The Pianist: The Extraordinary True Story of One Man's Survival in Warsaw, 1939-1945
by Wladyslaw Szpilman
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Book Summary Information
Author: Wladyslaw SzpilmanEdition: Paperback
Format: Bargain Price
Published: 2002-12-20
ISBN: N/A
Number of pages: 224
Book Reviews of The Pianist: The Extraordinary True Story of One Man's Survival in Warsaw, 1939-1945
Book Review: Uplifting!
Summary: 5 Stars
Why do I consider a first person account detailing the horrors of the Holocaust to be uplifting? The events described by the author are harrowing and nearly unbelievable to the degree that I was astonished that the man, in the end, survives. Perhaps that is why I am so uplifted by this story. He survived. He defied evil by daring to live. He also dared to pick up the pieces of his shattered life and continue to live. He does this without any fanfare or obvious heroism. I think that is what makes this particular telling of the Holocaust so remarkable. The author writes it in such an unremarkable fashion that it forces you to sit up and take notice. By simply stating that the caramel was his 'family's last meal together' makes you pause to reflect on such an event. Beautifully written. Highly recommended.
As a side note, Roman Polanski's adaptation of this book is truly brilliant. Adrien Brody's portrayal of Szpilman is awe inspiring and heart wrenching to watch. Both men do the book and Szpilman's memory justice.
Summary of The Pianist: The Extraordinary True Story of One Man's Survival in Warsaw, 1939-1945
We are drawn in to share his surprise and then disbelief at the horrifying progress of events, all conveyed with an understated intimacy and dailiness that render them painfully close... riveting' OBSERVEROn September 23, 1939, Wladyslaw Szpilman played Chopin's Nocturne in C-sharp minor live on the radio as shells exploded outside - so loudly that he couldn't hear his piano. It was the last live music broadcast from Warsaw: That day, a German bomb hit the station, and Polish Radio went off the air.Though he lost his entire family, Szpilman survived in hiding. In the end, his life was saved by a German officer who heard him play the same Chopin Nocturne on a piano found among the rubble. Written immediately after the war and suppressed for decades, THE PIANIST is a stunning testament to human endurance and the redemptive power of fellow feeling.'The images drawn are unusually sharp and clear... but its moral tone is even more striking: Szpilman refuses to make a hero or a demon out of anyone' LITERARY REVIEWWritten immediately after the end of World War II, this morally complex Holocaust memoir is notable for its exact depiction of the grim details of life in Warsaw under the Nazi occupation. "Things you hardly noticed before took on enormous significance: a comfortable, solid armchair, the soothing look of a white-tiled stove," writes Wladyslaw Szpilman, a pianist for Polish radio when the Germans invaded. His mother's insistence on laying the table with clean linen for their midday meal, even as conditions for Jews worsened daily, makes palpable the Holocaust's abstract horror. Arbitrarily removed from the transport that took his family to certain death, Szpilman does not deny the "animal fear" that led him to seize this chance for escape, nor does he cheapen his emotions by belaboring them. Yet his cool prose contains plenty of biting rage, mostly buried in scathing asides (a Jewish doctor spared consignment to "the most wonderful of all gas chambers," for example). Szpilman found compassion in unlikely people, including a German officer who brought food and warm clothing to his hiding place during the war's last days. Extracts from the officer's wartime diary (added to this new edition), with their expressions of outrage at his fellow soldiers' behavior, remind us to be wary of general condemnation of any group. --Wendy Smith
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