Elie Wiesel

The Nobel Prize laureate chronicles his childhood, suffering at Auschwitz, religious doubts, and literary career

Memoirs

All Rivers Run to the Sea

Jeni Enjaian

If Wiesel's books were not already on my to-read list, I would not continue to read them. (I have a thing about wanting to move books from the to-read list by reading them rather than just removing them because I no longer want to read them.)
For Wiesel, this memoir employs his typical non-linear chronological bent. While I am still not a fan, this approach works much better for the memoir format than for the novel format. I continue to find Wiesel's overwhelming pessimism oppressive. in this book, he even indulges in pessimistic foreshadowing. This often took the form of such self-deprecating comments it comes off almost as bragging. For such a long memoir, Wiesel spends too much time on historical and political events only tangentially related to his life which aids him in avoiding too much in-depth introspection. This also seems to be typical for Wiesel. Lastly, the shift in person (first to third) in the very last few pages I found to be off-putting. The book felt like it ended on the wrong foot, slightly off.

All Rivers Run to the Sea Memoirs

Reviews