Title: Imagining the Holocaust /
Authors: Schwarz, Daniel R.
Publisher: St. Martin's Press,
Year: 1999
Subjects: Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945), in literature.; Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) Personal narratives History and criticism
Abstract: "It is a particular feature of Holocaust fictions that we remember them differently than other fictions, and as the historical period recedes, literature helps keep those events alive. In Imagining the Holocaust, Daniel R. Schwarz examines widely read Holocaust narratives that have shaped the way we understand and respond to the events of that time. Schwarz argues that as we move further away from the original events, the narratives authors use to render the Holocaust horror evolve to include fantasy and parable, and he shows how diverse audiences respond differently to these highly charged and emotional texts."--Jacket.
Contents: Introduction. The ethics of imagining the Holocaust : representation, responsibility, and reading. I. Memoirs. The ethics of reading Elie Wiesel's Night -- Painful memories : the agony of Primo Levi -- World into words : The diary of Anne Frank and Sophie Goetzel-Leviathan's The war from within. II. Realism. Haunted by history : Tadeusz Borowski's This way for the gas, ladies and gentlemen -- John Hersey's The wall : fiction as history in the first generation of Holocaust fiction -- Popular fiction : Gerald Green's Holocaust : a novel of survival and triumph -- Beyond the camps : Kosinski's The painted bird -- The ontological problems of docufiction : William Styron's Sophie's choice -- Keneally's and Spielberg's Schindler's list : realistic novel into epic film. III. Myth, parable, and fable. Schwarz-Bart's mythopoetic and historical humanism : The last of the just -- Aharon Appelfeld's parables -- Illuminating distorion and historical cartoon : Leslie Epstein's King of the jews. IV. Fantasy. The comic groteque of Spiegelman's Maus -- Cynthia Ozick's fables : "The shawl" and "Rosa" -- Bruno Schulz's nightmare in The street of crocodiles and Sanitarium under the sign of the hourglass and Cynthia Ozick's response in The messiah of Stockholm.