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A review by neilrcoulter
Anne Frank: The Book, the Life, the Afterlife by Francine Prose
3.0
Last year I read The Diary of a Young Girl for the first time, motivated by the fact that my son will be acting in a school production of the play (which I finally get to see very soon!). What I enjoyed more than the original book, actually, are some related titles I read that delve deeper into the surrounding historical context. In particular, Anne Frank: Beyond the Diary and Miep Gies's Anne Frank Remembered were fascinating and beautiful.
Francine Prose's Anne Frank: The Book, the Life, the Afterlife is the final Anne-related book on my list to read, and while it is interesting, it's not as brilliant as the other two titles mentioned above. It sounds like a strange criticism, but I almost wish that Prose wasn't quite so big a fan of Anne Frank; the book might have been better and less "geek-out." Prose's technique sometimes follows this kind of line: "Anne was just brilliant at writing about this situation. Let me explain it for you. There: Did you notice how brilliant Anne was?" That's overly simplistic, but it's how I perceived Prose's writing too much of the time, particularly in the section "The Book."
I'm glad I had already read the other books, because Prose assumes that her reader is very familiar with the usual photos and some background information. This book contains no photos at all, so Prose is left to merely describe photos--which is perfectly fine if you know what she's talking about, but probably frustrating if you haven't seen the photos before.
The final section, especially the parts about the play and film adaptations, is kind of depressing, and I felt bad for Otto Frank having to spend the rest of his life wrangling the legend of his daughter.
The Book, the Life, the Afterlife was illuminating at times, but in general the middle-road aim of Prose was not quite what I wanted. I either want the all-the-photos scrapbook approach of Beyond the Diary or the full academic analysis of The Critical Edition. Prose's in-between stance is not quite my style.
Francine Prose's Anne Frank: The Book, the Life, the Afterlife is the final Anne-related book on my list to read, and while it is interesting, it's not as brilliant as the other two titles mentioned above. It sounds like a strange criticism, but I almost wish that Prose wasn't quite so big a fan of Anne Frank; the book might have been better and less "geek-out." Prose's technique sometimes follows this kind of line: "Anne was just brilliant at writing about this situation. Let me explain it for you. There: Did you notice how brilliant Anne was?" That's overly simplistic, but it's how I perceived Prose's writing too much of the time, particularly in the section "The Book."
I'm glad I had already read the other books, because Prose assumes that her reader is very familiar with the usual photos and some background information. This book contains no photos at all, so Prose is left to merely describe photos--which is perfectly fine if you know what she's talking about, but probably frustrating if you haven't seen the photos before.
The final section, especially the parts about the play and film adaptations, is kind of depressing, and I felt bad for Otto Frank having to spend the rest of his life wrangling the legend of his daughter.
The Book, the Life, the Afterlife was illuminating at times, but in general the middle-road aim of Prose was not quite what I wanted. I either want the all-the-photos scrapbook approach of Beyond the Diary or the full academic analysis of The Critical Edition. Prose's in-between stance is not quite my style.