Customer Reviews

Darkness Casts No Shadow (His Children of the Holocaust ; V. 2)

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This is the creative writing professor mentioned before--since I read something by Girardi, his substitute, I couldn't very well forget the man who has been teaching me the other twelve weeks of the semester, could I? Well, actually, I was somewhat hesitant about making an attempt at Arnost's fiction. I'll admit to being intimidated by him (he is a survivor of three concentration camps, including Auschwitz- Birkneau), especially when our first assignment was to write the most interesting story of our lives. Right, I thought, like anything that has happened in my measly existence would prove exciting to a man who was nearly shot three times, was interrogated by the KGB, and has won an Emmy award for one of his screenplays. On the other hand, maybe I just needed the challenge, because the story I completed is my best ever (in my estimation).

Darkness Casts No Shadow is a roughly autobiographical story of Arnost's escape from a freight train (carrying human passengers to Theisenstadt) with another young man. In class, we got the real biographical details, which have been merged and separated in the fiction. The escape was initiated by an American fighter who mistook the train as one ferrying soldiers, and Arnost and his companion (Manny and Danny in the story) watch while the bullets rip apart the prisoners in the early freight cars, deciding that they will risk jumping and running rather than wait for the sure death of the American's bullets.

It's an exciting tale of adventure, but the adrenaline is muted by the flashbacks that tell the background to the boys being on that freight car, including their former lives and the deaths of many of their family members. I've not read much Holocaust literature, for example, I've never read The Diary of Anne Frank, most of my knowledge regarding this time limited to The Hiding Place and documentaries (but not Schindler's List, which I managed to avoid, somehow). This story is inherently sobering, making one stop and realize the day-to-day horror of the situation. This is not an anti-war story, but one promoting anti-brutality. It is also highly moralistic (in the best sense that all literature should have a moral underpinning). Yeah, I was impressed by it. The ending is a little open to interpretation; I know that Arnost and his friend survived, but the reader wonders if Manny and Danny escape. My feeling is that Arnost selected such an ambiguous ending to reflect the thousands of escapees, rather than just his particular experience. Some did survive; most did not.

The most puzzling thing about Amazon customer reviews is how highly books and films get rated! This book is a case in point. I have been reading Holocaust literature for 25 years. This is THE worst book on the subject that I have encountered.

Important note: That a SUBJECT is important, as the Holocaust is, does NOT make any book about it important or moving. My abhorrence is specific to this book. My copy, by the way, is the paperback by Northwestern Press, issued 1976.

First, it is fiction. An enormous amount of literature is available about the Holocaust. Very little is fiction because it doesn't need to be. Nonfiction communicates infinitely more information and power.

Second, this is poorly written: repetitious, vague, often unclear as to what is going on, with no facticity about anything.

Third, no information is provided about the author and his credentials for writing the book. There is no reason about someone could not have knocked this thing out in a weekend, knowing very little about WWII, Germany, or the camps.

Item. Over and over, we read "the first boy...the second boy..." which is clumsy. A major part of the book is the boys wandering around in the woods. The ending is both implausible and unclear. That is, this author does not have enough talent or doesn't know enough to write accurately about specifics.

Item. The first pages are more specific to description and a real situation than anything else in the book. But the descriptions are stupid. Examples? No American fighter pilot over Germany flew alone, as this one does. No American fighter pilot over Germany wasted time playing around, doing acrobatic tricks, or endlessly toying with a target. There was a war going on and life was dangerous, for heaven's sake! And no fighter aircraft had a tenth as much ammunition to expend as the one described here.

Item. The boys are wet, have not eaten for 6 days, presumably then have not had much water for an extended period. The weather is cold. They would not be CONSCIOUS, much less having such an articulate, extensive, wordy, opinionated, chatty, endless conversation.

Item. The boys talk about things things they could have no knowledge of, such as the terrain ahead - a tunnel, the hill and trees on the other side of the tunnel, etc.

Item. These two boys from Eastern Europe can't know anything about fighter aircraft. Yet in the book they are mindreading the pilot: what he is thinking, what he is going to do, and why he is doing things. We are asked to believe, for example, that the boys know the aircraft has cameras and is taking pictures.

Item. Prisoners to and from the camps were locked into boxcars. They could see almost nothing through a few slats. They certainly could not just drop off the train to escape anytime they felt like it.

Item. Misinformation about the SS. The book talks of the SS who ran the camps and handled prisoners as "Waffen SS." Wrong. Waffen SS were totally different: they were the fighting troops, not the concentration camp personnel.

Item. Manny at one place "went back to thinking about Manya Cernovska" -- but she has not at this point of the book even been introduced or mentioned.

Beginning to end, this is a poorly written, inaccurate, fanciful piece of trash. There's just nothing worthwhile about it. The writing is poor, and the information is wrong. How could it be worse than it in fact is?

If this author was a teacher at Northwestern, I'd say he called in some big favors to get this garbage published.

If you have a different take on the book, I'd love to hear it.

I think that this book is creat it helped me on my history class alot. I think that this book is a great part of history but a real small one.

I sugest all readers from all ages to read this magnificent book that deals with survival of the fitest or survival for freedom. Danny and Manny are the protagonists in this noble. this noble has adventre thatexpeeriences that two men have to make.I recomend this book for all readers.

I personally thinbk of this book as a great experience during the WWI and that Darkness Cast No Shadow has to do with an adventure of how to good friends have to survive in a forest unnon to them. the most sadest part is iat the end were all they had worked for and struggle to survive was for no use. they were taken back were they tarted. I recomend this book to every reader.