and slippers.

The shared cabin felt cramped and lacked privacy for each traveler.

There were only three other travelers in the shared cabin for six during my leg of the trip. Aside from brief hellos, we all kept to ourselves, and the room was quiet.

But I never forgot I was in the presence of others. The space felt so cramped I couldn't imagine squeezing six people and their luggage inside. There was hardly any room to stand up, and I didn't have enough privacy to relax without curtains or dividers between bunks.

"Offering our passengers a high level of travel comfort is an important concern for us," a representative for OBB Nightjet told Business Insider in a statement. "We are constantly working on improvements to our product and also take into account the requirements of our customers."

But the private cabin felt more spacious.

Although smaller than the shared cabin, the private cabin packed less inside, leaving more floor space to move around in. With luggage storage next to one of the top bunks, the room didn't feel crowded.

But the best part was having complete privacy with a door that could lock and no one to share the space with.

During the first ride, I washed up in one of the sleeping car's shared bathrooms.

There was no toilet, sink, or vanity inside the cabin. So before bed, I changed and brushed my teeth in one of the two bathrooms shared with every passenger in the sleeping car.

After standing in a short line of travelers, I rushed through my nighttime routine in the small restroom to keep others from waiting too long.

In the private accommodation, I brushed my teeth from the comfort of my cabin.

The private cabin didn't have a toilet inside either, but the vanity and sink made washing up before bed more relaxing since I didn't have to rush through my routine.

As I brushed my teeth and washed my face, I noticed that, unlike the shared bathroom, my vanity had bright, white lights and toilet storage shelves on the inner doors.

In the shared cabin, my bunk wasn't comfortable.

The bunk was situated like a couch when I arrived in the cabin. And before bed, an attendant came by to pull it out.

The futon felt like a carpet and was stiffer than a seat in a car. While I appreciated being able to lie flat and the sheets and pillow provided, I had difficulty falling and staying asleep in a relaxing position. And I woke up each time another passenger in my room got up to use the bathroom.

But the private cabin's cot was cozy.

In the private cabin, I was surprised that the bunk was more comfortable than those in the shared accommodation.

The cot was as cushy as it was firm, making it easy on my back. And in addition to sheets and a pillow, there was a thick comforter that made me feel more cozy. It reminded me of my bed at home. I had an easy time dozing off and slept for six hours straight.

Both rides included a complimentary breakfast.

I received the same complimentary breakfast in both cabins — two bread rolls with butter, Nutella, and fruit preserves on the side, yogurt, and a cup of coffee or caffeinated tea.

In the future, I'll only book private cabins on Nightjet trains.

After a night in the shared cabin, I was exhausted. I didn't enjoy my first day in Venice as much as I hoped. As beautiful as it was, I couldn't help thinking about how nice it would be to nap.

But following my ride in the private cabin, I felt refreshed and well-rested, making my day in Vienna more fulfilling as I explored streets lined with vibrantly colored buildings and murals.

These contrasting experiences made me realize that booking a shared cabin on an overnight train wasn't worth the money I saved.

However, the comforts of the private cabin made me feel like I was in a hotel room . And $200 for one night in my own space while traveling from one destination to the next felt like a fair price to me.

Europe is so vast that I'm certain I'll backpack through the continent again. And when I do, I know I'll book private rooms on overnight trains.

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Screen Rant

Alex rider stars otto farrant, brenock o'connor & vicky mcclure look back at the series.

Stars Vicky McClure, Otto Farrant, and Brenock O'Connor chat with Screen Rant about whether fans will be satisfied with Alex Rider's conclusion.

• Alex Rider season 3 follows Alex, Tom, and Kyra as they take on the criminal network Scorpia for justice.
• Stars Otto Farrant, Brenock O'Connor, and Vicky McClure are proud of their work and excited for the show's return.
• Season 3 explores Alex's relationships with Kyra and Tom, promising drama and growth in their dynamics.

Season 3 of Alex Rider consists of eight installments and is currently available to stream on Amazon Freevee. The final batch of episodes is adapted from the fifth novel in Anthony Horowitz's book series. It follows Alex, Tom, and Kyra, as they attempt to take down the criminal network known as Scorpia in the hopes of getting justice for Alex's uncle and Kyra's parents.

