The Forgotten [Paperback]

Elie Wiesel (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 31, 1995

A profoundly moving novel about a Holocaust survivor's struggle to remember both the heroic and the shameful events of his past, and about his American-born son's need to assimilate his father's life into his own. "A book of shattering force that offers a message of urgency to a world under the spell of trivia and the tyranny of amnesia."--Chicago Tribune Book World.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Nobel Peace Prize winner Wiesel ( Sages and Dreamers ) reprises the themes of memory and forgetting in this almost unbearably moving novel. Elhanan Rosenbaum, one of the few Jews in his Romanian village to have survived WW II, is a widower whose adored wife died giving birth to their only child. Decades later, he is losing his memory to an unspecified illness. Horrified at the possibility that all he has witnessed will be surrendered to oblivion, he entrusts his life's story--and the stories of the people he alone remembers--to his son, Malkiel, a reporter for the New York Times . At Elhanan's request, Malkiel travels to the Carpathian mountains to explore the mysteries that still confound his father. There he pores over the tombstones in the Jewish cemetery, the legacy of a once-thriving community, and meets the gravedigger. In one of the most poignant passages in an already tender novel, the gravedigger tells the story of the Great Reunion: as the Nazis deport the last Jews, the ghosts of the village's rabbinical judges convene to avenge the fate of their now-extinct congregation. Malkiel begins to comprehend the relations between memory and grace, courage and forgiveness. Here and there a sentence sinks into sentimentality ("Twenty years of sun, laughter, a free and savage joy, were inscribed on her fine and angular Oriental face"), but the integrity of Wiesel's respect for history and his recognition of its fragility give this novel an impact simple in its strength and complex in its dimensions.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

This novel of the memories of a Holocaust survivor adds substantially to Wiesel's collection of more than 30 works--including essays, plays, cantatas, and novels--in some way related to the destruction of European Jewry. Wiesel's concise, haunting, stark imagery has earned him the title of literary laureate of the Holocaust. Here, survivor Elhanan Rosenbaum, now living in New York and a distinguished professor with a psychiatric practice, is tragically losing his prodigious memory. While he can still remember, he creates a "backup" by bequeathing to his son, Malkiel, his stories of the martyred death of his father in his Carpathian village (for whom his son is named); his teenage stint in the army and his return to a ghetto empty of Jews; his adventures in the underground partisan movement; and his love of Talia, the extraordinary woman who rescued him and who died giving birth to his only son. These searing tales, which spur Malkiel on a search of collective past, succesfully link generations together. Wiesel's substantial readership will appreciate the introspection and search for truth in this new work. Recommended for all libraries. Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 12/91.
- Molly Abram owitz, Silver Spring, Md.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Schocken (January 31, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0805210199
• ISBN-13: 978-0805210194
• Product Dimensions: 5.1 x 0.8 x 7.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #257,549 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

34 of 34 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Remembrance of Things Past, October 1, 2005

By 

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

This review is from: The Forgotten (Paperback)

As always with an Elie Wiesel book, the topic of the Holocaust and its aftershocks are explored in lyrical depth. "The Forgotten" is no different, as it explores the memories of Elhanan Rosenbaum, just as he struggles with losing his memory to an incurable disease. He desperately tries to pass his memories onto his son so that they will never die, even if he does.

"The Forgotten", like most of Wiesel's books, weaves back and forth through time and between different narrators. At times the transitions between these various changes is a little choppy, but the stories all interconnect in the end. Elhanan's son, Malkiel, struggles with the task his father has assigned him. He cannot fathom how he is to possibly hold and retain his father's memories along with his own. And when his father asks him to take a pilgrimage to his hometown, both are unsure as to what to look for, but know that an answer must exist there that will free Elhanan's painful memories and grant him peace.

Wiesel has devoted his life to searching for meaning in what has happened to the Jewish people. As a survivor of the Holocaust, he has a tremendous witness to bear. That aspect of being a witness plays a large role in "The Forgotten". As Malkiel finally realizes, he must do what his father no longer can. "I will bear witness in his place; I will speak for him. It is the son's duty not to let his father die." And it is the duty of the world not to let the past slip into oblivion. Lest we forget.

31 of 38 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Moving on several levels, January 28, 2000

By 

Lewis M. Weinstein "author of THE HERETIC, CA... (Key West, FL and Collioure, France) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Forgotten (Paperback)

The Forgotten explores both the holocaust experiences of the aging father, and his new horror of losing his memory. Both are intensely moving, whether seen through his own eyes, or those of his son struggling to fulfill a difficult obligation. Like all of Elie Wiesel's writings, this book stays with you and influences your own thinking on many topics. A sad story, unforgettable.

Professor Wiesel did me the honor of writing a blurb for my novel, The Heretic (Library of American Fiction), which describes anti-Judaism on the eve of the Spanish Inquisition. I also invite you to consider my new novel, A Good Conviction, the story of a young man in Sing Sing prison, wrongly convicted of a crime he did not commit.

2.0 out of 5 stars Night Trilogy is better, October 12, 2011

By 

Van - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Forgotten (Paperback)

This is an author I hold with great respect. However, I must be honest in saying I had difficulty reading this book. I agree that it may be me, and not him, but I do feel his Trilogy to be much easier reading. This topic is one I feel very sympathetic with, but would strongly recommend his other books instead. (Now other readers, please please do not get upset, this is just my opinion, and in no way am I being disrespectful, as he is a master writer!)