The Wisdom of Elie Wiesel

My appreciation of his novels

When we think of the Romanian-American writer Elie Wiesel (1928-2016), we tend to think first of Night — his memoir of his year as a youth in Auschwitz – and of the wise and exemplary man who earned the Nobel Peace Prize.  I also esteem Wiesel as one of my 11 favorite novelists.

Wiesel wrote five novels that I regard as great, that I find personally meaningful, and that I intend to read again.  Only four novelists have written more, thus making him my fifth favorite novelist of all time.

Taking these five novels – and I regard Dawn and Day as novels, not novellas – in order from fifth to first:

#5. Dawn

(1961)

Here, Wiesel’s main character engages in an internal struggle regarding his pending revenge assassination against a British military officer.  The officer has killed a Jewish compatriot in British-occupied Palestine after World War II.  Dawn is a disturbing and meaningful self-examination and exploration of moral dilemmas.  In the suspenseful lead-up to his decision, his character wrestles with the horror of the past, the need to regain his people’s place in the world, and the guilt of becoming too much like the oppressors you despise. 

#4.  Day

(1962)

Here Wiesel contemplates the epic tragedy he was pulled into as a teenager.  He explores the challenge of finding meaning as a survivor of the annihilation of his fellow European Jews.  He questions, listens, and reflects on his relationships and experiences during and after a mass extermination – and he shows us how to find new life after an unfathomable trauma.

#3.  The Forgotten

(1992)

With an incurable amnesia-like illness, Wiesel’s character Elhanan shares his story, before he forgets it all, to Malkiel.  Malkiel travels to Romania for his own encounter with the truth.  Wiesel guides us to remember what is shameful in our past as well as what is heroic.  The language of The Forgotten is poetic, the characters are unforgettable, and the journey of self-discovery shows us to keep hoping in the face of what could defeat us.

#2.  The Fifth Son

(1985)

Wiesel’s main character visits a German town that was drowned in blood during the Holocaust.  Will he complete his haunted father’s revenge against the S.S.?  With his keen spiritual awareness, Wiesel meditates on evil and suffering as well as vengeance and forgiveness.  The Fifth Son is horrific and beautiful and, ultimately, a work of profound excellence.

#1.  The Testament

(1980)

Eloquent, poignant, and heartbreaking, The Testament again takes us into the large events of the 20^th Century.  Decades after the Soviet Communist Party makes a Russian poet named Paltiel its enemy, his son begins to come to grip with his father’s story and legacy.  This novel is difficult, even devastating, as well as Wiesel’s most moving.

In all five novels, we encounter Wiesel’s moral imagination, which is sublimely deepening and life-changing.  He struggles with suffering and the imperative, however much it torments us, to remember.  He wrestles with experiences that are difficult, painful, and even shattering.  He ponders weighty and thought-provoking questions.  And he explores psychology, philosophy, and religion.

Across continents and generations, across a range of beliefs and values, Elie Wiesel shows us how to endure the heartbreak and hopelessness and to keep yearning for meaning and find our convictions.  This wise soul guides us to take into hand, even after traveling the darkest terrain of the human experience, a sturdy ethical and moral compass.