First, I was completely enamored with everything about this book.

There was Stingo, the narrator who guided us through the story.

Then there was Nathan, with his complex and troubled personality.

And Sophie, whose tragic past and relationship with Nathan added another layer of depth to the narrative.

The way the events that took place in Auschwitz were described here was truly heart-wrenching.

The relationship between Nathan and Sophie was equally as poignant.

But the question that lingers, as Styron poses it, is: At Auschwitz, tell me, where was God?

Well, we can blame God all we want, or perhaps even follow in Sophie's footsteps and utter those blasphemous words.

Or we can come to the conclusion that events like Auschwitz make us lose faith in humanity, hate life, and turn away from God, just as Sophie did.

But then comes Styron's powerful response: At Auschwitz, where was man?

This book offers a deeply moving account of one of history's darkest eras.

It shows us the profound impact that such events can have on people, even years after they have occurred.

The damage, I believe, is often, if not always, permanent.

Maybe, if Sophie had survived Auschwitz, she still wouldn't have been able to overcome the damage, the loss, the pain that haunted her memories of Jan, of Eva, and of all that could have been but never was.

I read this book at Amy's prompting and discovered that it was one of the most complex reading experiences of my life.

At times, I truly despised this book. The elaborate and excessive prose style was overwhelming. The occasional and hideous homophobia was unacceptable, and I don't think it can be excused just because it was part of the character's consciousness. The adolescent attitude toward women and sex was also not excusable.

However, despite all these moments of frustration, this is an immense, beautiful, and even great novel. The writing about the Holocaust is both riveting and horrifying, and it broke my heart. I even felt like vomiting from horror a couple of times, and my stomach clenched on many occasions.

It is extremely rare to find a book that can evoke such a complex range of emotions and responses over the course of 550 pages. This is the book's triumph. Even though it is about violence, despair, terror, madness, and death, it contains more life, more beauty, more love, and more emotion than almost any other book I have ever read.

All of its flaws, and there are many, simply add to the complexity of the characters, the style, and the subject. Contemporary writers should look to this book as evidence of the novel's ability to engage with life in all its muddled, vicious evil and find a way to create beauty from it.

I've read it twice, perhaps even three times.

Each time I pick it up, I discover something new and interesting.

The words seem to come alive on the page, painting vivid pictures in my mind.

I find myself completely immersed in the story, forgetting about the world around me.

It's a truly captivating piece of literature that has left a lasting impression on me.

I hope to read it again someday, to relive those moments of excitement and wonder.

Maybe I'll notice something I missed before, or gain a new perspective on the story.

Whatever the case may be, I know that it will be a worthwhile experience.

I can't wait to see what new adventures and discoveries await me when I open those pages once more.

"Sofi pasirinkimą" nusprendžiau perskaityti gryno smalsumo vedina - kas per pasirinkimas?

I have decided to read "Sofi's Choice", which is said to be a work full of pure horror - what is this choice about?

Several times I almost used the all-powerful Google for help, but somehow I held back and found the book in the library. And when I turned the last page, I even thanked myself, because if I had known even the tiniest detail - I would not have had the first five months of this year.

The book contains two stories: a young man named Stingo tries to write his first novel. Renting a room in Flatbush, he meets a Pole named Sofi and a Jew named Nathan - a couple about whom, as time passes, he learns many shocking things, and page by page, the reader discovers the painful experiences of Sofi in Auschwitz. But don't be misled, this is not a typical book about the horrors of concentration camps. Everything here lies much deeper.

I'll admit right away - I suffered a bit.

At times the book is so slow, with a lot of Stingo's inner experiences, and sometimes it seems that the author is trying to include too much in one novel. But after getting through those slow episodes and delving into the story of Sofi and Nathan, there was such a horror that it didn't allow me to relax calmly or stop reading.

It is a very tragic story, full of disgrace and guilt, but also having a balance - friendship, sincere love, and care. Perhaps that's why, after reading the last chapter, I wasn't filled with tears, but just accepted - what happened, happened. And no one could change that.

