What can I even begin with on this read? I mean, wow. I'm overcome with emotion, and yet, at the same time, Levi's factual rather than romantic writing style has created a strange feeling in me. I'm not crying, but by no means am I cheering either. The horrid events depicted in this book are unbearable, yet inescapable. The wretchedness of humankind, yet the courageousness and continual fight to survive is breathtaking.
Levi's words are both terrifying and inspiring. As he writes, he writes with no hope of a future, even though he knows he has one. He writes in present time, as he remembers things so vividly. But Levi doesn't draw emotions out of the reader on purpose, he doesn't even attempt to do so, he simply presents the case as it happened and lets the reality of the event sink in to the veins of his readers. Levi doesn't have to spark emotion because the horrific tragedy should be (and for me was without a doubt) enough to send shivers down a spine without begging for sympathy.
Lines like "... I am not even alive enough to know how to kill myself" is plenty of information for me, although I'm not sure it's enough for everyone (169). Continuing on, he tackles the overflowing ditches full of dead bodies, the hundreds of people left behind due to sickness. Was the leaving behind a blessing? Or was it a curse? It seems to me that either way would have been just as hard and horrible. Should Levi have been strong enough to join the others on their way out of the camp, greater torture or even more imminent death would've been almost guaranteed. However, the fact that he stayed behind meant daily fighting to live, unsure of whether he'd be successful until he woke up the next morning with breath in his lungs.
This part of the book was by far the most interesting in my opinion, as if life has a cruel way of giving us all the background information and then letting our stories climax just enough that we are unsure if we can continue living it. In Levi's case, that was exactly it. He no longer had time in mind, he no longer really cared all that much about the timeline until the very end of his days in the camp. History stopped. He was becoming history instead of learning history. And his life was going nowhere in his opinion. For him, and for those he shared life with, history could just as well have been nothing at all. He says it himself: "For us, history had stopped" (136).
Comments: Ezra & Drew
Levi's words are both terrifying and inspiring. As he writes, he writes with no hope of a future, even though he knows he has one. He writes in present time, as he remembers things so vividly. But Levi doesn't draw emotions out of the reader on purpose, he doesn't even attempt to do so, he simply presents the case as it happened and lets the reality of the event sink in to the veins of his readers. Levi doesn't have to spark emotion because the horrific tragedy should be (and for me was without a doubt) enough to send shivers down a spine without begging for sympathy.
Lines like "... I am not even alive enough to know how to kill myself" is plenty of information for me, although I'm not sure it's enough for everyone (169). Continuing on, he tackles the overflowing ditches full of dead bodies, the hundreds of people left behind due to sickness. Was the leaving behind a blessing? Or was it a curse? It seems to me that either way would have been just as hard and horrible. Should Levi have been strong enough to join the others on their way out of the camp, greater torture or even more imminent death would've been almost guaranteed. However, the fact that he stayed behind meant daily fighting to live, unsure of whether he'd be successful until he woke up the next morning with breath in his lungs.
This part of the book was by far the most interesting in my opinion, as if life has a cruel way of giving us all the background information and then letting our stories climax just enough that we are unsure if we can continue living it. In Levi's case, that was exactly it. He no longer had time in mind, he no longer really cared all that much about the timeline until the very end of his days in the camp. History stopped. He was becoming history instead of learning history. And his life was going nowhere in his opinion. For him, and for those he shared life with, history could just as well have been nothing at all. He says it himself: "For us, history had stopped" (136).
Comments: Ezra & Drew
Comments