Indulging in some of my favorite music...

Not the best recording ever... but beautiful.

Thanks for stopping by. :-)

Miss Pickwickian

Jewish Violin Music

I love this type of music.

The album Songs of our Fathers by Andy Statman and David Grisman is an intense favorite. So lyrical...and sometimes so energetic. There is a medley we dance Whip-the-Willow to that is just the best. :-)

Songs of Zion by Maurice Sklar is another CD that's been around our house for a long time. And now, of course, the Defiance soundtrack. :-)

We should produce music like this!

This song is played by the French violinist, Patrick Chemla.

I've grown up with pieces of this music but I don't think I'll ever think of them the same after reading Elie Wiesel's Night. The scene where his friend plays the violin while they are all waiting in the cold is one of the most moving of the book.

Elie falls asleep to the sound and wakes up and the violinist and most of the people around him are dead...from cold and hunger. The violinist is still holding his instrument in the same position.

The Promise - Chaim Potok

The Promise by Chaim Potok

A Fawcett Columbine Book published by Ballatine Books

Rating: 9

Readability: I rarely get impeded in a book where I can not function... I am perfectly capable of walking away from mainstream suspense, but not Potok.

Impact: High! An 8 or 9.

Read it Again: Yes.

Recommend It: Yes.

What to Expect:

The second book to The Chosen, but one that could also stand alone.

Danny and Reuven are both going through college and graduate school. The book focuses on controversies within their community and the life of a mentally ill young man they both get involved with. It also ties in the lives of Jews who traveled to America after being liberated after World War II.
Find out the rest for yourself... :-)

Compared to The Chosen, I think Potok's writing style was greatly improved and much more polished...however some books just have a soul to them in a way an author can not fully repeat.

I feel like this about Robert Peck, Potok, Sigmund Brouwer, and a few others. Not that their other works weren't amazing, but one certain book was the book they had to write.

Having said all that, The Promise is a wonderful book! It can stand alone beautifully and attests to the skill and wisdom of it's author.

My Squib:

After finishing The Chosen I was determined to write an intelligent and favorable review. If you recall...it didn't happen. I wrote about three or four unintelligible rambles.

There's just something I can't explain here. When I finish one of Potok's books I just don't feel like analyzing it...and that's weird for me.

He truly is a master story teller and he wraps things up so nicely and so beautifully it's almost like I don't dare open the book back up.

I have never read more satisfying endings, even to great epics. It's so strange.

I seriously think Potok was writing strait at my soul.

(Not soul as in my Soul. Don't worry, I'm not about to become Jewish. But soul as in... like "my gut". Maybe "gut" would be a better word but it sounds extremely unladylike... Yeah...anyways...)

Ok...Am I making any sense here?

The Facts are these-

I love Potok.

His style, his characters, his plots, his questions, his oddities.

And I love Daniel Saunders.

To bad he wouldn't spend sometime reading the New Testament instead of Freud. It's probably the only book he's never read...

Oh yeah...besides the fact that he's fictitious.

I will force myself to analyze and write an intelligent post about Potok's style and world soon. I actually have a lot of things I'd love to talk about, especially to anyone who's already read some Potok and has their own opinions.

And if you haven't...go do so.

From the Book:

"You understand what it is to make a choice...? A choice tells the world what is most important to a human being. When a man has a choice to make he chooses what is most important to him, and that choice tells the world what kind of man he is." -Rav Kalman

"That is the way the world is, Reuven. Each generation thinks it fights new battles. But the battles are the same. Only the people are different." ~David Malter

Have a good New Years Eve!

Thanks for reading,

Miss Pickwickina

A Character - Tuvia Bielski

I have an irrational love of the movie Defiance.

I know it is not completely accurate, but it is an extremely powerful movie and very well done. I own it, and although it's not one you want to watch over and over again to close together, it's well worth owning.

Please note that this movie is disturbing and really deserves it's R rating. At the beginning it shows actual German footage of a brutal attack on a Jewish village. There is quite a bit of violence, but really the most disturbing aspect is that things like this actually happen.

We've always watched it on Clearplay, so I'm not sure if I'm recommending it or not without it.

I love movies that show a lot of people together and how they change through similar experiences (think Flyboys, Remember the Titans, and Master and Commander). Defiance does this beautifully.

The individuality of the Bielski brothers and their relationships is amazingly done. Simply awesome.

The Bielski Brothers

Zua, Aron, Tuvia, and Aseal

Zus (Liev Schreiber) and Tuvia (Daniel Craig)

Probably the most complicated relationship in the movie.

