The Fifth Son: A novel [Paperback]

Elie Wiesel (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 7, 1998

Reuven Tamiroff, a Holocaust survivor, has never been able to speak about his past to his son, a young man who yearns to understand his father’s silence. As campuses burn amidst the unrest of the Sixties and his own generation rebels, the son is drawn to his father’s circle of wartime friends in search of clues to the past. Finally discovering that his brooding father has been haunted for years by his role in the murder of a brutal SS officer just after the war, young Tamiroff learns that the Nazi is still alive. Haunting, poetic, and very contemporary, The Fifth Son builds to an unforgettable climax as the son sets out to complete his father’s act of revenge.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“A work of passion and intelligence.”
—Chicago Tribune Book World
 
“Powerful [and] emotional.”
—Newsday
 
“A voice that is humanist and universal even as it is Jewish-minded and special . . . The author makes all of us ‘children’ of that generation.”
—The New York Times

Language Notes

Text: English (translation)
Original Language: French

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 228 pages
• Publisher: Schocken (April 7, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0805210830
• ISBN-13: 978-0805210835
• Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 0.5 x 8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #357,499 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Elie Wiesel is the author of more than forty books, including his unforgettable international best sellers Night and A Beggar in Jerusalem, winner of the Prix Médicis. He has been awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the United States Congressional Gold Medal, and the French Legion of Honor with the rank of Grand Cross. In 1986, he received the Nobel Peace Prize. He is Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the Humanities and University Professor at Boston University.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Ties That Bind, October 2, 2004

By 

R. Chaffey "beckahi" (Chicago) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Fifth Son: A novel (Paperback)

As a Jew who survived the horrors of the Holocaust and life in a concentration camp, Elie Wiesel continuosly weaves these circumstances into his writings. In his works, he struggles to answer nearly impossible questions: why was it the fate of the Jews to die and why did they seem to accept that fate without a fight? "The Fifth Son" is a philosophical testament that seeks the answers to those questions, but also imaginatively examines the bond between father and son.

As usual with Wiesel's novels, the reader is transported from the present to the past numerous times. We meet Rueven Tamiroff, a librarian in New York, a Jew who survived the Holocaust, and a father who cannot communicate with his unnamed son. His son desperately searches for the keys to his father's behavior, searching out stories of his past through every possible means. When he finally uncovers the truth about his father's past that is destroying his present reality, the son becomes obsessed with setting the record straight. The son's travels take him back to Germany and into the darkest recesses of encroaching madness. Wiesel's characters are vividly written, intelligent and fragile creatures.

Wiesel takes his readers on a philosophical tour of Nazi torture and the revenge that assauged those Jews who survived WWII, as well as the guilt they felt for surviving when so many others did not. He speaks eloquently of the displacement of Jews who moved to America, as well as the anger of the younger German generation who are blamed for the sins of the older generation. The questions he raises are hard to answer; mainly because answers are yet to be found that would satisfy Wiesel.

12 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Beautiful Read, April 6, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: The Fifth Son: A novel (Paperback)

Wiesel writes with the voice of a poet in this complex novel. It is told from the point of view of a Jewish young man who is trying desperately to understand his father, a Holocaust survivor. The young man, who is never named, wants to know everything he can about his father's experiences, and he slowly begins to gain information through his father's friends and through the letters he discovers, written by his father to his son Ariel. The book begins in a sequence that is confusing in the manner of a poem; it eventually becomes clearer as the themes of the book are developed. The young man is going to visit Germany to meet up with his father's past and somehow come to terms with it. He struggles with hate and forgiveness, and ultimately meets up with his father's past, and his own obsession, in a confrontation that tests his courage and helps him approach some sort of peace.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Easily the most powerful book I ever read, April 3, 2005

A Kid's Review

This review is from: The Fifth Son: A novel (Paperback)

This book was amazing. It was written so well and told a story seldom written about. I have read many book about the Holocaust, but none dealt with the realities of being the child of a survivor. I cried for 200 of the 230 pages. This book has so much to teach, and was a very quick read. It is a must-read for anyone who knows Holocaust survivors or their children.