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Bantam (1982), Edition: Reissue, 102 pages
Description
Classic Literature. Fiction. With the coming of dawn is the coming of death for a captured English officer in British-controlled Palestine. Elisha, a young Israeli freedom fighter, is his executioner. Ordered to kill the officer in reprisal for Britain's execution of a Jewish prisoner, Elisha thinks about his past-a sorrowful memory of the nightmare of Nazi death camps. As the only surviving member of his family, he dreamt of a wonderful future in his promised homeland. But instead, he finds himself closer to committing heartless murder with the approach of daylight. Dawn presents a haunting glimpse into the soul of one man and a budding nation.
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User reviews
LibraryThing member MsNikki
After reading Night, I dived into Dawn. Then I waded, and barely floated until the end.
I did not like this book. After Night this was a contrived piece of fiction. Too much like soap opera, I thought for such a talented author.
But I made sure I finished it.
I did not like this book. After Night this was a contrived piece of fiction. Too much like soap opera, I thought for such a talented author.
But I made sure I finished it.
LibraryThing member SandSing7
Having been moved to tears by Night, I was expecting something different, and could not wrap my mind around the text that was presented. Extremely philosophical and political, Dawn failed to resonate with me. Perhaps, I was plagued by listening to the audiobook, which although beautifully read, did
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not allow ample time to ponder the deeper levels but instead provided opportunity for distractions. Show Less
LibraryThing member wikiro
This book I felt would be something I wrote when I had no idea on how to approach a theme. I think Weisel missed the mark on this one. I would hate to be in the head of main character trying to make an ordinary sandwich. There were to many repeated comments leaving nothing to the imagination. No
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surprises and at the same time no feeling of realism. I really became sick when I finished the book because it really made me remember my writing style in 5th grade. Show Less
LibraryThing member tjsjohanna
I've never read any of Mr. Wiesel's works before, though I've read many Holocaust and post-Holocaust works. Maybe it's my growing age, but I find myself trying to imagine facing the horrors of Jews in WW II and failing. I can't even attempt to imagine what I would have done anymore. I wonder, could
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I have lived through such inhumanity and not lost faith in individual good? "Dawn" asks the question "can such a life experience translate to a changed worldview, or are we doomed to also be inhuman in our turn?" Show Less
LibraryThing member pokarekareana
A graceful and emotionally profound extension of Night. In postwar Palestine, Wiesel leads us through one long night, painful and harrowing to read, to the dawn - a watershed in Wiesel's life, with a sense of irreversible change, and that this represents his final shift from adolescence to
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adulthood. His prose is beautiful, and suffused with a sense of drama. This is a short read, but don't be fooled into thinking this is a quick one to read on the bus to work. Show Less
LibraryThing member john257hopper
I mooched this for a friend and thought I would read it before sending it to her. This is a story of a moral dilemma. Elisha is a young Jewish man whose family all died in the concentration camps and who has joined the resistance against the British in Palestine. One of his comrades is to be
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executed by the British and he is charged with killing a captured British officer in reprisal. The story deals with his conscience and attempts to rationalise taking the life of this British officer with whom he might be friendly in other circumstances. A short, quite stark but gripping read. Show Less
LibraryThing member wenzowsa
"Night", being a memoir, and "Dawn", being a novel, are profoundly different books; although, tied together by the Holocaust (a catastrophe that the young Eliezer lives through in "Night", and that haunts Elisha in "Day"). This point being made, I will admit that I still enjoy "Night" (and also
I admire "Dawn" for its writing style, and the philosophical issues that Wiesel examines through Elisha. The aesthetics of style reminded me of a those books that have been written in the post-Kafka tradition (Judaic overtones, the nature of the absurd, and a nightmare-like quality). The issues of evil, death, and aftermath are poignant and haunting. Through the implied death of David ben Moshe and actual execution of the British Colonel we see the spiritual demise of Elisha - and the absurd nature of differences (are we so very different or are we the same?).
