Open Heart

He may be a fine writer , but the way he described going Into open heart surgery did not ring true. I lived thru a life or death surgery, and believe me, there was no dreaming under anesthesia. Further, the Ellegy about our lost common ancestors was heartfelt, but seemed meaningless in light of the "self" that takes over in a situation like this. He makes his survival a homage to our dead relatives, instead of to his doctors. Please dr. Wiesel, give science it's due.

I love this author and all his books but this was a disappointment since it was a very short essay of what he was feeling during his seize with a heart problem. Could have just been an essay. Very disappointed!

As a former high school English teacher I had taught Wiesel's "Night" years ago. Also, I have tried to keep in touch with his growth and career. His confrontation of likely death is insightful and moving.

Elie Wiesel has produced many excellent works of fiction and nonfiction. Most of them are in whole or in part related to his experiences as a Holocaust survivor. Open Heart is very different.

This book is equal parts memoir, treatise, and affirmation of faith as Mr. Wiesel faces sudden death from cardiovascular disease and open heart surgery.

At age 82, in June of 2011, Wiesel is rushed to a hospital with severe coronary artery disease. He has several blocked arteries that only open-heart surgery can resolve. Suddenly faced with the prospect of death, Mr. Wiesel reflects upon his life, his experiences during the Holocaust, and his life since the Shoah.

As he is wheeled into the operating room, he reminisces about the terrifying agony of his imprisonment in the Holocaust, his survival, and the glorious wonders of life, love, family, and work left undone.

Mr. Wiesel comprehends the gravity of his abruptly serious health issue, which frightens his wife and son as much as himself. He gazes into his past, filled with trepidation, gloom, and death.

Virtually everyone he loved as a young man had been murdered by Nazi Germany during the Holocaust. It was the darkest portion of his life and of humanity's existence. Unexpectedly he is once more threatened with losing everyone he loved.

A devout Jew, Mr. Wiesel wonders how God could allow millions of His children to become Holocaust victims. He considers, as had so many of his peers in Nazi death camps, how God could have turned away. Where is God, Elie Wiesel wonders? How could He abandon us? How could He allow so many generations of devout families to be murdered?

Admitting that there are no easy or swift answers to such questions, Mr. Wiesel proffers cryptic responses, such as, "It is not for us to decide how or why God acts." Or "God exists within the questions as well as the actions."

In the end, Mr. Wiesel can deliver no coherent meaning from the Holocaust. He seeks a different direction for salvation. During his recovery from heart surgery, his little grandson asks, "If I loved you more, would you be in less pain?" Mr. Wiesel realizes at that moment that "God is smiling as He contemplates His creation."

Mr. Wiesel proclaims he is part of a generation abandoned by God and betrayed by mankind. He reflects how humans have attained "perfection in cruelty." He wonders how humans could have attained such a dichotomy of normalcy, "for the killers, the torturers, it is normal, thus human, to act inhumanely. Should one therefore turn away from humanity?"

These ethical bombshells remain for the reader to scrutinize, while no logical conclusion is apparent from the author. He later resolves "It is up to each of us to choose between the violence of adults and the smiles of children, between the ugliness of hate and will to oppose it."

Speaking from experience, he tells us "even in darkness it is possible to create light and encourage compassion. It is possible to feel free inside a prison. Even in exile, friendship exists and can become an anchor. In one instant before dying, man remains immortal."

Mr. Wiesel believes in man in spite of man. He believes each of us can use words to wound or to console, to curse or to heal, to comprehend or disregard, just as "Illness may diminish me, but it will not destroy me." He proffers that, "the body is not eternal, but the idea of the soul is. The brain will be buried, but memory will survive it."

"Such is the miracle," is how Wiesel closes his thoughts. A tale of despair becomes a tale against despair. He finds singular beauty in the smile and love of his grandson that his misery over the Holocaust is diminished.

Yet what are we to believe about Holocaust survivors who have no loving family members? Can such despair be overcome when the survivor has no adoring grandchildren?

Elie Wiesel delivers a message of hope and tolerance in Open Heart. A successful husband, father, grandfather, teacher, and writer, he is an asset to humankind. He has turned despondency into a message of approval and optimism.

Mr. Wiesel packages equal parts beauty and astonishing description in an impossibly concise manner. Few authors have possessed such capacity for succinctness and brevity with magnificent dexterity.

At 82 and ill, Mr. Wiesel remains a powerful ambassador of tolerance and hope, for humanity will always require this message, a bright light in the darkness of despair, a signpost on humanity's road toward destruction and "turn to tolerance and survive."

This is Elie Wiesel's eternal message. We are each a spark of light in the darkness of destruction.

Reviewer Charles S. Weinblatt is the author of the popular Holocaust novel, "Jacob's Courage."