Zus and Tuvia
This is the part where I want to-
1) Die
2) Cry my eyes out
3) Rave about good acting
4) Wish I could write something like this

The reason I think Tuvia is just an awesome character are many.

I guess the most obvious and over all is that he is fully drawn. He is not perfect, but he is believable and he is extremely likable. He's a strong character.

He is a true leader.
He is both strong and compassionate.

He is an awesome brother.

And on a more trivial note....

He has an awesome white horse.

An outstanding collar.

And
I love most World War II era clothing...but this coat...
Yes. Very good.

He's a down to earth character, strong character. It think he's interesting to study and I'd love to be able to create one as fully drawn.

Edward Zwick directed and wrote the screenplay with Clayton Froham. I don't think I've seen anything else done by Edward Zwick, but he does an amazing job in Defiance.

Thanks for reading,
Miss Pickwickian

Survival in Auschwitz - Primo Levi

Survival in Auschwitz by Primo Levi

A Touchstone Book

Published by Simon & Schuster

Rating: 7
Readability: Painful.

Impact: We'll see.

Read it Again: I dunno.
Recommend It: Yes.

What to Expect

Primo Levi spent one year in the death camps of Auschwitz. He is an Jewish Italian who was capture after joining the Resistance in 1943.

This is his first book, a memoir of that year.

(As expected, this book does have some nasty bits, but over all is very tastefully written.)

My Squib

Although not as lyrical as Elie Wiesel, Primo Levi is a very gifted writer. His book is disturbing, hopeful, and heart breaking.

He gives more of a big picture than other accounts I have read. It was eye opening. You get a much better idea about life for everyone, the confusion of languages, the bartering, etc...

He uses a disturbing amount of colons and writes in present tense erratically. But neither bothered me too much since it did have to survive translation and the present tense was powerful even when mixed with past. It was a good tool for a memoir like this.

From the Book..and more obtrusive squibbing

One interesting thing was his talk about identity. I love it when I'm reading more then one book at the same time and things start to line up. I've been going through Leithart's book on 1 & 2 Kings and he happened to be talking about identity too.

Here's part of what Levi said...

"Imagine now a man who is depraved of everyone he loves, and at the same time his house, his habits, his clothes, in short, of everything he possesses: he will be a hollow man, reduced to suffering and needs, forgetful of dignity and restraint, for he who loses all often easily loses himself. He will be a man whose life or death can be lightly decided with no sense of human affinity, in the most fortunate of cases, on the basis of a pure judgement of utility. It is in this way that one can understand the double sense of the term 'extermination camp', and it is now clear what we seek to express with the phrase: 'to lie on the bottom.'"

Here's part of what Leithart said...

"Some goods, Augustine argues, are such that they can be possessed only when they are given away; they can be possessed rightly and truly only in dispossession, only in recognizing that the self must be centered in God. The self is among these goods. First Kings 11 suggests a similar anthropology: Solomon is himself not in himself but in relation to his Lord, Yahweh, and when he departs from Yahweh he becomes a different Solomon."

So, that doesn't really give all of what Leithart was saying...I didn't think you wanted me to post the whole chapter. ;-) But I'm hoping it gives the idea.

Obviously these are extremely different situations. Levi is talking about things I can not imagine. Leithart is talking about Solomon turning away. But it seems to me that they are both talking about the root of identity. The root of usness. It seems like "finding ourselves" is such a big deal, but we look in all the wrong places and put our assurance on all the wrong things. Don't know if I make sense, but it certainly made sense in my mind. ;-)

There so much puzzling about Jewish life. I think it's an interesting study. Levi is proud of being Jewish, but I can't remember a single mention of God or faith. Near the ending of the book he does mention Providence and luck numerous times and hoping from a miracle from the Bible. But no where does he mention faith or hope.

How could you go through what he went through and come out human without Christ?

Elie Wiesel's books talk about this more. He seems to understand Jesus is the answer to suffering. He is Hope. But Wiesel stays with Judaism. His books talk about his anger at God and later reconciliation, but Primo Levi does not mention anything in Survival of Auschwitz. It's almost more disturbing.

But I am rambling.

Here is another quote...

"We lay in a world of death and phantoms. The last trace of civilization had vanished around and inside of us. The work of the bestial degradation, began by the victorious Germans, had been carried to its conclusion by Germans in defeat."

Another sobering read, but I'm glad I read this book.

