The Fifth Son: A Novel, Limited Edition

by Elie Wiesel, Marion Wiesel (Translator), Frances Jetter (Illustrator)

Reuven Tamiroff, a Holocaust survivor, has never been able to speak about his past to his son, a young man who yearns to understand his father's silence. As campuses burn amidst the unrest of the Sixties and his own generation rebels, the son is drawn to his father's circle of wartime friends in search of clues to the past. Finally discovering that his brooding father has been haunted for years by his role in the murder of a brutal SS officer just after the war, young Tamiroff learns that the Nazi is still alive. Haunting, poetic, and very contemporary, "The Fifth Son "builds to an unforgettable climax as the son sets out to complete his father's act of revenge.

Genres: Fiction, Historical Fiction, Holocaust, Jewish, Adult Fiction, Novels, Judaica

210 pages, Leather Bound

First published August 24, 1983

About the author

Eliezer "Elie" Wiesel was a Romanian-born American writer, professor, political activist, Nobel laureate, and Holocaust survivor. He authored 57 books, written mostly in French and English, including Night, a work based on his experiences as a Jewish prisoner in the Auschwitz and Buchenwald concentration camps.
In his political activities Wiesel became a regular speaker on the subject of the Holocaust and remained a strong defender of human rights during his lifetime. He also advocated for many other causes like the state of Israel and against Hamas and victims of oppression including Soviet and Ethiopian Jews, the apartheid in South Africa, the Bosnian genocide, Sudan, the Kurds and the Armenian genocide, Argentina's Desaparecidos or Nicaragua's Miskito people.
He was a professor of the humanities at Boston University, which created the Elie Wiesel Center for Jewish Studies in his honor. He was involved with Jewish causes and human rights causes and helped establish the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C.
Wiesel was awarded various prestigious awards including the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986. He was a founding board member of the New York Human Rights Foundation and remained active in it throughout his life.

Reviews

[Christopher St · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had the privilege of reading a signed first edition of this book passed down from my Dad, and the rich smell, thick pages, and classic hardcover added to the experience of reading this book. The story is dark, and it starts slow. It is mostly composed of dialogue between the son and his father's friends, and some between the son and his father. The dialogue has a haunting quality which led me to wonder what horror was to come. When the mystery is finally revealed it is done delicately, and a new conflict emerges, with a satisfactory conclusion.

The book is just the right length, and at the end I was left thinking about good and evil. It is not a thriller, nor a feel-good. I wouldn't call it a page-turner either. An adult bed-time story to be read in short bursts maybe, but well worth reading!

[Pavlína · Rating 5 out of 5]

Objevila jsem tohoto autora a moc se mi líbí jeho styl psaní.
Navíc - kombinace židovských zvyků a vzpomínek na život v polském ghettu je velmi lákavá.
Zatím nejsem rozhodně zklamána.

DOČTENO!
A mohu vřele doporučit. Tolik zvratů, náznakových informací! Kniha vás nutí přemýšlet, spojovat si fakta, předvídat!
Paráda.

Připojuji tuto knihu k několika, které o válce má smysl přečíst (další jsou Chlapec v pruhovaném pyžamu a Hlava XX).

Citát:
"V den, kdy k lidské tragédii, jakékoli, přistoupíme jako k obyčejné, tudíž bezvýznamné události, v ten den bude nepřítel slavit vítězství."

[Florence Buchholz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Survivors of terrible trauma can never fully reclaim their lives. Elie Wiesel, a Holocaust survivor, knew that as well as anyone alive. In this novel atrocities and resulting loss haunt the next generation of survivors. A mother has been driven insane by what she has witnessed. A father can never bring himself to relate the cruel events of the past but that does not stop the determination of his son to know the truth. There is no moment of joy in this tale. Sorrow reverberates down through the years and can never be erased.

[Dymbula · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jak se vypořádat s tím, když se dozvíte, o minulosti svých nejbližších. Jak je to se zločinem a hlavně trestem? Kruté čtení. Ale neméně zajímavé byl rozhovor s Arnoštem Lustigem o Ellie Wiezelovi. To celé knize nasadilo další a pro mě dost překvapivý rozměr.

[Deane · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very sad story....although fiction, we know it all happened during WWII....the Holocaust, the killing of six million Jews.
This story is about a young man who is the child of Holocaust survivors. His mother is now in a mental clinic and his father won't answer the son's question about what happened during WWII.
The father's friends eventually tell him what it was like to be in a village where a Nazi governor ruled all the people choosing when he wanted them killed, sent to a work camp, or to humiliate them.
Eventually the son finds out the Nazi is now a prominent businessman in Germany so he goes to find him ....a very moving ending.
An epilogue dated 1984 adds much information to the life of the son, the mother, father and friends.