Mr Wiesel is a great man and thinker.But to say these were his thoughts as he recovered from open heart surgery, I think, is simply not true. An essay about his thoughts after he recovered is one thing. But this gives a false picture of how one is after surgery. Most patients are struggling with their physical ailments they barely have time to realize where they are let alone think about good and evil in the world.

Elie Wiesel has produced many excellent works of fiction and nonfiction. Most of them are in whole or in part related to his experiences as a Holocaust survivor. Open Heart is very different.

This book is equal parts memoir, treatise, and affirmation of faith as Mr. Wiesel faces sudden death from cardiovascular disease and open heart surgery.

At age 82, in June of 2011, Wiesel is rushed to a hospital with severe coronary artery disease. He has several blocked arteries that only open-heart surgery can resolve. Suddenly faced with the prospect of death, Mr. Wiesel reflects upon his life, his experiences during the Holocaust, and his life since the Shoah.

As he is wheeled into the operating room, he reminisces about the terrifying agony of his imprisonment in the Holocaust, his survival, and the glorious wonders of life, love, family, and work left undone.

Mr. Wiesel comprehends the gravity of his abruptly serious health issue, which frightens his wife and son as much as himself. He gazes into his past, filled with trepidation, gloom, and death.

Virtually everyone he loved as a young man had been murdered by Nazi Germany during the Holocaust. It was the darkest portion of his life and of humanity's existence. Unexpectedly he is once more threatened with losing everyone he loved.

A devout Jew, Mr. Wiesel wonders how God could allow millions of His children to become Holocaust victims. He considers, as had so many of his peers in Nazi death camps, how God could have turned away. Where is God, Elie Wiesel wonders? How could He abandon us? How could He allow so many generations of devout families to be murdered?

Admitting that there are no easy or swift answers to such questions, Mr. Wiesel proffers cryptic responses, such as, "It is not for us to decide how or why God acts." Or "God exists within the questions as well as the actions."

In the end, Mr. Wiesel can deliver no coherent meaning from the Holocaust. He seeks a different direction for salvation. During his recovery from heart surgery, his little grandson asks, "If I loved you more, would you be in less pain?" Mr. Wiesel realizes at that moment that "God is smiling as He contemplates His creation."

Mr. Wiesel proclaims he is part of a generation abandoned by God and betrayed by mankind. He reflects how humans have attained "perfection in cruelty." He wonders how humans could have attained such a dichotomy of normalcy, "for the killers, the torturers, it is normal, thus human, to act inhumanely. Should one therefore turn away from humanity?"

These ethical bombshells remain for the reader to scrutinize, while no logical conclusion is apparent from the author. He later resolves "It is up to each of us to choose between the violence of adults and the smiles of children, between the ugliness of hate and will to oppose it."

Speaking from experience, he tells us "even in darkness it is possible to create light and encourage compassion. It is possible to feel free inside a prison. Even in exile, friendship exists and can become an anchor. In one instant before dying, man remains immortal."

Mr. Wiesel believes in man in spite of man. He believes each of us can use words to wound or to console, to curse or to heal, to comprehend or disregard, just as "Illness may diminish me, but it will not destroy me." He proffers that, "the body is not eternal, but the idea of the soul is. The brain will be buried, but memory will survive it."

"Such is the miracle," is how Wiesel closes his thoughts. A tale of despair becomes a tale against despair. He finds singular beauty in the smile and love of his grandson that his misery over the Holocaust is diminished.

Yet what are we to believe about Holocaust survivors who have no loving family members? Can such despair be overcome when the survivor has no adoring grandchildren?

Elie Wiesel delivers a message of hope and tolerance in Open Heart. A successful husband, father, grandfather, teacher, and writer, he is an asset to humankind. He has turned despondency into a message of approval and optimism.

Mr. Wiesel packages equal parts beauty and astonishing description in an impossibly concise manner. Few authors have possessed such capacity for succinctness and brevity with magnificent dexterity.

At 82 and ill, Mr. Wiesel remains a powerful ambassador of tolerance and hope, for humanity will always require this message, a bright light in the darkness of despair, a signpost on humanity's road toward destruction and "turn to tolerance and survive."

This is Elie Wiesel's eternal message. We are each a spark of light in the darkness of destruction.

Reviewer Charles S. Weinblatt is the author of the popular Holocaust novel, "Jacob's Courage."

Mr Wiesel is a great man and thinker.But to say these were his thoughts as he recovered from open heart surgery, I think, is simply not true. An essay about his thoughts after he recovered is one thing. But this gives a false picture of how one is after surgery. Most patients are struggling with their physical ailments they barely have time to realize where they are let alone think about good and evil in the world.