Thank you for reading,
Miss Pickwickian

The Eye that Blinks

"Human beings do not live forever, Reuven. We live less than the time it takes to blink an eye, if we measure our lives against eternity. So it may be asked what value is there to a human life. There is so much pain in the world. What does it mean to have to suffer so much if our lives are nothing more than the blink of an eye?" He paused again, his eyes misty now, and then went on. "I learned a long time ago, Reuven, that a blink of an eye in itself is nothing. But the eye that blinks, that is something.
A span of life is nothing. But the man who lives that span, he is something. He can fill that tiny span with meaning, so its quality is immeasurable though its quantity may be insignificant.
Do you understand what I am saying? A man must fill his life with meaning, meaning is not automatically given to life. It is hard to work to fill one's life with meaning. That I do not think you understand yet. A life filled with meaning is worthy of rest. I want to be worthy of rest. When I am no longer here. Do you understand what I am saying?"

~ From The Chosen by Chaim Potok

What a difference Christ makes in meaning and in suffering!

I've been searching through my recent journals because I know I just came across an amazing passage from a book on suffering, but I can't remember what it was from. I'm sure I wrote it down, but I can't find it.

Here is another that is also extremely good from an Elisabeth Elliot book I've been reading...

"Our vision is so limited we can hardly imagine a love that does not show itself in protection from suffering.... The love of God did not protect His own Son.... He will not necessarily protect us - not from anything it takes to make us like His Son. A lot of hammering and chiseling and purifying by fire will have to go into the process."

~Elisabeth Elliot

And Romans...

"More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us."

~Romans 5:3-5

Okay, now I promise I won't talk about The Chosen for awhile. ;-)
We can go back to talking about Inception if you like. I was able to see it again on Monday and it was even more amazing the second time even though we were in our cheap local theater that smells like cigarettes, has bad sound, and a small screen compared to the IMax in Seattle. ;-)

Thanks for reading,
Miss Pickwickian

Rambles and Potok's "The Chosen"

You know the feeling you get when you go back and read something that greatly influenced your life. You think "oh, that's where that came from!".

I get this a lot when I look at books like:
The Valley of Fear by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
The Westmark Trilogy and The Iron Ring by Lloyd Alexander
Narnia
The Blonde Night of Germany by Raymond Toliver and Trevor Constable
Just to name a few that have had obvious influences on me in my youth. ;-)

Or movies like:
Life is Beautiful
Scarlet Pimpernel (Anthony Andrews)
Beautiful Mind

The Mayflower Voyagers: This is America Charlie Brown :-)
The Pianist
and more...

Or songs like:
Bob Dylan's Forever Young
Trail Band's Boatman
Jimmy Gaudreau, Bennett, and Auldridge's This Old Town and We Live in Two Different World's Dear
And of course Mundi Klein, especially his High Sierra, And the Band Played "Waltzing Matilda", and Leaving Nancy.
and hundreds more, I'm sure....

Well, the point is you can go back to something that you read, listened to, or watched and see the obvious ways it has influenced you, even if you didn't like it all that much.
I especially think our characters often reflect the characters we fell in love with when we were younger.

I got this very odd sensation while I was reading The Chosen. Not just the characters and plot, but parts of the actual style (mostly the parts I didn't like) reminded me of myself and my writing. It was like "oh, that's where that came from...uh wait...".
So over all, it was a very unusual experience.
I only wish that I could be such a genius. :-)

My main criticism for The Chosen are just stylistic things. I think the only reason they bugged me so much was because there were problems I have (and I don't have his good qualities to counter balance them). The issues were more opinion related things and were low key in this sort of literary novel.

I loved this novel. Really loved it.

I thought I'd expound on that because I could go on and on, but I find that maybe I should go find something to eat or take a nap. There is nothing left in my head.

If you've read it or want to discuss it, contact me. I'd love to talk about it, when I have a brain. :-)

Thanks for reading,
Miss Pickwickian

Writing and Reading

This last week we had a three day writing and planning trip. I was able to get a lot done and it helped me refocus and work out some concrete goals. Very productive.

Besides writing, obviously, I got a lot of reading done. I'm hopelessly behind in reviews, so here are a few quick squibs.





I finished His Rules by Christopher L. Burge & Pamela Toussaint.


This book was an extremely good one that really covers any age or predicament for someone who is single.




Really enjoyed it and it was an easy read. The main thing that bothered me was their use of the MSG and sometimes their strange use of Scripture totally out of context...but really, an excellent book!

You can read my sister's squib on it here.

I read two Elie Wiesel novels, which I have mixed feelings about... I felt like his writing style wasn't as deep as Night. (If that makes any sense.) Of course, his personal memoir will probably remain the deepest.





