Night was written by Elie Wiesel. If I believed that Gad Beck’s was amazing, this one tops the cake! Despite the melancholy tone of his book, it was an outstanding read. One of the aspect from the text, that hadn’t jumped out to me until our class discussion, was the absence of time. For example, there are no chapter numbers in the book; therefore, the reader has no idea was chapter they are on unless they go back and count. In a way, this is to show how Wiesel lived his life during the Holocaust because “no one has a calendar in a concentration camp.” He was not aware of the time and date of everything that happened to him.
Another aspect in the book, that I also wrote in my response paper, was the bartering and currency usage of everyday items. Wiesel puts an emphasis on the role that bread plays as currency in the camps. Guards would tempt prisoners with extra rations of bread and soup if they did want they wanted. Wiesel recounts a scene where the guard asked him for his gold crown in exchange for more bread and soup for him and his father, but he declined. Unfortunately, the guard punished him and had Wiesel’s crown extracted anyways for nothing in return. Wiesel later tells how he wished he would’ve said yes.
This book was absolutely fascinating and I would love to read more by him.