Given the show's two-year hiatus, stars Otto Farrant, Brenock O'Connor, and Vicky McClure, are enthusiastic that Alex Rider has finally made its return. It's bittersweet that the series has come to an end, but the actors are proud of what they've accomplished and remain hopeful that they will see another onscreen adaption of the novels . Sofia Helin, Stephen Dillane, Ronkẹ Adékọluẹ́jọ́, Marli Siu, Shelley Conn, Kevin McNally, and Jason Wong make up the rest of the main cast.

Amazon Prime's Alex Rider: Everything The Show Changes From The Book

Vicky McClure, Otto Farrant, and Brenock O'Connor chat with Screen Rant about Alex's relationship with Kyra and Tom, their favorite on-set memories, and whether fans will be satisfied with the ending of Alex Rider season 3 .

Alex Rider Season 3 Started Filming In October 2022

Screen Rant: Congratulations on Alex Rider season 3! How excited are you that this is finally being released?

Brenock O'Connor: Oh, we're ready. It's been a while. Otto Farrant: We're so excited. We put so much hard work work into this one. We think it's gonna be the best one yet. We're just really excited to see what the fans think.

How long ago did you guys film this? It's been two years since season 2 aired.

Brenock O'Connor: October 2022–March 2023 was when we shot this. It was a long time ago that we shot it. It's been a long time in the vaults, waiting to get it all just right. We're ready for the world to see it now. Otto Farrant: It's difficult because we have such amazing, talented actors on the show. Trying to get everyone together when everyone's free is really difficult. The good thing was, we knew that everyone who was involved in it wanted to come back and wanted to make this final chapter. We were just glad that we could get everyone back when we did, and this is what we have to show for it. I think it's gonna be the best one.

Vicky, I love how much Mrs. Jones has grown to care about Alex throughout seasons 1 and 2. Will we see more teamwork between them in season 3?

Vicky McClure: I think you'll get a lot from Mrs. Jones and Alex's relationship in season 3 for sure. And it starts off very fractious. A lot has happened, and there's a lot that's yet to be revealed. That's what's so great about this whole journey from start to finish. We've had such a length of time, we've had hours upon hours and episodes to be able to build to this final chapter. So you will see plenty of that. And it's been nice to sort of see Mrs. Jones mature within in the department, and be a little bit more open about how she feels towards the end.

Fans Will See Alex And Kyra's Relationship Develop

Fans are definitely excited about Kyra's role this season. Otto, it seems like the show has been planting the seeds for a romance between them. Could we see some development on that front?

Otto Farrant: Anything's possible. Working with Marli Siu and watching her bring to life Kyra—in this season, Kyra has such a pivotal role from the beginning. She's fully integrated into Alex's life, and Tom and Jack's as well. They spend a lot of time together, and I think that there's a special relationship there. I think that we will see that develop in this season. Brenock O'Connor: Marli also has such an interesting place within the show, because she's one of the only characters who is a show creation. She doesn't appear in any of the Alex Rider books at all. So to come in, as a new character, in a world where every other actor has got some source material, whether they choose to use it or not to base their ideas off of, to come in and blitz it like Marli has with nothing but her own work is incredible. She's wonderful.

Brenock, I was going to ask you about Tom's relationship with Kyra, as well. They bicker, but they clearly care about each other. Will we see more of them this season?

Brenock O'Connor: I'd say you get to see a bit of Tom and Kyra very gently butting heads with each other. I think they both want what's best for Alex, but they both believe what's best for Alex is them. So whenever someone tries to get in the way of that it does create a little friction. But we're not going to let it destroy the friendship because that would ruin Alex's day, and we don't want to do that, so we'll keep it civil. Marli's been with us since season 1. She started in Romania with [Otto]. She was part of the Point Blanc storyline, so I didn't have any interaction with any of those incredible actors who were a large part of season 1, and I always felt there was something slightly amiss there because it's an incredible group of young actors, and I'm just sort of sat waving at you while you were all shooting. I was glad that I got to finally get some meat and potatoes with Marli and there's plenty more to come in season 3.

What about the friendship between Tom and Alex? What is that going to look like with Scorpia playing an even bigger role?

Otto Farrant: In this season, there are so many unanswered questions that have been on his mind and sort of floating around through seasons 1 and 2, and he really is going out now with his friends to try and find the answers to these. Through the process of that, he kind of gets split from them, and he realizes he's kind of on his own. He really needs to work out who are his real friends and who are his enemies in this season. I think both Tom and Kyra are also very confused in that space. Brenock O'Connor: There's a sort of similar energy between season 1 and season 3 in terms of Alex is taking off into a world, isolated, and thrown into a new set of rules. But what is different between season 1 and season 3 is Alex has people on the outside working for him this time. Tom and Kyra are very much still trying to do their best with their sets of skills. Whereas in season 1, it very much felt like Alex is there stranded, got to solve it for himself. What Alex doesn't know this time is we've got his back.

