Twilight

Elie Wiesel is a man apparently haunted by his past. A survivor of the concentration camps and the Holocaust, Wiesel has turned his experiences into some of the most profound modern literature. "Twilight" is no exception to that rule, a novel that searches for the truth of humanity lost during the Holocaust. "Twilight" tells the story of Raphael Lipkin, a lost and lonely man. He finds himself drawn to a sanitorium in upstate New York, which specializes in the madness of patients who believe themselves to be characters from the Bible. He is there to hopefully his friend Pedro, the man who saved him during the Holocaust and then disappeared from his life. As he studies these patients, who range from Abraham and Cain to Jesus and God himself, Raphael is torn between madness and sanity. He questions all that he knows to be true and all that he has experienced in his life. Wiesel is a master storyteller, weaving complicated stories into a wonderous picture. "Twilight" fluctuates between the present time, to Raphael's memories, to his family's persecution during the Holocaust. The reader is shown the true horrors that Jews experienced, and how families are torn apart. Raphael never recovers from his experiences, and this becomes apparent in his questioning. His search doesn't necessarily bring answers; these are tough questions that might not be answerable. How can one see through the madness of the Holocaust when it is an event that the entire world still struggles to understand? Wiesel's purpose isn't to make one understand these tragedies or to give simple answers to questions of faith; rather, he wants the reader to think and question, and be content to know that not everything is for us to know.

Twilight seeks to explore the relationship between God and his creation in the context of a mental assylum whereby the accusation of God's insanity in the wake of the Holocaust is juxta-opposed against God's care. The book is filled with wonderful characters in the assylum who 'double' in their insanity as characters from Hebrew Scripture - Adam, Joseph, Cain, Abraham, the Messiah and God. The book is somewhat complicated in that the deepest questions concerning the nature of God and humanity are explored while historic 'flash backs' break up the intensity to tell the real struggle of the main character and his family under the Nazi regime. The book is written with an intense passion and stimulates emotions and arguments and insights concerning God's relationship to humanity in the light of the holocaust from all angles. God is seen as omni-present but veiled, simultaneously imminant and transcendent. Many times the question WHY? is thrown at God and options of God's insanity, cruelty, indifference and usury are expressed. Finally, the accusation of God's insanity in relation to the hohlocaust is defended through the patient who beleives himself to be God - 'When exactly was I suppose to stop it? Go on, tell me' The novel evokes sympathy for God as a concluding note and in the face of anger and accusation because of the holocaust we are left with an unveiled God in tears and pain through the accusation 'you could have stopped it - you should have stopped it'. This is a short novel the weaves a masterful tapestry of emotions, history, theology, accusation and theodicy. It's setting in a clinic is unique, the patients are loveable, understandable. Wiesel leads the reader to be on everyone's side, in everyone's shoes. A stunning novel - well worth coming to terms with and reading over and over again.

This was my 1st Wiesel work and I did not find it to be "perplexing" or "weird". Actually, I found it to be a quite sane story depicting one of the 20th centuries' most perplexing events.For readers who have thought previously about the various shades of madness and those who find themselves afflicted (Robert Persig's 'Lila' as an example) and for readers who have spent any time reflecting on the inexcapable impact of the Holocaust on survivors and their next generation...then 'Twilight' is a mystical and brutally real novel depicting the terror of just one family out of the countless thousands.