chancellor's Full Review: Thomas Keneally - Schindler's List
Its a scary thought, but I actually saw the movie of this first, and then picked up the book a few years later. Needless to say I certainly shed a tear during the movie, but the book that started it all seemed a dissapointment.
Schindler's List is the story of Oscar Schindler, an industrialist who uses his power with government officials and weight as a producer of vital Nazi munitions and fieldware to prevent the deaths of thousands of Jews who he saves by employing in his factory. The book goes in great detail about the horrendous plight of the Jews in occupied Poland, and there are some chapters that certainly strike a chord with your hummanity.
However, the book fell down a little in some areas. I hate to criticize a fellow Australian, but Keneally has a tendancy in all his works to be a little bit of a rambler. Some paragraphs in the book left the impression on me that some complex metaphors, for all their explanation, had not so much relevance on the story. The story also becomes a little tedious between the scenes of cruelty, and I get the feeling he struggled in fleshing out some parts of the timeline. But although it gets a little mystifying or sometimes even unexplained how Oscar got away with some of his antics, the book is very vivid in many parts, and you can feel the atmosphere and characters he has created. Immersion in some scenes is natural, and one is well educated about some specific historical points by the end, as the book is wonderfully descriptive and detailed in its historical accuracy.
While i enjoyed the book to a degree, I am going to do the ultimate sin and declare the movie a better way of knowing the story. However, I'd still encourage people to read it, but personally I think once is certainly enough.
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