Visit my Jew Wishes website to see my full review. http://jewwishes.wordpress.com/2009/0...

Once again, in The Town Beyond the Wall, Elie Wiesel has brought us a novel in which he infuses pieces of himself within the pages, through the narrator, named Michael.

Michael is a Jew, and he is a survivor of the Holocaust. He is haunted by the past, by memories that he tries to hold on to, holding on literally for survival. He is in constant search for validation and the meaning of life. He questions and questions, not always finding answers.

The novel questions whether you can return to where your life began, to where you spent the first youthful formative years of your life, to where your life as you knew it ended, and not feel some form of pain or suffering. To do so would be to blot out those who came before you.

Wiesel implies that suffering is man’s worst nightmare, where cowardice and courage can’t blend together with a firm, peaceful or true resolution. It is either one or the other, but not both. He is masterful in his writing, and leaves us to ponder much. I have never read a book by Elie Wiesel that I didn’t like, and The Town Beyond the Wall is no different. ( )