In appreciation of Real Literature
Feb. 10th, 2003 11:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kaydeefalls
It seems like a crime to be writing an AP Hell mini-essay on this passage. It's too beautiful/painful to be analyzed to death.
Context: the Holocaust. A forced march. Juliek is a Jewish violinist. True story, incidentally.
I was thinking of this when I heard the sound of a violin. The sound of a violin, in this dark shed, where the dead were heaped on the living. What madman could be playing the violin here, at the brink of his own grave? Or was it really an hallucination?
It must have been Juliek.
He played a fragment from Beethoven’s concerto. I had never heard sounds so pure. In such a silence.
How had he managed to free himself? To draw his body from under mine without my being aware of it?
It was pitch dark. I could hear only the violin, and it was as though Juliek's soul were the bow. He was playing his life. The whole of his life was gliding on the strings—his lost hopes, his charred past, his extinguished future. He played as he would never play again.
I shall never forget Juliek. How could I forget that concert, given to an audience of dying and dead men! To this day, whenever I hear Beethoven played my eyes close and out of the dark rises the sad, pale face of my Polish friend, as he said farewell on his violin to an audience of dying men.
I do not know for how long he played. I was overcome by sleep. When I awoke, in the daylight, I could see Juliek, opposite me, slumped over, dead. Near him lay his violin, smashed, trampled, a strange overwhelming little corpse.
from "Night," by Elie Wiesel.
Sorry, Tolkien. Love your books, but even the Grey Havens, Mount Doom, and Cirith Ungol together have nothing on this.
Context: the Holocaust. A forced march. Juliek is a Jewish violinist. True story, incidentally.
I was thinking of this when I heard the sound of a violin. The sound of a violin, in this dark shed, where the dead were heaped on the living. What madman could be playing the violin here, at the brink of his own grave? Or was it really an hallucination?
It must have been Juliek.
He played a fragment from Beethoven’s concerto. I had never heard sounds so pure. In such a silence.
How had he managed to free himself? To draw his body from under mine without my being aware of it?
It was pitch dark. I could hear only the violin, and it was as though Juliek's soul were the bow. He was playing his life. The whole of his life was gliding on the strings—his lost hopes, his charred past, his extinguished future. He played as he would never play again.
I shall never forget Juliek. How could I forget that concert, given to an audience of dying and dead men! To this day, whenever I hear Beethoven played my eyes close and out of the dark rises the sad, pale face of my Polish friend, as he said farewell on his violin to an audience of dying men.
I do not know for how long he played. I was overcome by sleep. When I awoke, in the daylight, I could see Juliek, opposite me, slumped over, dead. Near him lay his violin, smashed, trampled, a strange overwhelming little corpse.
from "Night," by Elie Wiesel.
Sorry, Tolkien. Love your books, but even the Grey Havens, Mount Doom, and Cirith Ungol together have nothing on this.
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no subject
Date: 2003-02-10 08:47 pm (UTC)That's beautiful. Nearly brought tears to my eyes. If I had to write on that, I don't know if I could make it through. (We have to do all our essays in class.)
Incidentally, which AP Hell class might you be writing for?
no subject
Date: 2003-02-10 08:54 pm (UTC)AP Hell is AP Literature. It's a great course, actually. But the teacher is
Satan incarnatea bit on the evil side. Hence my friendly little nickname...no subject
Date: 2003-02-10 09:42 pm (UTC)Re:
Date: 2003-02-10 10:13 pm (UTC)Oh, AP US History, I remember thee well ('twas only last year...). Best teacher ever. She was sarcastic and funny and cool. Evil tests, but otherwise... Have I taken all the same AP courses as you, other than Euro (I take Calculus instead)? Coolness. Guess curriculum doesn't change much from school to school.
no subject
Date: 2003-02-10 10:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-02-12 03:25 pm (UTC)...Tari