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Summary: Book reviews
Review: Sunday Book Review,The Best Books of 1999 - Best nonfiction of 1999: The Pianist; By Wladyslaw Szpilman 'The Pianist,' Wladyslaw Szpilman's remarkable memoir of his survival in Warsaw between the years 1939 and 1945, is a significant contribution to the literature of remembrance, a document of lasting historical and human value... LOS ANGELES TIMES, 5.12.99Our reviewers' favourites; Stumped about which books to buy as gifts? - Our correspondents choose what they consider the finest of those published this year: - The Pianist: Surviving the horror of Warsaw, 1939-45. By Wladyslaw Szpilman. The last live broadcast on Polish radio in 1939, a piano piece played by Wladyslaw Szpilman, was interrupted by German shelling. The same pianist played the same piece when broadcasting resumed six years later. Mr Szpilman's account of the years in between is a tribute to the power of description and of music. THE ECONOMIST, 4.12.1999 The most disturbing and moving book of the year has been Wladyslaw Szpilman's ''The Pianist,'' an account of his survival in and out of the Warsaw Ghetto that Szpilman wrote more than 50 years ago. BOSTON GLOBE, 22.10.99
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Summary: The Sunday Times, 28.11.1999 by M. Seymour
Review: Biography top five & 1999 bestsellers ---- Three personal favourites just make it into this category. In a year of glorious books, the one which made the deepest impression on me was the shortest, Wladyslaw Szpilman's The Pianist, which tells how, hidden in an attic, he survived the destruction of the Jewish ghetto in Warsaw. It is republished together with the diary of Wilm Hosenfeld, the German officer who saved his life. Szpilman's memoir haunts the mind in tiny, searing cameos; a rich guest in a cafe asks the pianist to stop playing so that he can test the ring of his gold coins on a table; Szpilman's father, a violinist, bows to every German officer he can find, bemusing them with his smiling courtesy; pushed to one side as his family are hustled onto a death-truck, Szpilman hears the sound behind closed windows, "the twittering of caged birds in deadly peril". You'll cry - I did - but please read it.
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Summary: US reviews
Review: "The Pianist" is remarkable for several reasons. First, as an eyewitness account of the destruction of the Jewish community in Warsaw, Szpilman's memoir is historically indispensable. Second, he writes with the grace and economy of a poet; there are no false notes. And third, his story is so incredible that it must be read to be believed. Here, in Wladyslaw Szpilman's "The Pianist," is a clear voice from a world that has vanished. We are fortunate to have him as a witness. - WASHINGTON POST Even by the standards set by Holocaust memoirs, this book is a stunner. - SEATTLE WEEKLY A stunning tribute to what one human being can endure, "The Pianist" is even more - a testimony to the redemptive power of fellow feeling. - CLEVELAND PLAIN DEALER Mr. Szpilman's stunning memoir... - THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
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Summary: Horror as it was lived and not in retrospect.
Review: The reviews of The Pianist appearing here are all good and accurate. There is little I can add except to say that it is salutary to read something written before the dust of political correctness can settle. This is, despite its unrelenting decent into horror, an optimistic book especially to those open to the possibility that the answer indeed might lay in Jesus admonishment to love one another. A footnote: My son, a Catholic priest, shares the same name with the then Mayor of Warsaw mentioned on page 38. A book for those who take encouragement where ever they can find it.
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Summary: For Those Who Think That They Are Brave This May Test Them
Review: A lot is said and written about the Warsaw ghetto and the awful life of Jews in Warsaw during WWII. Usually the picture is impersonal. Terrible things are happening to Jews as a race but, what is happening to individuals? Few people have endured wartime terror personally and look at the happenings of wartime Warsaw from a historical point of view with little feeling of what terrible things happened to individuals. Wladyslav Szpilman gives the reader greater understanding of the despicable experiences of war through his graphic descriptions of his own life in hiding from the German occupiers. It is only because of his own self discipline that he survives. Unusually a contribution to his survival is made by a German officer who is uncharacteristically humane and this, too, adds to the incredibility of the tale. We are lucky to have such examples of bravery and humanity to give us hope that in similar circumstances we would have had the courage of a Szpilman or the mercy and sympathy of the German. This episode in Warsaw serves, once again, to illustrate how wastefully stupid man is to let his nature turn so sour when, in the end, there will be survivors and there will be heros and the efforts to snub out man's better instincts will fail. That Wladyslav Spilman goes on to a distiguished musical career is the fitting rebuttal to all the hate that Hitler spread so uselessly and fortunately, fruitlessly. If you are curious about how you might deal with supreme adversity you might read this book and consider whether you are of he same mettle. It would be interesting to see how film makers would deal with this story.
