tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4074861.post1963280418172253586..comments2024-03-28T02:36:55.037-04:00Comments on Brooklyn Arden: Allegory, Schmallegory: A Big Fat "Feh" for "The Boy in the Striped Pajamas"Cherylhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05972029478350879112noreply@blogger.comBlogger13125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4074861.post-25010890200564373592011-11-29T12:25:36.197-05:002011-11-29T12:25:36.197-05:00I am absolutely in love with this book and movie, ...I am absolutely in love with this book and movie, it got my attention right away, and kept me intreged, it was so sad which is what i dont like about it, but its real and amazing, left me with chills and a sad feeling inside to think that things like that actually happened!<br />its discusting personally, amazing story!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4074861.post-47760995169193078172009-06-10T10:15:24.048-04:002009-06-10T10:15:24.048-04:00Thanks for the comments. I haven't read the bo...Thanks for the comments. I haven't read the book. My student told half of the story and she'll continue tomorrow. I was looking for a review and thought this was one of the best sites about it.I agree with some parts of everyone's comment. I think the book is a bit like "The Painted Bird" which I read 28 years ago. I forgot the author of the book but I think his purpose might be similar to Mr. John Boyne's if the point is to make readers aware of our tendency to treat people according to color, race, nationality, wealth, credentials, position, clothes, etc. instead of just being humane to humans.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4074861.post-79315030668251639952007-08-23T04:32:00.000-04:002007-08-23T04:32:00.000-04:00Ah' I love it. John Boyne didn't really point out...Ah' I love it. John Boyne didn't really point out the moral or the point. I guess he thought it was obvious and to some it might have been then again maybe it's not the point at all. But what I got out of it had nothing to do with the Holocaust at all. It has to do with the fence. The fence at the heart of the story. How to overcome the fence. And even though things maybe different on the othet side of the fence to get used to it, maybe even learn to enjoy the other side of the fence, else the fence will always exist. The fence. That was the point. Maybe im wrong, but thats what I got out of it. But I am only 14 and i'm reading it for a summer project so correct me if you think im wrong.dejectedxardencyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01450816460570948402noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4074861.post-7359384604148030822007-04-28T09:57:00.000-04:002007-04-28T09:57:00.000-04:00To me, the point was the essential sameness of hum...To me, the point was the essential sameness of humanity, and the futility of prejudice. Because of Bruno's ignorance, he doesn't realize that the people on the other side of the fence are Jews, so he treats Shmuel more or less as an equal. But the real kicker is the end, of course, when Bruno dons the striped pajamas and the Nazi guards assume he's just another Jew. So it seems to me that the lesson is really for the grown-ups in the story -- Bruno's parents, for example. If their own son can be mistaken for and killed as a Jew simply because of his clothing, then the notion of aryan superiority is a big fat sham, isn't it? But they don't even learn that lesson, because from their perspective Bruno simply disappears.<BR/><BR/>I think that's what makes this a throw-it-against-the-wall book for so many folks. Because of the grown-up characters' stupidity, the ignorant kid pays the ultimate price, and readers of any age don't tend to appreciate it when the main character dies for no good reason. Ok, I can see the parallel with the overall message of the story -- multiply your feelings about Bruno's death by 6,000,000 and that's how we ought to feel about the Holocaust, right? <BR/><BR/>What troubles me most about this book may be the lack of hope at the end. According to Katherine Paterson, a hopeful final note is one of the hallmarks of children's literature -- even if things don't turn out well, there's at least the possibility floating out there of change for the better. At the conclusion of Boy in the Striped Pajamas, nobody seems to have learned anything, or changed in any way. The reader is left feeling mad, or sad, or in some cases just plain irritated, but *not* empowered in any way, and certainly not with a sense that they can emulate the characters to create a force for change. Bruno treated a Jewish boy like anybody else, and what's his reward? Death. Ouch.<BR/><BR/>I think that lack of hope at the end is what makes me question whether this is really an appropriate book for children. I know kids need to realize that real life isn't fair, and I'm not saying every kids' book should make you feel all bright and sunshiny at the end, but leaving a young audience with not much more than futility and powerlessness in the face of adult prejudice makes me uncomfortable.Sarah Millerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02153201454830937349noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4074861.post-10687371749834280252007-01-13T14:33:00.000-05:002007-01-13T14:33:00.000-05:00Thank you for helping me take a book off my TBR pi...Thank you for helping me take a book <i>off</i> my TBR pile. That doesn't happen very often.Rebeccahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15292597646595740720noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4074861.post-31027644313137811652006-12-02T14:39:00.000-05:002006-12-02T14:39:00.000-05:00Haven't read it yet, but it rubs me the wrong way ...Haven't read it yet, but it rubs me the wrong way from the get-go that the boy misunderstands the word Auschwitz as "out with" because it would seem that kind of mishearing would result in other textual confusions as well, which I haven't heard about.<br /><br />In German, "out with" would be said "aus mit" which would make it hard to constantly and casually mistake repeatedly. It would make more sense to me that the boy would hear the name of the camp as two distinct words instead on one -- aus schwitz -- which translates into "out sweat" or "to sweat (out)". An innocent but curious boy might then puzzle over why anyone would name a camp that.