The Trial of God - (as it was held on February 25, 1649, in Shamgorod) (Paperback, New Ed)

Inside "the kingdom of night" - the concentration camp - Wiesel actually witnessed a trial which put God up as the accused, charged with being either accepting of or blind to the murder of HIS chosen people. Now he's made it into a dramatic parable, set in 1649 in a Russian village that's just undergone a pogrom. Only two Jews remain, an innkeeper and his violated daughter. When roving minstrels arrive by accident at the devastated town and offer to put on a Purim play, the innkeeper suggests they hold a trial instead. "I want to understand why He is giving the killers the strength and the victims the tears and the shame of helplessness. . . . Listen: either He is responsible or He is not. If He is, let's judge Him; if He is not, let Him stop judging us." A stranger, clearly Satan, arrives to serve as defense attorney. The argument he puts forward is essentially that the kingdom of death is God's to add to as he wishes; His miracle is to allow even one Jew to survive as testimony - and one always does survive. The kernel, then, is arresting; but the dialogue is stir and lifeless, and two of the three acts seem long prologues and little else. Finding a shape for the ultimate seriousness that infuses his thought remains Wiesel's thorn; his success here again is only intermittent. (Kirkus Reviews)

Set in a Ukrainian village in the year 1649, this haunting play takes place in the aftermath of a pogrom. Only two Jews, Berish the innkeeper and his daughter Hannah, have survived the brutal Cossack raids.

General

Imprint:	Schocken Books
Country of origin:	United States
Release date:	November 1995
First published:	November 1995
Authors:	Elie Wiesel
Dimensions:	203 x 131 x 15mm (L x W x T)
Format:	Paperback
Pages:	177
Edition:	New Ed
ISBN-13:	978-0-8052-1053-8
Categories:	Books > Fiction > General & literary fiction > Modern fiction
LSN:	0-8052-1053-9
Barcode:	9780805210538

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