This short work opens with Elie Wiesel's description of a sudden medical crisis, and his need for Open Heart Surgery. It seems at first as if the whole book will be about this particular episode but after several pages this 'crisis' is resolved by successful surgery. Wiesel then engages in a reflection on his work and life, and on their meaning. In this reflection I believe he underestimates his own historical importance and the enormous contribution he has made to the Jewish people and to humanity. After all more than any other writer he is the one who made the world aware of the horrifying dimensions of the Shoah.(The Holocaust). His book 'Night' is one of the most powerful documents about human suffering ever written. It tells the story of his own experience in the death camps and on the death marches, of the loss of his family and his world. It is a poetic book of questioning and argument with God and at the same time a narrative of events overwhelming in their horror. After this book Wiesel became known throughout the world and worked tirelessly for years to diminish human suffering, to oppose racism, and genocide. His actions in regard to the freeing of Soviet Jewry were heroic, and he gave the people of Silence a voice which helped lead to their rescue.
In this work he writes in a summary fashion about a few of his more than fifty books. He writes too lovingly about his wife Marion, who has shared his life for over forty years and contributed so much to his well- being. He writes with love of his son and grandchildren and of what they mean to him.
Wiesel is a writer whose every perception seems charged with feeling. He is a legend in his own time and certainly one of the great voices for Humanity of the past half - century.
This small work gives the reader an opportunity to be once again in the presence of a truly holy man, one who seems to embody the spirit of many of the great Hasidism and teachers of the Jewish tradition he has often written and taught about.
Any book by Elie Wiesel is a gift and a blessing.This one in good poetic fashion is dense and rich, and gives much in a small number of pages.

Readable in one sitting, Elie Wiesel’s Open Heart provides a window into the soul of this remarkable man. Holocaust survivor, practicing Jew, sage and author Elie Wiesel was both utterly unique while being in some ways representative of the Jews of his generation.

As a Holocaust survivor, Wiesel found the mind of God incomprehensible but persisted in carrying out the traditions of his forefathers. Here, facing open heart surgery, he reflects on these traditions and his relationships with his progeny as he faces the possibility of the end of his earthly sojourn.

Open and honest, Wiesel sometimes writes the unexpected but never deviates from the essential humanity that made him a recipient of the Nobel Peace prize.

Before wading into his extensive literary oeuvre, Open Heart is an excellent introduction into why the world paid so much attention to Elie Wiesel and found him so deserving of its respect.

Open Heart is an intimately honest account of Wiesel’s feelings and thoughts during a time when he wasn’t sure if he was going to live or die. As he faces his own mortality, he reflects on his choices and his conflicting emotions regarding God and his place in the world.

I was moved by the memoir. It’s simple and short, but contains a depth of emotion. I especially appreciated reading Wiesel’s regrets for not doing more and his ongoing questioning of religion. Even Wiesel, who has done so much, wants to do so much more with his life. It was nice to see even Wiesel questioning his choices, but it was also wonderful to see how he always turned to what gave him joy and what he thought were his successes. This book was quite comforting in that. I’m sure all of us could think back to things we wish we had done differently, or things we wish we understood better, but in the end, we can always turn to the things that we take joy and pride in.

Overall, this is a comforting memoir that shows just what it means to be faced with uncertainty. If you are at all a fan of Wiesel and his work, this is well worth the read.

As an Afro-American I can identify with the suffering that Night brings to light. This experience was very tragic as portrayed by very ignorant and evil people, families were torn apart. The Jews suffered greatly for years. In a similar situation African-Americans suffered over 300 years of hatred and prejudice and tore families apart as a result.
Our past experiences are similar and we should never forget. Only if we never forget can we be certain that it never happens again.

Like a blend of All Rivers Run to the Sea, And the Sea Is Never Full, and Day, Wiesel frames a concise memoir in the context of a pervasive medical tragedy. He traipses briefly through past epic moments, memories, rites of passage, and current obligations. He composes a note of gratitude and hope like drafting a sketch of his own epithet.

Elie Weisel's account of his inner thoughts after having had open heart surgery. It is said that after undergoing emergency life-threatening surgery a person is first elated with the knowledge of having survived. After a short time the person may spend much time reliving the experience and its ramifications. Ellie Weisel gives an excellent personal look into the insights and growth he experienced after this recent episode in his life.

Thank you once again, Elie Weisel, for sharing your journey in life so eloquently. Your books have conveniently popped into my life just as I have been ready for deeper understanding of this strange "life experience". I think your take on "evil" is probably right on and extremely insightful.

I recommend Open Heart, Elie Wiesel's new memoir. Not much in there that he hasn't already said in other books, but its poetic, inspiring, and wise. The actor who narrates the book is very good, but sometimes its jarring when he mispronounces almost every Yiddish or Hebrew word or city name.

I loved listening to this book on audio. I had a long drive and this book was perfect to listen to. I enjoyed reading, Night, so it was one reason I did not hesitate to check this out from my library. The book is almost like poetry combining thoughts from the past and present time.

Not exactly what I expected...bought it after seeing a clip of an interview with him and Oprah. May investigate some of his other books, but in all, still he is such an incredible man that has led an incredible life and I'm glad he's chosen to share his story with the world.