Wednesday, November 15, 2006

Night at the Book Club

We discussed Elie Wiesel's Night at book club tonight. His autobiographical narrator sometimes says his faith is shattered. But I said his faith was still functional at some level, since he was obviously not an atheist. He remains wrapped up in God - God's death, God's injustice, and so on.

I've known a lot of atheists, and this isn't how they think. Of course, like him, atheists can feel that life is not worth living. Perhaps that's the bottom-line issue, shorn of its theological fuzz.

It's a well-written but very bleak book, a carefully constructive narrative that gives you a you-are-there impression of the Nazi camps from the point of view of a 15 year old Jewish boy. This means you never really understand much about the Nazis - you understand they are committing unspeakable evil, but you don't know why.

What was it that released
The beast?

1 comment:

MR said...

I am a Jedi Knight. Please learn a bit about my group at www.minor-ripper.blogspot.com