A review by jmiae
The Pianist: The Extraordinary Story of One Man's Survival in Warsaw, 1939–45 by Władysław Szpilman

3.0

In great contrast to the book I read before this one, I sped through the pages of Szpilman's story within the span of three days. It is an incredible and terrible experience to read about, one that made me keener to finish it quickly rather than linger over so many horrors for a week or more. But Szpilman's writing lends itself to quick reading. He's very matter-of-fact, if that's the right term, even when he is describing his despair at being separated from his family, and those frightful weeks when he was starving. The epilogue discusses those qualities in more detail and far more eloquently than I can. So let me just say that it was a privilege to read his story, and having watched Roman Polanski's film based on this book did not take away anything from it. If anything, being able to hear the (translated) first-hand account, written almost immediately after the war had ended, was more mentally impactful than emotionally so, whereas the film does guard its audience the same coolness with which Szpilman's writing is armoured. But I don't want this to be a comparison between the book and its film adaptation. In the end, Szpilman's story is an incredible one, and it offers an invaluable depiction and understanding of humanity in one of the worst periods of European history.