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In June 1942, Anne Frank received a red-and-white- checked diary for her thirteenth birthday, just weeks before she and her family went into hiding in an Amsterdam attic to escape the Nazis. For two years, with ever-increasing maturity, Anne crafted a memoir that has become one of the most compelling documents of modern history. She described life in vivid, unforgettable detail, explored apparently irreconcilable views of human nature—people are good at heart but capable of unimaginable evil—and grappled with the unfolding events of World War II, until the hidden attic was raided in August 1944.
But Anne Frank's diary, argues Francine Prose, is as much a work of art as a historical record. Through close reading, she marvels at the teenage Frank's skillfully natural narrative voice, at her finely tuned dialogue and ability to turn living people into characters. And Prose addresses what few of the diary's millions of readers may know: this book is a deliberate work of art. During her last months in hiding, Anne Frank furiously revised and edited her work, crafting a piece of literature that she had hoped would be read by the public after the war.
Read it has been. Few books have been as influential for as long, and Prose thoroughly investigates the diary's unique afterlife: the obstacles and criticism Otto Frank faced in publishing his daughter's words; the controversy surrounding the diary's Broadway and film adaptations; and the claims of conspiracy theorists who have cried fraud, along with the scientific analysis that proved them wrong. Finally, Prose, a teacher herself, considers the rewards and challenges of sharing one of the world's most read, and most banned, books with students.
How has the life and death of one girl become emblematic of the lives and deaths of so many, and why do her words continue to inspire? Anne Frank: The Book, The Life, The Afterlife tells the extraordinary story of the book that became a force in the world. Along the way, Francine Prose definitively establishes that Anne Frank was not an accidental author or a casual teenaged chronicler, but a writer of prodigious talent and ambition.
How has the life and death of one girl become emblematic of the lives and deaths of so many, and why do her words continue to inspire? Anne Frank: The Book, The Life, The Afterlife tells the extraordinary story of the book that became a force in the world. Along the way, Francine Prose definitively establishes that Anne Frank was not an accidental author or a casual teenage chronicler, but a writer of prodigious talent and ambition.
If Prose is specific about the kind of writing she, herself, likes to read, she's equally voluble about what puts her off. She is particularly vexed by "obvious, tired clichés; lazy, ungrammatical writing; implausible plot turns." Unsurprisingly, all of these are notably absent in her own work. Even when she explores tried-and-true literary conventions—such as the illicit romantic relationship at the heart of her best known novel, Blue Angel—she livens them with wit and irony. She even borrowed her title from the famous Josef von Sternberg film dealing with a similar subject.
As biting and clever as she is, Prose cringes whenever her work is referred to as satire. She explained to Barnes & Noble.com, "Satirical to me means one-dimensional characters…whereas, I think of myself as a novelist who happens to be funny—who's writing characters that are as rounded and artfully developed as the writers of tragic novels."
Prose's assessment of her own work is pretty accurate. Although her subject matter is often ripe for satire (religious fanaticism in Household Saints, tabloid journalism in Bigfoot Dreams, upper-class pretensions in Primitive People), etc.), she takes care to invest her characters with humanity and approaches them with respect. "I really do love my characters," she says, "but I feel that I want to take a very hard look at them. I don't find them guilty of anything I'm not guilty of myself."
Best known for her fiction, Prose has also written literary criticism for The New York Times, art criticism for The Wall Street Journal, and children's books based on Jewish folklore, all of it infused with her alchemic blend of humor, insight,and intelligence.
While she once had no problem slamming a book in one of her literary critiques, these days Prose has resolved to only review books that she actually likes. The ones that don't adhere to her high standards are simply returned to the senders.
Prose's novel Household Saints was adapted into an excellent film starring Tracey Ullman, Vincent D'Onofrio, and Lili Taylor in 1993.
Another novel, The Glorious Ones, was adapted into a musical.
In 2002, Prose published The Lives of the Muses, an intriguing hybrid of biography, philosophy, and gender studies that examines nine women who inspired famous artists and thinkers—from John Lennon's wife Yoko Ono to Alice Liddell, the child who enchanted Lewis Carroll.
readingon
Posted January 1, 2012
As other reviewers mentioned, I thought I knew all there is to know about Anne Frank since I read her diary as a teen, saw the play and the movie and even visited the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam. But in this book I learned much more. I then read the "Definitive edition" of the diary and was again overwhelmed by the story presented by this brilliant young writer. I now plan to tell all the serious readers I know to re-visit "The Secret Annex" through this book.
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.BillPilgrim
Posted May 14, 2010
This is a complete exploration of Anne Frank's diary. It includes about 60 pages of her life story. Then it examines and critiques the book as literature. It also explains the process by which Anne wrote the diary, including revisions and editing that she undertook after hearing on the radio that the Dutch government in exile was asking people to save and submit to an official repository their writings about the war period. The description of the controversy around the adaptation of the diary into a play was detailed. This was totally unknown to me before reading this book. There is a complete comparison of the merits of the play and the subsequent film version to the diary, in which both the adaptations come up lacking. There are also brief descriptions of the Anne Frank Museum in Amsterdam, the holocaust deniers focus on the diary as a hoax, and the use of the diary in the public schools.
I enjoyed reading the book and would recommend it. I've never read the book, although I picked up a used copy several years ago and will probably now read it soon. I generally find holocaust literature to be interesting and I would put the diary and this book in that category.
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Judithann
Posted December 12, 2009
I thought I knew a great deal about this topic, but I thought wrong. Vivid new details emerge about what happened before the diary began, during the time Anne kept her diary, and what happened, from a legal, moral, theatrical and cinematic point of view after Anne died and her diary became an international sensation. Insightful, informative, provocative and touching.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Since i first read her Diary when i was a teen, i was compelled to learn all i could about Anne Frank. Now i'm a Grandmother, and her story still resonates. This book is a detailed examination of how Anne's Diary became the world renouned best seller and its continued impact on new generations. If you want to delve deep into the history of the Diary, this is the book for you. No illustrations and a bit dry and scholarly, it's for select readers more than for the general population who simply want to read about Anne during her years in hiding from the Nazi's.
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Posted October 10, 2010
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Posted December 13, 2010
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Posted December 11, 2009
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Posted December 19, 2009
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Overview
In June 1942, Anne Frank received a red-and-white- checked diary for her thirteenth birthday, just weeks before she and her family went into hiding in an Amsterdam attic to escape the Nazis. For two years, with ever-increasing maturity, Anne crafted a memoir that has become one of the most compelling documents of modern history. She described life in vivid, unforgettable detail, explored apparently irreconcilable views of human nature—people are good at heart but capable of unimaginable evil—and grappled with the unfolding events of World War II, until the hidden attic was raided in August 1944.
But Anne Frank's ...