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iamericat22's review
5.0
This is a book about the Holocaust, and so saying that I enjoyed this book has room for misinterpretation.
Everyone has heard of Elie Wiesel, but he's only one of many who have Holocaust survivor stories to tell. Arnost Lustig's novel, based on his own experiences, is different from Wiesel's "Night" though in that most of the action occurs between two boys who have escaped a transport train car and are walking the woods to their new life. The portraits of their time in the concentration camps is told by way of dream and flashback sequences.
The ending is as perfect as it gets for this subject matter. The story is just long enough to resonate and stick with you for a long time. This is a classic that slipped through the cracks somehow. For teachers and students looking for something different to remember the Holocaust, this is a must read.
#5StarRead
Everyone has heard of Elie Wiesel, but he's only one of many who have Holocaust survivor stories to tell. Arnost Lustig's novel, based on his own experiences, is different from Wiesel's "Night" though in that most of the action occurs between two boys who have escaped a transport train car and are walking the woods to their new life. The portraits of their time in the concentration camps is told by way of dream and flashback sequences.
The ending is as perfect as it gets for this subject matter. The story is just long enough to resonate and stick with you for a long time. This is a classic that slipped through the cracks somehow. For teachers and students looking for something different to remember the Holocaust, this is a must read.
#5StarRead
screen_memory's review
4.0
After an extensive three-volume trip through the gulags and the unspeakable atrocities that occurred all throughout that accursed archipelago, I found it appropriate to continue onward into further unutterable crimes against humanity - deeper into misery, deeper into human suffering - this time within the grounds of the Theresienstadt concentration camp, in which Lustig himself was imprisoned (he was imprisoned as well in Auschwitz and Buchenwald).
Informed by his own experience of escaping from the train leading him to Dachau, this novel follows two presumably teenaged boys following their escape en route to another camp. The narrative shifts between the immediacy of their exhausting trek through German forests toward some indeterminate freedom, and Danny's memories of his experience in the camp they were being transported away from - the memory of his father crying when he and his mother were taken from him, the memory of seeing his mother for the last time after their separation as she stood in line for the gas chamber, the memory of their wounded friend they had no choice but to leave behind in their flight from the camp.
This story is a tragic one, and Lustig delves deep into the mind of the prisoner who is assured that darkness - of starvation, of evil, or of death - awaits them at the end of whatever course they might take, whether in the camps or whether in fleeing toward some refuge they know they will never find. There is no triumph of the human spirit in this novel, and there is no fortunate conclusion. Contrary to the title of Lustig's excellent but tragic story, darkness does indeed cast its boundless shadow over the expanse of the novel.
Informed by his own experience of escaping from the train leading him to Dachau, this novel follows two presumably teenaged boys following their escape en route to another camp. The narrative shifts between the immediacy of their exhausting trek through German forests toward some indeterminate freedom, and Danny's memories of his experience in the camp they were being transported away from - the memory of his father crying when he and his mother were taken from him, the memory of seeing his mother for the last time after their separation as she stood in line for the gas chamber, the memory of their wounded friend they had no choice but to leave behind in their flight from the camp.
This story is a tragic one, and Lustig delves deep into the mind of the prisoner who is assured that darkness - of starvation, of evil, or of death - awaits them at the end of whatever course they might take, whether in the camps or whether in fleeing toward some refuge they know they will never find. There is no triumph of the human spirit in this novel, and there is no fortunate conclusion. Contrary to the title of Lustig's excellent but tragic story, darkness does indeed cast its boundless shadow over the expanse of the novel.
gengelcox's review
3.0
This is the creative writing professor mentioned in the review of Robert Girardi's The Pirate's Daughter--since I read something by Girardi, his substitute, I couldn't very well forget the man who has been teaching me the other twelve weeks of the semester, could I? Well, actually, I was somewhat hesitant about making an attempt at Arnost's fiction. I'll admit to being intimidated by him (he is a survivor of three concentration camps, including Auschwitz-Birkneau), especially when our first assignment was to write the most interesting story of our lives. Right, I thought, like anything that has happened in my measly existence would prove exciting to a man who was nearly shot three times, was interrogated by the KGB, and has won an Emmy award for one of his screenplays. On the other hand, maybe I just needed the challenge, because the story I completed is my best ever (in my estimation).
Darkness Casts No Shadow is a roughly autobiographical story of Arnost's escape from a freight train (carrying human passengers to Theisenstadt) with another young man. In class, we got the real biographical details, which have been merged and separated in the fiction. The escape was initiated by an American fighter who mistook the train as one ferrying soldiers, and Arnost and his companion (Manny and Danny in the story) watch while the bullets rip apart the prisoners in the early freight cars, deciding that they will risk jumping and running rather than wait for the sure death of the American's bullets.
It's an exciting tale of adventure, but the adrenaline is muted by the flashbacks that tell the background to the boys being on that freight car, including their former lives and the deaths of many of their family members. I've not read much Holocaust literature, for example, I've never read The Diary of Anne Frank, most of my knowledge regarding this time limited to The Hiding Place and documentaries (but not Schindler's List, which I managed to avoid, somehow). This story is inherently sobering, making one stop and realize the day-to-day horror of the situation. This is not an anti-war story, but one promoting anti-brutality. It is also highly moralistic (in the best sense that all literature should have a moral underpinning). Yeah, I was impressed by it. The ending is a little open to interpretation; I know that Arnost and his friend survived, but the reader wonders if Manny and Danny escape. My feeling is that Arnost selected such an ambiguous ending to reflect the thousands of escapees, rather than just his particular experience. Some did survive; most did not.
Darkness Casts No Shadow is a roughly autobiographical story of Arnost's escape from a freight train (carrying human passengers to Theisenstadt) with another young man. In class, we got the real biographical details, which have been merged and separated in the fiction. The escape was initiated by an American fighter who mistook the train as one ferrying soldiers, and Arnost and his companion (Manny and Danny in the story) watch while the bullets rip apart the prisoners in the early freight cars, deciding that they will risk jumping and running rather than wait for the sure death of the American's bullets.
It's an exciting tale of adventure, but the adrenaline is muted by the flashbacks that tell the background to the boys being on that freight car, including their former lives and the deaths of many of their family members. I've not read much Holocaust literature, for example, I've never read The Diary of Anne Frank, most of my knowledge regarding this time limited to The Hiding Place and documentaries (but not Schindler's List, which I managed to avoid, somehow). This story is inherently sobering, making one stop and realize the day-to-day horror of the situation. This is not an anti-war story, but one promoting anti-brutality. It is also highly moralistic (in the best sense that all literature should have a moral underpinning). Yeah, I was impressed by it. The ending is a little open to interpretation; I know that Arnost and his friend survived, but the reader wonders if Manny and Danny escape. My feeling is that Arnost selected such an ambiguous ending to reflect the thousands of escapees, rather than just his particular experience. Some did survive; most did not.
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