The Lost: A Search for Six of Six Million
Book Information
- Publisher
- HarperCollins
- Published
- 2006-09-19
- Pages
- 528 pages
- Language
- 英語
- Size
- 15.54 x 3.99 x 22.86 cm
- ISBN-13
- 9780060542979
- ISBN-10
- 0060542977
- Price
- 7007 JPY
- Category
- 洋書/History/World/Jewish/Holocaust
Soon to be featured in the Ken Burns documentary The U.S. and the Holocaust , premiering on PBS September 18 th A New York Times Notable Book • Winner of the National Jewish Book Award • Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award • A Los Angeles Times Book Prize Finalist “A gripping detective story, a stirring epic, a tale of ghosts and dark marvels, a thrilling display of scholarship, a meditation on the unfathomable mystery of good and evil, a testimony to the enduring power of the ancient archetypes that haunt one Jewish family and the greater human family, The Lost is as complex and rich with meaning and story as the past it seeks to illuminate. A beautiful book, beautifully written.”—Michael Chabon In this rich and riveting narrative, a writer's search for the truth behind his family's tragic past in World War II becomes a remarkably original epic—part memoir, part reportage, part mystery, and part scholarly detective work—that brilliantly explores the nature of time and memory, family and history. The Lost begins as the story of a boy who grew up in a family haunted by the disappearance of six relatives during the Holocaust—an unmentionable subject that gripped his imagination from earliest childhood. Decades later, spurred by the discovery of a cache of desperate letters written to his grandfather in 1939 and tantalized by fragmentary tales of a terrible betrayal, Daniel Mendelsohn sets out to find the remaining eyewitnesses to his relatives' fates. That quest eventually takes him to a dozen countries on four continents and forces him to confront the wrenching discrepancies between the histories we live and the stories we tell. And it leads him, finally, back to the small Ukrainian town where his family's story began, and where the solution to a decades-old mystery awaits him. Deftly moving between past and present, interweaving a world-wandering odyssey with childhood memories of a now-lost generation of immigrant Jews and provocative ruminations on biblical texts and Jewish history, The Lost transforms the story of one family into a profound, morally searching meditation on our fragile hold on the past. Deeply personal, grippingly suspenseful, and beautifully written, this literary tour de force illuminates all that is lost, and found, in the passage of time.
Daniel Mendelsohn a frequent contributor to The New York Review of Books and The New Yorker , is the author of the international bestseller The Lost: A Search for Six of Six Million . He teaches at Bard College.
Reviews
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There were two themes, a detective story and a commentary on the early books of the Hebrew Bible.
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This book left me feeling that I had gained something by reading it. It impacted the way I think about the craft of writing, and about the story telling process. It is a journey of discovery that should not be missed.
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Quête obsessionnelle et palpitante d'un oncle, d'une tante et de quatre cousines rayés de la carte de Bolechow, petite ville austro-hongroise puis polonaise, aujourd'hui en Ukraine.Cette quête mène l'auteur,lui-même américain, dans diverses parties du monde-Australie,Suède,Israel et bien sûr Ukraine- pour redonner souffle et vie aux six disparus de sa famille et leur accorder in extremis, par le biais de la mémoire familiale,une sépulture décente. Tout part du grand-père qui transmet anecdotes et histoires à son tout jeune petit-fils déjà avide de les entendre;vingt ans après le décès du grand-père,Daniel Mendelsohn se sent désormais prêt à faire resurgir la petite et la grande histoire et il le fait avec émotion et maestria,fidèle à la tradition orale d'Abraham, le grand-père,sans pour autant omettre toutes les clarifications historiques et familiales sans lesquelles ce livre pourrait se résumer à quelques pages.Comme tous les grands conteurs,Mendelsohn s'approche avec précaution des disparus,s'en éloigne,digresse,pour mieux rendre compte de l'effroi qui le saisit dans un cimetière de Vienne où il découvre,ce qui une fois dit,porte le sceau de l'évidence:une immense partie du nouveau cimetière juif est un terrain vague car aucune tombe n'indique une date au-delà des années 1930.Mais c'est ailleurs,à Bolechow, qu'il faut chercher trace des disparus,y revenir encore et encore,tant que leur recherche ne sera pas ,partiellement au moins, satisfaite.
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The Lost is one of my favourite books of the last few years. I was intrigued by the description on the back of the book and immediately wanted to know more. Daniel Mendelsohn does not disappoint. His writing is eloquent and flows wonderfully. Some of the content I might have struggled with (for example the ongoing references to and comparisons with Hebrew scritpure) comes to life in Mendelsohn's hands and adds a quality to the story. The story itself I found to be extremely moving and once one really engages with it, it is difficult to leave down. The story becomes more and more intriguing as it goes on, and the history that Mendelsohn excavates and retells here is astonishing. I am really not doing justice to this book (oh to be as literate as Daniel Mendelsohn!), so I will just finish by saying that if you are considering getting this book and you like well-written family histories then I can highly highly recommend it.
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Mendelsohn's report on his search for the murdered members of his family is a fascinating and quite intimate approach. Historians have repeatedly described the gruesome events that took place in Eastern Europe during World War II. Many end up with statistics so horrifyingly bizarre to shock the reader into denial. Mendelsohn follows the trails of a few family members. His quest leads him around the world seeking out surviving witnesses. The painful precision of his writing makes for a lengthy and highly idiosyncratic text which may get the reader bogged down after a hundred or so pages. If you don't give up, the facts may reach you at level never previously experienced. It is a valuable book but certainly no easy reading.