On August 12, 1952, Russia's greatest Jewish writers were secretly executed by Stalin. In this remarkable blend of history and imagination, Paltiel Kossover meets the same fate but, unlike his real-life counterparts, he is permitted to leave a written testament. From a Jewish boyhood in pre-revolutionary Russia, Paltiel traveled down a road that embraced Communism, only to return to Russia and discover a Communist Party that had become his mortal enemy. Two decades later, Paltiel's son, Grisha, reads this precious record of his father's life and finds that it illuminates the shadowed planes of his own.
Passionate and fierce, this story of a father's legacy to his son revisits some of the most dramatic events of our century, and confirms yet again Elie Wiesel's stature as "a writer of the highest moral imagination" (San Francisco Chronicle).
Customer Reviews:
Avg. Customer Rating: 4.5 / 5.0
Finding Words Among the Silent:
Elie Wiesel has proven himself to be a master storyteller, taking real life accounts and events, and turning them into haunting literature. While the focus of "The Testament" is not the Holocaust, as is the focus of many of his other works, Jewish history and what happens to the Jews in WWII plays a large role. "The Testament" bears Wiesel's trademark stylings, the shifting back and forth between time, that brings past and present together, and a son trying to come to terms with his father's life, a father... more info
The Testament - A Weisel Sleeper:
Weisel delved deep into the complex nature of humans and the human attempt to deal with society's constantly changing moral/ethical guides. I know I will be thinking about this book for a long time to come. Although the topic can be depressing, Weisel finds the beauty in the way his characters deal with the problems in front of them.