Alex Rider Season 3 Will Provide Long-Awaited Answers

Were you aware that season 3 was going to be the end of Alex Rider ?

Otto Farrant: Alex Rider has 13 books, so there are so many stories to tell. I know that this is the final chapter, at least on my stint, so who knows what the future holds. But there's plenty of material and enough people want to see the stories brought to life. Fingers crossed we can sit back and watch as fans. Brenock O'Connor: Yeah. In terms of the story of our trilogy of seasons that we've made, all the questions that we've set up in seasons 1 and 2, you'll find the answers in season 3.

Do you think fans will be satisfied with how the show wraps up?

Brenock O'Connor: I think they will be. I think if the fans are as invested as they have been, I don't know how you could watch this and not feel content with what we've made. Otto Farrant: I second that.

I would love to hear your favorite on-set memory now that we've reached the end of the show. What has been the most emotional part of filming?

Vicky McClure: There's been lots actually. The general Alex Rider setup is a very friendly one. It's always a place you want to be, and it's a very welcoming place to work. I think a lot of my scenes are with Stephen and Ace and Nyasha, and we are locked in this very dark basement kind of building, and we spend weeks and weeks there, and so we make it home. We made sure that this year we sort of really weren't there. We had little potted plants and nice furniture and made sure that when we weren't on set, we weren't living in the department. It was nice, and we played games, and we'd just have a laugh. For all the serious stuff the department is involved in and tend to be doing lots of plotting, it's great for us to just be relaxed and enjoy each other's company. There was so much of that for me. That was a massive part of why I enjoyed the job. Otto Farrant: Personally, the one that comes to mind is always the fights. There was one fight where I think we were doing night shoot and there was a big fight. It was a very technical fight. We hadn't done one as technical, because it was lots of moves that were very similar to each other. I really had to start thinking quite hard in every moment. And as the night went on, we weren't getting it and it wasn't happening. I had to work really hard, really stay focused throughout the whole thing. And then when we finally got it, like really got it, it was just this rush of, "Oh, yeah. That was great." A punch that's not a punch, but it looks like a punch. Brenock O'Connor: I'm also going to mention a fight, but the complete other end of the spectrum—a punch that was a punch. In season 1, Otto was meant to take down a guard with three punches, and I was meant to come in and drag Otto off. I also got a little bit overzealous and threw a fourth punch. Not only was the stunt performer on the ground, not expecting it and got punched square in the face, in the recoil of Otto loading that arm of his, he elbowed me in the nose and gave me a nosebleed. So three people in the scene, both of whom weren't Otto, were injured fairly intensely for the next maybe 20 minutes. I tanked it. It's never happened again, but I'd say that that is a memory I won't soon forget.

With this chapter coming to a close, what's next in the pipeline for each of you?

Otto Farrant: At the moment, I'm just releasing this. I put so much hard work into this for the last four years, so I'm really excited for it to come out. Who knows what the future holds, but I'm really excited to see what fans think of this season because, like I said, so much hard work and passion has been put into it. If I can find another project with great actors that's going to be as good a challenge, then I'll be a very lucky person. Brenock O'Connor: Personally, at the minute, I'm focusing more on my music. I'm a solo artist under the name McGovern. I'm gigging a lot around southeast London, trying to look into a tour for the end of the year. I'm working on a debut solo album, and I'm in a five-piece jazz and funk collective called Gravy River, who also have a gig around southeast London. We're releasing an EP in the summer. So that's been taking up my time. Vicky McClure: Now I've got to go after you. [Laughs] I've got a show coming out soon called Insomnia, which is on Paramount+, and I've got my own production company, so I've got lots of plates spinning with my slate at the moment, which is great fun.

About Alex Rider Season 3

Adapted from the fifth Alex Rider novel, Season Three sets the teenage spy on the tail of his greatest enemy: the elusive criminal network known as Scorpia. Under new leadership, the criminal cabal plan to extort the British Government using their catastrophic new super-weapon: ‘Invisible Sword.’ Free of The Department and aided by his closest friends, Tom and Kyra, Alex embarks on a personal mission to destroy Scorpia once and for all. Little does he know, his ties to both organizations run deeper than he ever thought possible.