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"Day") more than "Dawn"; however, I do feel that if one is going to read "Dawn" that they should begin the book with the understanding that it is going to be different from "Night", and to approach this work as such.I admire "Dawn" for its writing style, and the philosophical issues that Wiesel examines through Elisha. The aesthetics of style reminded me of a those books that have been written in the post-Kafka tradition (Judaic overtones, the nature of the absurd, and a nightmare-like quality). The issues of evil, death, and aftermath are poignant and haunting. Through the implied death of David ben Moshe and actual execution of the British Colonel we see the spiritual demise of Elisha - and the absurd nature of differences (are we so very different or are we the same?).
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LibraryThing member AshRyan
Very well written...almost Dostoevskian, with a similar sort of religious existentialism. Wiesel makes the best argument I've ever heard for the so-called "cycle of violence"---but unfortunately, it's equivocal. The plot involves a distinction between cold-blooded acts of violence and those
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committed in the heat of the moment, but the theme depends on ignoring not only this distinction but any distinctions among any uses of force whatsoever (most significantly between an aggressor's initiation of force and the victim's retaliatory use of force in self-defense). Show Less
LibraryThing member charlie68
A riveting story told by a survivor of a concentration camp who struggles with his conscience as he is called on to be an executioner.
LibraryThing member gbelik
This is the story of just one night, the night that a young man contemplates his task at dawn: killing a British soldier in retaliation for the death of an Israeli terrorist on the same morning. He thinks deeply on how his past brought him here and how this act will affect him in the future. A
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gripping and thoughtful book. Show Less
LibraryThing member Laurie.Schultz
It wasn't quite like Night. It was more like a short story than a novel. I wanted to know more about both David ben Moshe and John Dawson. I think the characters backgrounds could have been developed more. Still, Weisel as always points out the reality of human nature and makes us all question
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ourselves. Show Less
LibraryThing member FriendsLibraryFL
Two men wait through the night in British-controlled Palestine for dawn--and for death. One is a captured English officer. The other is Elisha, a young Israeli freedom fighter whose assignment is to kill the officer in reprisal for Britain's execution of a Jewish prisoner. Elisha's past is the
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nightmare memory of Nazi death camps. He is the only surviving member of his family. His future is a cherished dream of life in the promised homeland. But at daybreak his present will become the tortured reality of a principled man ordered to commit cold-blooded murder. Resonant with feeling, Dawn is an unforgettable journey into the human heart--and an eloquent statement about the moral basis of the new Israel." Show Less
LibraryThing member Beammey
You could tell Wiesel was definitely the author of this work, it didn't strike me with the raw emotions Night had. I know the content was completely different, but I couldn't connect with the characters in the same way. It was still well written and I'm glad I read it. Would read again. 4 out of 5
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stars. Show Less
LibraryThing member LeslieHurd
Amazon's Description: Elisha is a young Jewish man, a Holocaust survivor, and an Israeli freedom fighter in British-controlled Palestine; John Dawson is the captured English officer he will murder at dawn in retribution for the British execution of a fellow freedom fighter. The night-long wait for
The book is almost exclusively the thoughts and feelings of Elisha during one long night. In the end, this didn't have the immense impact on me as Wiesel's horrific "Night."
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morning and death provides Dawn, Elie Wiesel’s ever more timely novel, with its harrowingly taut, hour-by-hour narrative. Caught between the manifold horrors of the past and the troubling dilemmas of the present, Elisha wrestles with guilt, ghosts, and ultimately God as he waits for the appointed hour and his act of assassination. Dawn is an eloquent meditation on the compromises, justifications, and sacrifices that human beings make when they murder other human beings.The book is almost exclusively the thoughts and feelings of Elisha during one long night. In the end, this didn't have the immense impact on me as Wiesel's horrific "Night."
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LibraryThing member startwithgivens
I loved this book. I loved the (subtle) symbolism that Dawn had for the book. I also loved how, as it should be and often is with short books, there was one central theme that permeated throughout. It was great to stay focused on one thing and one thing only, with other details added in, for 81
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pages. Show Less
LibraryThing member suesbooks
A story of extreme moral complexity. However, I do not think this is one of Wiesel's better books. I did not care for many of the metaphors.
