This book came to me by accident. I was visiting the library at Anatolia High School in Thessaloniki one day and, as is occasionally the case, there was a pile of books on a table outside the door - books that had been purged from the collection, free for the taking. I am wary of such books, as they are often not worth the trouble, either because they are falling apart, or because they are lousy books. But this one caught my eye because I had heard of one of Elie Wiesel's other books, "Night", due to it becoming one of Oprah's book club selections. Not that I follow her book club, but I read just about any article I come across that recommends good reading material.I figured "Dawn" might be some sort of sequel to "Night", but it isn't. "Night" is an autobiography, the story of Wiesel's internment in the Nazi concentration camps of Auschwitz and Buchenwald in 1944 and 1945, but "Dawn" is a novel. It is considered, however, to be part of a trilogy, "Night", "Dawn", and "Day", which draws on Wiesel's Holocaust experiences."Dawn" is very short; my edition was 102 small pages with large print. It is listed as a novel but is a novella, really. It is told in first person by a teenage survivor of Auschwitz and Buchenwald who has been recruited in Paris and then trained in Israel in terrorist tactics against the English. This eighteen-year-old, Elisha, has been ordered to execute a captive British officer at dawn, and the story concerns his personal anguish at being given this task. It takes place during the night before the execution, though there are flashbacks of earlier times. There is a fantasy element as well, as ghosts from Elisha's past show up to keep vigil and converse with him, including his father, his mother, the rabbi who was his teacher, some other friends and acquaintances, and a small boy who represents a younger version of himself. Elisha realizes that the execution will change him, that he will become a murderer forever after he has done this deed, but nevertheless he feels compelled to follow through with it.This book is not to be read for entertainment. It is devastating, heartbreaking, depressing. It shows a man at the mercy of a dark destiny which he cannot change, and shows war as an evil in which there are no winning sides. It is told succinctly, in direct, spare, poetic prose. There is no fat. It is lean and abrupt, like a bullet in the brain. It is a parable, in that it could apply to any war in any age in which men who have no personal animosity towards one another nevertheless confront one another as enemies.I recommend this book, but as I said, do not approach it lightly. It is the type of literary experience that changes people, knocks the silliness out of them, sobers them up, causes them to confront their humanity. If you are up for this kind of experience, give it a try.
A Jewish Terrorist Rachel MooreDawn, a World War Two story by Elie Wiesel, makes the reader feel what it’s like knowing that you are about to become a drastically different person. Wiesel creates the feeling that you are there with him, waiting to execute the man in the basement. In the story, 18-year-old Elie Wiesel is given orders to execute a British officer that had been taken hostage by the Jewish terrorist gang he is a part of. John Dawson, the officer, patiently awaits his death in a cell beneath a building. While Elie thinks about the actions he is about to perform and the person he is about to become, the ghosts of the people who made him came in to watch him become someone else. He carries out the execution in the cell and watches the ghosts leave, John Dawson in tow, as a completely different person. This story takes place all in one night, with flashbacks used frequently to give readers a better idea of Wiesel’s life. One particular flashback that he has is triggered by Ilana, a member of the gang, calling him “poor boy”. He recalls a time when he was at a camp where hundreds of young girls and boys spent their summers, and he met Catherine. She would call him “poor boy” because he had told her a story of how a boy had gone into heaven and came back down, dead, and Catherine knew, even though he didn’t, that this story was one of himself. Elie Wiesel tells Dawn from his own perspective in first person point of view. I searched this book for fallacies, but I found only one. It was an argument from inappropriate authority. In the hours before he is going to die, one of Elie’s comrades suggests that they bring John Dawson something to eat. Wiesel tells them that Dawson cannot be hungry because he is condemned to die. Elie is not fit to make that argument, seeing as he had never been condemned to die. I think that Elie Wiesel created a captivating story that had me and will have other readers hooked at once. His use of flashbacks is brilliant, and he tells the story in a way that makes you feel like you are the one with orders to become a murderer. I recommend this book to teens and adults everywhere.
What do You think about Dawn (2006)?
"A man hates his enemy because he hates his own hate. He says to himself: This fellow, my enemy, has made me capable of hate. I hate him not because he's my enemy, not because he hates me, but because he arouses me to hate." Elisha (Jewish partisan) justifying the killing of British soldier John Dawson.Another short novel that is loaded with the philosophical gamut of humanity in times of war. To become a murderer in the name of cause, to avenge the oppression you were once victimized by, to become an entrenched part of the vicious cycle of hate are the ethical struggles Elisha deals with. Elie Wiesel said of Dawn it was a fictional journey of himself if he had gone to Palestine after the war, what would have become of him? The movement of fighters who fought the British for a Jewish ancestral homeland welcomed many young men, survivors of the Holocaust, to their ranks. Wiesel wonders, "could I have gone all the way in my commitment and killed a man, a stranger? Would I have the strength to claim him as my victim?" In dealing with this inner demons the final question arises, can hate engender anything but hate?
—Iain
I love Wiesel's book, Night. While one of the most difficult books I have ever read, it digs deep into the soul of a person. This one was a little too out there for me to relate to. Perhaps a second read would help me think through some of the themes a bit more, but I don't know if I can bring myself to dig into this book again. While it does not have the horror of Night, it seems that the soul of the character is in even worse condition. There is no hope. All the dawn brings is the realization of more night, more death. The main character is not really setting out to kill someone else, but himself. He is his own executioner, and it seems there is no alternative.It seems that Wiesel leaves this book with even less hope than Night, if that is even possible. At the end of Night, it seems the boy in the mirror is dead. At the end of Dawn, it seems the boy in the window is even further gone. Not only that, but this time the killer is not outside of himself. This time, the killer is himself.
—Rob
I am very sorry, this is not a literary production worth my time. I took this book full of hope, after reading "Night" (which was a four stars in my books, I think) .... Unlike Night, though, this new novel an invention, a clever mind building a situation and offering an ending. This writing(?) does not contribute to the historical account of WWII, the way Night does, nor does it provide any literary achievement (i.e. the literary means employed in this book are mediocre at best). So no hisorical value, no literary value, the thing is a one star without hesitation.Let's not forget, this is a Nobel Prize winner for Peace, not literature (!) .... I honestly don't think many of the people rating this book took the time to ask themselves what is it that this book brings to the plate.
—Nick