[Holly Morey · Rating 2 out of 5]

I somehow missed the point of all the excellent reviews. The book lost something in translation for me. The story is told from the son's point of view. His parents are holocaust survivors and he is determined to know their history. The story was choppy and the female characters are very undeveloped. There were parts of the book that were enlightening but for the most part it was very hard to read. To me I think that there are better books describing the ghettoes in Poland and the outcome. If you can make it to the end of this book, the last few chapters are the most enlightening. Otherwise it is very slow and disjointed

[Amy Conley · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'll always be a little obsessed with Holocaust literature, and this is Wiesel in true form. The novel has a more abstract, dream like quality than Night, but raises important questions about justice and vengeance after suffering. He follows a haunted family dealing with post WWII trauma and the legacy they have been handed through inflicted misery, in a way that few can. I snatched this one up at a library free for all and ripped through it in an afternoon--I am so glad I did!

[Rosanna · Rating 5 out of 5]

- L'Haggadàh - [...] - ci parla di quattro figli e del loro atteggiamento nei confronti della 'domanda'.
Il primo la conosce e l'assume; il secondo la conosce e la rigetta; il terzo la subisce con indifferenza; il quarto non la conosce neanche. certo, c'è anche un quinto figlio, ma non figura nel racconto, perché non è più.

[Linda Rowland · Rating 4 out of 5]

In as much as I understood this book I liked it.

[Jesse · Rating 5 out of 5]

Interesting read.

[Darra · Rating 5 out of 5]

Horrific and beautiful at the same time.

[Lucy Gould · Rating 4 out of 5]

The construction of the novel was choppy and felt disconnected but I enjoyed the style Wiesel wrote with.

[Katy Lovejoy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting though it kind of lagged

[Frabe · Rating 3 out of 5]

Il grande Elie Wiesel de "La notte", primo libro-capolavoro, ha scritto poi altri 56 libri: questo "Il quinto figlio" è uno dei tanti.

[Elliot Ratzman · Rating 2 out of 5]

Surprise! The themes of this 1985 novel is memory, the Holocaust, and silence. A survivor living in NYC has to deal with his son’s curiosity about the war and its aftermath. The survivor, once a scholar, now a librarian and a friend “who deals in shadows” (never explained) get together to debate the use of the death penalty; the father’s other acquaintance helps the son understand his father’s buried past—as a Jewish council chief in a ghetto, as a would-be assassin of the ghetto’s commandant, the “Angel”. The novel suffers from Wiesel’s grating tendency to mistake paradox for gravitas, terrible dialogue and weak women characters (they are vamps or crazed or too-free-spirited). The title refers to the Passover haggadah, the fifth son being a dead son who died in the camps. The live son—very grumpy and very traumatized by so much silence—grows up to discover the Nazi commandant is alive and philanthropic in Germany, so he poses as a journalist for one last anti-climactic confrontation.

[Isatta · Rating 4 out of 5]

This novel speaks of redemption, forgiveness, patience....three things I work on getting better with daily. The prose in which it is written is eloquent and beautiful. The story of disconnect caused by a father's attempt to protect both his children ( one living and one dead) is a very eye opening one.

This story leaves so much unsaid yet I felt so much following the words of both father and son. Though the story encompasses more than father and son, every man in this book is the father and the son.

[TheAuntie · Rating 5 out of 5]

mi devo ricordare prima o poi di scrivere un commento comparato tra questo libro e il graphic novel Maus, forse Art Spiegelman avrebbe dovuto leggersi questo libro prima di scrivere il suo, per capire come funziona il discorso padre-sopravvisuto e figlio!!

[Rat Boy Hedonist · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was a good, emotional, moving story about living without knowing somebody you're suppose to love, either living or dead. I've only read Wiesel's nonfiction stuff before this, so I was a bit worried, but so far, his fiction is good, too.

[Nancy · Rating 3 out of 5]

The ending left me confused as there was more than one depiction of a central event - what really happened to Ariel? Very dark and tragic story.

[Marina Bessel · Rating 5 out of 5]

So good.

[Deborah · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very thought provoking. The book explores good and evil. Is violence ever justified? It also explores how the parent's past affects the children. I would recommend this book to anyone.

[Jayne · Rating 4 out of 5]

A thought-provoking read about the lasting effects of tragedy and whether violence is ever justified.

I found the format slightly confusing, but overall quite effective.

[Michel Van Goethem · Rating 3 out of 5]

De vijfde zoon
by Elie Wiesel

[Annette Eyrich · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think I wasn't able to get into the story completely, probably read to much of it at night, in the end I still wasn't sure who the fifth son is, maybe I'll re-read one day

[Joan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read long ago, but I remember that I loved it. From my mom's bookshelves.

[Abby · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5
Extremely thought-provoking. A beautifully written perspective on children of Holocaust survivors, vengeance, and silence.

[Madeleine · Rating 4 out of 5]

D"De vijfde zoon"