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Summary: Previews
Review: A stunning tribute to what one human being can endure, "The Pianist" is even more - a testimony to the redemptive power of fellow feeling. - Cleveland Plain Dealer, 4.10.99 It is easy to understand why the authorities suppressed ''The Pianist.'' Qualities of character do not tidily sort themselves along national, religious, or ethnic lines the way they do in the movies; the book is full of things that members of groups do not want to be reminded of, but which every individual needs to hear and heed. - Boston Globe, 21.09.99 The book is filled with unforgettable incidents, images and people. Its power derives from its immediacy but also from the deep reserves of culture the author was able to summon so soon after the war in an effort to make sense of it. Thanks to a new translation, American readers can now sample his artistry for themselves. - The Wall Street Journal, 2.9.1999 Wladyslaw Szpilman's "The Pianist" chronicles the authors life from 1939 to 1945 in a matter-of-fact prose that is almost startling in its mundane telling of the horrific, terrifying events of Warld War II. - Fox News Online, 15.10.1999 The Pianist, Wladyslaw Szpilman's memoir of his existence in Warsaw from 1939 to 1945, is a book so fresh and vivid, so heartbreaking, and so simply and beautifully written, that it manages to tell us the story of horrendous events as if for the first time. - Sunday Telegraph, London, 17.4.1999 "The Pianist" is a work of a very high order in the literature of the Holocaust. - Ham & High, London, 9.4.99 "...powerful memoir..." - London THE TIMES, 8.4.99
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Summary: An utterly incredible, sensitive survival autobiography
Review: The work is remarkable in many ways. I will remark upon the story's simultaneous, many different interwoven stories on several levels. First of all it is precious history. A tale of utter horror, but not depressing or abhorent in its presentation. The author is a bright young artist; warm and family-loving. He is a first hand observer of the most brutal physical and mental horrors perpetrated by the germans. In a world of killing and killed, he is ingenuously trusting and pacifist; yet he survives as not one in ten thousand did, over six years. He is befriending and befriended; never naive but never dehumanized, either. And the mysterious officer who saves the pianist, is himself subsequently and ironically destroyed psychologically and physically by experiences similar to those borne by the pianist. It is a story of hope and love. All the more remarkable for being both true, and for being written immediately after "liberation", uncoloured by reflection or attempted insights.
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Summary: unforgettable
Review: New to us, but first published in 1946 and therefore the real goods as immediately remembered. An astonishing piece of literature and history, written in the most matter-of-fact voice imaginable. And take note that Szpilman never once uses the word "Nazi," behind which most contemporary accounts of 1939-1945 hide the nationality of the murderers. With notes from the diary of Capt. Wilm Hosenfeld, another remarkable man, and the "one human being in German uniform" that Szpilman encountered in nearly six years of horror in Warsaw.
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Summary: SAD BUT NECESSARY READING
Review: For the student of the Holocaust this eye-witness account, orginally written in 1945, is sad but necessary reading.
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Summary: An almost indescribably powerful work of art.
Review: The Pianist is Szpilman's personal account of the incremental loss of his home, his family and his will to live in German-occupied Warsaw. From 1939 to 1945, the Jewish population in Warsaw fell from 500,000 to less than 50,000. During these years, German soldiers and Ukrainian thugs-for-hire taunted, tortured, mutilated and murdered an innocent and defenseless people. Initially Szpilman's status as a celebrity kept him alive but ultimately it was his raw survival instinct that was the key to his endurance. The power of this work stems from Szpilman's personal yet detached manner of telling his story. It seems a nearly impossible task to describe in words the kind of horrific events that took place during this time. Humanity must always be aware of the evil that lurks within our nature. We must never forget the horrors we are capable of perpetrating, observing, tolerating and permitting. This book should be required reading for every citizen of the modern world. The world must never forget the Holocaust.
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