I also think that because he wrote these novels in French (at least not his first or second or third language) which was then translated to English by two different translators, they might have lost some of their potency.
Night was written in Yiddish and the version I read was translated to English by his wife. I imagine she probably has a better understanding of what he wanted to say then a normal translator.

Interesting and thought provoking, but certainly not easy, warm-fuzzy reads.

I finished On Writing by Stephen King. I had some extremely mixed feelings about it. I would not recommend it because of language and crudeness, which is really to bad because King has a lot of excellent things to say about writing.





Books on writing are written by writers who feel like writing about writing. Duh? Yes, but I have a point.
I think these writers in general tend to be plot-first novelist and learn a certain way (I know I'm greatly generalizing here, but this has been my experience.) They don't cover everything.

I honestly don't think Stephen King would have woken up one morning thinking he'd love to write a book on writing. His publisher or agent told him to.

He has a unique perspective and writes from the hip, which is something most writers that have written books on writing don't do. He actually bashes plotting (which I do not entirely agree with). He emphasises more of the feel and rhythm of writing.

While I didn't agree with some of what he said I could feel the balance this book helped me take. I was very inspired to write and it felt more carefree again.

I know a lot of this book was things I needed to hear. Unfortunately some of it was things I really didn't need to hear too. So...yeah, what a bummer to have objectionable content in such a good book!

One specific thing he talked about was writing as telepathy, which was something I'd never heard before.

Here are a few quotes. There was so many good ones, but I'm only including two.

"All arts depend upon telepathy to some degree, but I believe that writing offers the purest distillation. Perhaps I'm prejudiced, but even if I am we may as well stick with writing, since it's what we came her to think about."

"If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot. There's no way around these two things that I'm aware of, no shortcut."





I read The Chosen by Chaim Potok which is something that has been sitting on my desk-shelf for some time. Mama has been telling me for awhile that I would like this book and I've finally got around to reading it!




We were able to watch a live play version earlier this year, which was very good and already gave me a grasp of the story. Reading this book was certainly an interesting experience.

I'll be giving this novel it's own post soon. :-)



So, yeah. That's what I've been doing.

Thanks for reading,
Miss Pickwickian

Indifference

Because of indifference, one dies before one actually dies.
~Elie Wiesel

Night - Elie Wiesel

Night by Elie Wiesel
Translated by Marion Wiesel
Hill and Wang

Rating: 10
Readability: The style is very readable, but the content is sometimes hard to read.
Impact: 9

Read it Again: Yes
Recommend it: Yes



What to Expect

A heart-rending, poignant memoir of a teenage boy during the holocaust.

This book is brutal in its portrayal of brutality.
It is certainly not for the faint hearted. It gets an R rating for violence, disturbing images, and some other material.
Having said that, it is not an inappropriate book. I highly recommend it. Some of it is disturbing, but it's subject matter is disturbing. To try to make it undisturbing would be unforgivable.

Elie Wiesel is now a best selling author of over 55 books. This is his first. His testimony to the world.

My Squib

I hardly know what to say about this book.

I feel guilty admiring his writing style (even after it has survived translation), but the truth is, its amazing. I was so struck by the elegant prose in the introduction that I read it three times and then immediately felt guilty for admiring it so much when it deals with the subject matter.

The main book text is not as fluid and amazing as the introduction, but his style fits perfectly with his story. It is heart wrenching and honest.

This is not a happy book, but I highly recommend it. There is much to learn from such a slim, 100 page volume.

One thing that did strike me was how far Jews have come from the OT even and how different everything would be without Christ. I would never have the stamina and will to continue living that this sixteen year old boy does if I did not have hope in Jesus.

I quoted a section of the forward by a French Christian who met the author before the book was written.
Wiesel, a reporter at the time, was conducting an interview with him on his reaction and memories from the war. Francois Mauriac, the French Christian, spoke of a memory of the eyes of starving Jewish children staring from a moving train car. Wiesel replied, "I was one of those children." Thus started their relationship.
Mauriac's reaction and wish for the Jews to have known and recognized Christ as Lord, spoke strait to me. You can see the quote below.

Please read the quotes. They say much more then I can.

From the Book

Okay, so I took a lot of quotes from this book. I wanted a piece of the intro because it was so beautifully profound. I took a piece of the forward because it took my emotions and thoughts towards this story from a Christian perspective and put them into better words. I took pieces from the book so you actually see what it was like. And I took pieces from Elie Wiesel's Peace Prize speech because he is so amazingly quotable. I do not necessarily agree with everything Wiesel says, but his views on indifference spoke right to me.