<br /><br />Yeah, sometimes it's the nits that get picked, but the smallest things can become the biggest irritations.david elzeyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16653215150526146224noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4074861.post-30314384718574622542006-11-24T00:36:00.000-05:002006-11-24T00:36:00.000-05:00ybHrmm. I think we in the West do have a special s...ybHrmm. I think we in the West do have a special sensitivity to the Holocaust, because we learn so much about it than we do about other genocides, its awfulness is concentrated rather than diffuse (like, say, the European settlers' wiping-out of Native Americans -- this is also what makes the Holocaust more accessible to fiction than other genocides), and it's so recent (historically speaking). <br /><br />But I felt strongly that the book failed on literary grounds more than anything else: Fables have morals, aka points, and as I keep saying, I didn't see the point of this. And I think that would have held true if it were set in the Bataan Death March or Armenia or Hiroshima.Cherylhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05972029478350879112noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4074861.post-52119530728737026412006-11-22T20:14:00.000-05:002006-11-22T20:14:00.000-05:00i am a firm supporter of Pyjamas (we spell it diff...i am a firm supporter of Pyjamas (we spell it differently on the other side of the world), and have been fascinated to read the varied opinions on it. but i keep asking myself the same question:<br /><br />would the people who hated it, feel the same way if it hadn't been about the Jewish Holocaust? <br /><br />What if it were about the Japanese holocaust, or set in Africa, or a completely imaginary world?<br /><br />i get the feeling that too many people are looking at the book through the eyes of history, instead of reading it (as the title suggests) as a fable.<br /><br />(imho)lilihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03362725678748958671noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4074861.post-33841726019267577982006-11-21T17:00:00.000-05:002006-11-21T17:00:00.000-05:00I love, love, LOVE allegorical books because the a...I love, love, LOVE allegorical books because the allegory can sometimes be in the mind of the reader--differing depending on their perspective. I think THE GIVER and THE GIVING TREE are two such books. Sounds as if this one has clunk written all over it which is sad because I think that particular allegory is worth exploring for children.Pam Calverthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03151206882952379974noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4074861.post-1460021060665865162006-11-18T13:20:00.000-05:002006-11-18T13:20:00.000-05:00My question is, "Is this a children's book?" Or is...My question is, "Is this a children's book?" Or is it a fable for adults that has children in it like "Lord of the Flies"?<br /><br />I poked around Amazon to get some info and came across the most curious smackdown for not reading a book,<br /><br />"...while the simple prose and novel narrator make the story compellingly readable, too much of the story is predictable, and ultimately it's probably best left for classroom use. "<br /><br />"Left for classroom use?" It's not good enough to read at home but okay to be served up at school? <br /><br />I will puzzle over that sentence for the rest of the day,<br /><br />MarilynThetoymakershttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15405265800595978197noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4074861.post-45664006053772033132006-11-18T12:21:00.000-05:002006-11-18T12:21:00.000-05:00Hi Kathy,
Well, any review comes with a "Your Mil...Hi Kathy,<br /><br />Well, any review comes with a "Your Mileage May Vary," and obviously your mileage did! You're right that Bruno is an innocent, and that not liking the main character should not necessarily dictate that I hate a story; but I do have to care about or be entertained by or interested in a character to be involved with a story, and since Bruno completely failed that test for me, I became very impatient with the novel he inhabited. He failed partly because I didn't believe in his innocence, for the reasons cited in my post; partly because his ignorance seemed to go beyond innocence to deliberate self-deception or stupidity; and partly because he failed the moral test for me of doing what's right when he saw something wrong (e.g. standing up for the gardener or Shmuel when they were beaten by the Lieutenant). <br /><br />You may also be right that Mr. Boyne is correct not to show Bruno's death or corpse; I too appreciate novels where the writer leaves things to the imagination, provided the novel can achieve its point without that dramatization. (Zadie Smith does this beautifully in "On Beauty.") But in this case I just found it baffling, because Bruno never grasps the evil to which he's been a witness/party, and Mr. Boyne conceals that evil from the reader as well. May I ask what you took the point of the novel to be, or what Mr. Boyne said about it at his reading? That might help me understand his thinking here.<br /><br />Finally, I put "Warning: spoilers ahead, including the end" at the top of my post, so people who didn't want to know what happened could easily skip the post.Cherylhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05972029478350879112noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4074861.post-41540437066396328452006-11-16T23:57:00.000-05:002006-11-16T23:57:00.000-05:00I can't agree with your post at all; I found the b...I can't agree with your post at all; I found the book to be one of the most affecting and well-written I have ever read. I had the good fortune of hearing Mr Boyne speak about the novel in front of a rapt audience of hundreds in Albany recently and believe me when I tell you that everyone there was absolutely captivated by the beauty of the novel and the sincerity of his talk.<br /><br />You state that you didn't like the main character and therefore didn't like the book. I don't see that one is a natural follow-on of the other. Bruno's natural innocence is a reflection of the life he's lived to that point where he doesn't think about the fact that there are evil things going on in the world; certain scenes in the story make him start to consider this.<br /><br />Also I don't think that it would have been a good idea to show the 'death scene'. Too many writers today feel they have to write absolutely everything that happens. I find it more interesting when a more challenging way of telling a story is presented and the reader must use their own imagination.<br /><br />And finally, perhaps you shouldn't give away the entire story right through to the denoument in your post. This is a book which is a bestseller and many people might not want to know how it turns out.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4074861.post-21953238240031154372006-11-16T04:33:00.000-05:002006-11-16T04:33:00.000-05:00Cheryl,
Thanks so much for this post. While I'm ...Cheryl,<br /><br />Thanks so much for this post. While I'm not worried that this book is going to do damage (whereas there are some who think so --- see the ccbcnet archives), I was really bothered by it. From the beginning I was completely unable to suspend disbelief as to Bruno so the rest didn't work. <br /><br />Interesting how writers are trying to use naive narrators when writing Holocaust stories. Jerry Spinelli did so as well with MILKWEED. I had trouble with that one because there were two voices going on, the main character looking back and the main character in the moment being naive. But it worked a hell of a lot better than Boyne's. <br /><br />MonicaMonica Edingerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03924540264341924291noreply@blogger.com