Check out our interview with Alex Rider EP Eve Gutierrez & star Sofia Helin , as well.

Alex Rider season 3 is currently available to stream on Amazon Freevee.

Source: Screen Rant Plus

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‘our town’ broadway cast to include jim parsons, katie holmes, richard thomas, ephraim sykes, zoey deutch & 23 more, ‘the notebook’ broadway review: romantic saga takes another step in sentimental journey.

By Greg Evans

NY & Broadway Editor

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To say The Notebook had a devoted, built-in audience before it sang so much as a note on Broadway would be an understatement this romantic tear-jerker never attempts.

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The reference to muzak, by the way, isn’t meant to suggest that composer Ingrid Michaelson looks back quite that far for her musical inspirations. She has a lovely way with a melody, even if so many of the songs in Notebook are samey mid-tempo ballads sung directly to the the audience as if anything less obvious might risk one or two folks in the balcony missing some the point: Ally and Noah love each other. Really, really love each other.

Of all the show’s disappointments planted like so many wild flowers ready for plucking, none stings quite so much as Michaelson’s score. Not that it’s bad – it isn’t, far from it – but in more than 2 hours of music you’d be hard-pressed to find two minutes and 17 seconds as melodically lovely or as lyrically clever as the singer-songwriter’s charming 2007 indie pop hit “The Way I Am,” with its sweet pledge of young love “I’ll buy you Rogaine/when you start losing all your/sew on patches/to all you tear.” An early duet between the Younger Ally and Younger Noah – “Carry You Home” – comes close, though, thanks to its lighthearted spirit.

At least in this latest adaptation – which had a successful 2022 run in Chicago – book writer Bekah Brunstetter (who trafficked in the same audience-pleasing sentimentality as writer and producer on NBC’s This Is Us ) wastes no time hiding the fact that the old man and the old woman are later-gen versions of the younger versions sharing the stage. Anyone still confused by the concept would be well advised to pay attention to Katie Spelman’s choreography, with its simultaneous gestures for each generation. When, early on, the old man touches his neck, so do Middle man and Younger man. Not exactly subtle, but it does the trick.

The couple first meets as teenagers in a mid-Atlantic coastal town where the moneyed Ally (Jordan Tyson) falls hard (and vice versa) for working-class townie Noah (John Cardoza). Despite the snooty pooh-poohing of Ally’s parents (Andrea Burns, Charles Wallace), the kids while away a few carefree and starry-eyed weeks before the old folks cut the family vacation short and whisk besotted daughter from whence she came.

The action picks up about 10 years after the summertime separation (though the time periods swirl around abnd through one another in performance, with all three generations frequently sharing the stage). Noah spent the first couple of years away at war – Brunstetter has time-jumped the conflict from World War II in the book and movie to Vietnam for the stage, perhaps to avoid any overly musty period details. Neither Paloma Young’s costume design nor the co-direction of Michael Greif and Schele Williams make undue (or any, really) fuss over decade signifiers – no groovy ’60s garb or ’70s lapels in sight. Timelessness seems to be the point, but it’s also kind of joyless drag.

By the time we get to Act II, the Middles get the focus, and while Ryan Vasquez and Joy Woods are in fine, strong voice, they can do little to up the drama tension: Brunstetter’s reluctance to play gotcha waiting games, so welcome early on, backfire when we’re suddenly expected to entertain the notion that Ally’s barely seen fiance could actually keep any of us away from our date with the nursing home. The Middles’ will-they-or-won’t-they is made all the more tedious by a silly, multi-year effort by mommy dearest keep the lovers apart, a duplicitous ploy involving hidden lover letters that would embarrass any stuffy old soap opera matriarch.

Played out mostly on a nursing home set by David Zinn and Brett J. Banakis that manages to be both attractive and suitably off-putting (Noah’s renovated antibellum farmhouse hits nostalgic notes without summoning unwelcome ghosts), The Notebook gets to its final pages – or very nearly so – without letting its manipulations become too overbearing (more about that “nearly so” in a moment), yet it never approaches the finer works of nearly everyone involved (director Greif gave us Next To Normal and Dear Evan Hansen ). The wonderful Plunkett nails the confusion and panic of dementia from the get-go, meaning she has little place to go. Woods, as Middle Ally, breaks through the musical sameness with the production’s unequivocal showstopper (“My Days”), though her musical theater brassiness seems to have no counterpart in either the character’s younger and older versions.