Please read the quotes. They will give you much more then my review can. Or, just pick up the book and read....

-From the introduction to the new edition-

"If in my lifetime I was to write only one book, this would be the one.
Just as our past lingers in the present, all my writings after Night, including those that deal with biblical, Talmudic, or Hasidic themes, profoundly bear its stamp, and cannot be understood if one has not read this very first of my works.
Why did I write it?
Did I write it so as not to go mad, or on the contrary, to go mad in order to understand the nature of madness, the immense, terrifying madness that erupted in history and the conscience of mankind?
Was it to leave behind a legacy of words, of memories, to help prevent history from repeating itself?
Or was it simply to preserve a record of the ordeal I endured as an adolescent, at an age when one's knowledge of death and evil should be limited to what one discovers in literature?
There are those that tell me that I survived in order to write this text. I am not convinced. I do not know how I survived: I was weak, rather shy; I did nothing to save myself. A miracle? Certainly not. If heaven could or would perform a miracle for me, why not for others more deserving than myself. It was nothing more than chance. However, having survived, I needed to give some meaning to my survival. Was it to protect the meaning that I set to paper an experience in which nothing made sense?
In retrospect I must confess that I do not know, or no longer know, what I wanted to achieve with my words. I only know that without this testimony, my life as a writer - or my life, period - would not have become what it is: that of a witness who believes he has a moral obligation to try and prevent the enemy from enjoying one last victory by allowing his crimes to be erased from human memory....

And yet, having lived through this experience, one could not keep silent no matter how difficult, if not impossible, it was to speak.
And so I persevered. And trusted the silence that envelops and transcends words. Knowing all the while that anyone of the fields of ashes in Birkenau carries more weight then all the testimonies about Birkenau. For despite all my attempts to articulate the unspeakable, 'it' is still not right....

Sometimes I am asked if I know 'the response to Auschwitz'; I answer that not only do I know it, but that I don't even know if a tragedy of this magnitude has a response. What I do know is that theres is a 'response' in responsibility. When we speak of this era of evil and darkness so close and yet so distant, 'responsibility' is the key word.
The witness has forced himself to testify. For the youth of today, for the children who will be born tomorrow. He does not want his past to become their future.

~Introduction to the New Translation by Elie Wiesel

-From the forward by Francois Mauriac-

"And I, who believe that God is love, what answer was there to give my young interlocutor whose dark eyes still held the reflection of the angelic sadness that had appeared one day on the face of a hanged child?
What did I say to him?
Did I speak to him of that other Jew, this crucified brother who perhaps resembled him and whose cross conquered the world?
Did I explain to him that what had been a stumbling block for his faith had become a cornerstone for mine.
And that the connection between the cross and human suffering remains, in my view, the key to the unfathomable mystery in which the faith of his childhood was lost? And yet, Zion has risen up again out of the crematoria and the slaughterhouses. The Jewish nation has been resurrected from among its thousands of dead. It is they who have given it new life.
We do not know the worth of one single drop of blood, one single tear. All is grace. If the Almighty is the Almighty, the last word of each of us belongs to Him.
That is what I should have said to the Jewish child. But all I could do was embrace him and weep."
~From the Forward by Francois Mauriac

-From the Book Text-

"The night was gone. The morning star was shining in the sky. I too had become a completely different person. The student of the Talmud, the child that I was, had been consumed in the flames. There remained only a shape that looked like me. A dark flame had entered my soul and devoured. it."

" 'I've got more faith in Hitler than anyone else. He's the only one who's kept his promises, all his promises to the Jewish people.' "

"I shall never forget Juliek. How could I forget that concert given before an audience of the dead and dying? Even today, when I hear that particular piece of Beethoven, my eyes close and out of the darkness emerges the male and melancholy face of my polish comrade bidding farewell to an audience of dying men."

"From the depths of the mirror, a corpse gazed back at me. The look in his eyes, as they stared into mine, has never left me."

-From Elie Wiesel's Nobel Peace Prize Acceptance speech 1986

"But I have faith. Faith in the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and even in His creation. Without it no action would be possible. And action is the only remedy to indifference, the most insidious danger of all...

And I tell him that I have tried. That I have tried to keep memory alive, that I have tried to fight those who would forget. Because if we forget, we are guilty, we are accomplices.
And then I explain to him how naive we were, that the world di know and remained silent. And that is why I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation.
We must take sides.
Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.

~From the Nobel Peace Prize Acceptance Speech by Elie Wiesel 1986