LibraryThing member LibraryCin
Set after WWII, Elisha had been in a concentration camp, but when he got out, he wasn’t sure what to do with himself. He was then recruited into a terrorist group in Israel. At 18 years old, Elisha is told he is to murder a kidnapped English soldier. The (very short) book (in the intro, Wiesel
Boring. The premise doesn’t sound too bad, but ultimately, it was mostly Elisha discussing philosophy with his fellow terrorists. It is billed as book 2 after “Night”, but it was fiction whereas Night was a memoir. I won’t be reading the 3rd book.
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calls it a novel, but it’s under 100 pages) is the day or two leading up to the murder, as Elisha is coming to terms with what he has been tasked to do. Boring. The premise doesn’t sound too bad, but ultimately, it was mostly Elisha discussing philosophy with his fellow terrorists. It is billed as book 2 after “Night”, but it was fiction whereas Night was a memoir. I won’t be reading the 3rd book.
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LibraryThing member jonfaith
Justice and revenge waltz in geometric confusion. This was encountered in the high tide of my Holocaust reading. The applications to our present reality were unrealized at the time.
LibraryThing member harrietbrown
This small, slender volume was a pretty weird read. It's the story of two young men, one of whom will kill the other at dawn.
The narrator of the story is the assassin. In his mind, he reviews the story of his life, and what has brought him to this point, where he will kill another human being,
The story takes place in Palestine before it became the state of Israel (before 1948). After the decimation of World War II, there were many Jews who felt (justifiably) that the world had turned its back on them while they suffered and died, and so they decided to create their own nation-state in the land of Palestine, their historical homeland. However, Palestine is in a hotly contested part of the world, which is occupied at the time of the story by the British. Some Jews, some of them Zionists, are carrying out acts of terrorism against the occupying British army and government. One of them has been arrested, tried, convicted, and sentenced to death for carrying out one of these acts. In retaliation, the narrator's group of fighters has kidnapped a British soldier and is holding him hostage, to be killed at the same time as their comrade is executed.
That's the setup of the plot. The story is about what transpires in the narrator's mind and over the course of the evening before he's to kill the British soldier, and that's where it gets weird. He feels the weight of his dead relatives who didn't survive the war or the concentration camps, and their ghosts gather around him and talk to him, impressing upon him the importance of carrying out his duty. At times it's hard to tell whether he's dealing with reality, or he's living in that world of the past, with those beloved dead.
This is not an easy book to read, but it's definitely worthwhile reading the trilogy if you chance upon it. The first book in the trilogy is "Night," followed by "Dawn," and finally, "The Accident." I think I'm going to have to do a little "light" reading in between "Dawn" and "The Accident," because this one was a challenge, and very emotional.
The narrator of the story is the assassin. In his mind, he reviews the story of his life, and what has brought him to this point, where he will kill another human being,
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face-to-face, in retaliation for the execution of one of his comrades in what he calls, "The Movement." The story takes place in Palestine before it became the state of Israel (before 1948). After the decimation of World War II, there were many Jews who felt (justifiably) that the world had turned its back on them while they suffered and died, and so they decided to create their own nation-state in the land of Palestine, their historical homeland. However, Palestine is in a hotly contested part of the world, which is occupied at the time of the story by the British. Some Jews, some of them Zionists, are carrying out acts of terrorism against the occupying British army and government. One of them has been arrested, tried, convicted, and sentenced to death for carrying out one of these acts. In retaliation, the narrator's group of fighters has kidnapped a British soldier and is holding him hostage, to be killed at the same time as their comrade is executed.
That's the setup of the plot. The story is about what transpires in the narrator's mind and over the course of the evening before he's to kill the British soldier, and that's where it gets weird. He feels the weight of his dead relatives who didn't survive the war or the concentration camps, and their ghosts gather around him and talk to him, impressing upon him the importance of carrying out his duty. At times it's hard to tell whether he's dealing with reality, or he's living in that world of the past, with those beloved dead.
This is not an easy book to read, but it's definitely worthwhile reading the trilogy if you chance upon it. The first book in the trilogy is "Night," followed by "Dawn," and finally, "The Accident." I think I'm going to have to do a little "light" reading in between "Dawn" and "The Accident," because this one was a challenge, and very emotional.
Show Less
ISBN
0553225367 / 9780553225365