Title: The Notebook Venue: Broadway’s Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre Director: Michael Greif and Schele Williams Book: Bekah Brunstetter Music And Lyrics: Ingrid Michaelson Cast: Jordan Tyson, Joy Woods, Maryann Plunkett, John Cardoza, Ryan Vasquez, Dorian Harewood, with Andréa Burns, Yassmin Alers, Alex Benoit, Chase Del Rey, Hillary Fisher, Jerome Harmann-Hardeman, Dorcas Leung, Happy McPartlin, Juliette Ojeda, Kim Onah, Carson Stewart, Charles E. Wallace and Charlie Webb. Running time: 2 hr 10 min (including intermission)

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Huntington Beach formally adopts parent/guardian children’s book review board

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Huntington Beach is moving forward with its parent/guardian children’s book review board after it received another round of approval at Tuesday night’s City Council meeting.

The vote was the same as the initial vote two weeks prior , when the board item was introduced. Mayor Gracey Van Der Mark, Mayor Pro Tem Pat Burns, and council members Casey McKeon and Tony Strickland voted in favor, with council members Dan Kalmick, Natalie Moser and Rhonda Bolton voting against.

Now finalized, Ordinance No. 4318 will add Chapter 2.66 to the city’s municipal code, relating to the “Community-Parent Guardian Review Board for Review of Procurement of Children’s Library Material.”

Several in the crowd, holding black and white signs with the same word, yelled out “Shame!” after the final vote was taken Tuesday night.

“You’re disrupting the meeting,” Van Der Mark said, before calling for a five-minute recess.

Public comments were less numerous than the previous meeting, but the vast majority of the 40-plus speakers were against the creation of the board, which will have up to 21 members.

Possible library privatization of library operations has also been a controversial issue in Surf City, with the council majority voting to initiate an RFP process on March 19. On Friday night, more than 100 people gathered at the Main Street Branch Library and completed a silent march to the pier in protest.

Lynne Deakers, who introduced herself as a mother of four grown children and a school librarian for 20 years at a Catholic school in Huntington Beach, spoke out against the review board item at Tuesday’s meeting.

“This cannot be about personal preferences,” she said. “This oversight board is unacceptable to me. If it’s pornography you’re worried about, I assure you — librarians don’t want pornography in libraries either.”

Resident Ann Palmer, however, called the parent/guardian review board “exemplary.”

“This is a perfect example of participatory government, which is a leading principle in local government,” she said.

Members of the board will pull children’s books they want to review from a list of thousands the library procures every year. The decisions of the board are final.

“If any book can be pulled by any member of the board, what stops someone from just pulling every single book, basically saying, ‘I want to review all of them?’” Kalmick asked, expressing his doubt about a process he believes “could get broken by a bad actor.”

He also noted that if one member hasn’t reviewed a book, the board can’t take a vote, which could also be abused.

Additionally, Kalmick asked if any private organizations that were submitting a bid during the RFP process were aware that they could potentially be litigants in a 1st Amendment lawsuit.

“[The] RFP’s in draft mode, but yes, that’s a consideration right now,” responded Deputy City Manager Catherine Jun.

Moser made a substitute motion against adopting Ordinance No. 4318, in favor of keeping the library’s current collection development policy. She read that policy aloud from the dais.

“What I appreciate about this library policy is that it’s thought through, it relies on professional librarians, it considers the needs of the entire community,” Moser said, adding that it provides a method for requesting a book’s removal.

Moser’s substitute motion was defeated by a 4-3 vote.

Kasey Meehan, director of PEN America’s Freedom to Read program, issued a statement Wednesday morning.

“We are dismayed at the board’s decision to remove curatorial decisions from professional control and put it into the hands of untrained political appointees,” Meehan said. “As we previously warned, this will surely diminish access to a wide array of books, and will chip away at the freedom to read in Huntington Beach.”

The protesters on Friday night felt the same; Moser attended the event.

“It’s unfortunate that they have to be out here for this, but I’m so proud of our community for coming together,” she said Friday night. “I know they’re going to keep doing it, keep fighting for our libraries, for free speech and for our librarians.”

Freelance writer/photographer Eric Licas contributed to this story.

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Matt Szabo is a sports reporter for the Daily Pilot. A Southern California native and Cal Poly San Luis Obispo graduate, he has been covering sports for L.A. Times Community News since 2006, most extensively water polo and tennis. (714) 966-4614

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