Knygą ilgai turėjau lentynoje ir atidėliojau kaip labai sudėtingą. Oi kaip klydau!

In 1947, Stingo, a young and ambitious writer with not much money, arrives in New York from the South (this is highly emphasized and stylized in a unique way). In Brooklyn, he rents a room in a house called the “Pink Palace” with colorful characters.

Here begins his friendship with an eccentric couple: a Jewish intellectual working at Pfizer (very relevant at the moment) and a Polish Catholic, Sophie, who has returned from Auschwitz. Stingo gradually weaves their love story and Sophie's experiences.

The book contains so much within itself. It is a story of friendship, tragic fate, love, the Holocaust, suffering, and self-destruction. Even coincidence? Throughout the book, I had the feeling that Sophie found herself in all life situations by coincidence, as if innocently, a victim of circumstances. She wasn't even Jewish, so how did she end up in Auschwitz?

The book is written in the first person, and often Stingo addresses us, the “readers,” as an intermediary telling Sophie's story. Sometimes he omits, sometimes he tells the truth. He changes his position to make it more comfortable for her. I would say he manipulates strongly. Who is she? Is she an innocent victim who, by coincidence of circumstances, was pushed to the brink? Or is everything really different from what it seems to us? Manipulation is for survival. Because the story doesn't end when she returns from Auschwitz. Shame and guilt remain. I really liked the idea that one can live with guilt, but it's much worse with shame. She can't get rid of it.

The text flows like a pebble in a stream. It seems that when the cable gets stuck and can't help, everything becomes dull. Everything ebbs and flows.

The intrigue in the book is very well maintained. It's not clear what Sophie is lying about and what happened to her. She takes on such an infantile and innocent role. At the beginning, it really goes slowly, nothing is clear, the text is bright, light, even cheerful. Chapter by chapter, the characters of the characters are revealed, all of which are very strong. What is this SOPHIE'S CHOICE??? What did she have to choose there and why? In English, “Sophie's choice” has become a common expression, meaning a choice in which both results are equally bad. Indeed, the last third of the book really confused me. The atrocities are described so brutally and easily. Even without detailing, it is told.

Essentially, it is very similar to the scandalous “Little Life.” Destruction, suffering, friendship. But here it is not meaningless, but based. There is as much destruction as in “LL,” but it is not focused on, but more on the reasons. And so, this book can be called a ode to friendship. Different from “LL.”

Do I recommend it? Only to those who like slow reads. 600+ pages. If you liked all the Auschwitz memoirists and librarians, you will definitely not like Sophie. There are no atrocities from the first page. Nor detailed descriptions. More about the consequences and how to live with it. And is it really worth living?

After reading, I watched the movie. Young Meryl Streep won an Oscar for her role as Sophie. 2.5 hours of pleasure. It is perhaps possible to better reveal the book.

On the shelf, it will rest honorably among the best books about the Holocaust. Next to “Schindler's List” and “The Book Thief.”

Sophie's Choice is a captivating novel that weaves together the lives of three main characters through three distinct story lines. The protagonist, Stingo, a budding writer from the South, embarks on a new chapter in his life when he moves into an apartment in New York. There, he unexpectedly encounters Sophie and Nathan. Sophie, a Polish woman and a survivor of the horrors of Auschwitz, is a beautiful yet deeply damaged individual. Nathan, a handsome and successful biologist, adds an element of both darkness and light to their intertwined lives.

Stingo's personal and professional journey as a writer, Sophie's tortured past, and the stormy relationship between Sophie and Nathan all converge in a complex and passionately intense triangle that is bound to tug at the readers' heartstrings. This was my initial foray into the works of Styron, and while his writing may not possess the same level of literary excellence as some other authors, his prose effectively conveys the essential emotions that drive the story.

The development of the characters and the conflict within the story truly amazed me. It reminded me of Wuthering Heights, as Styron skillfully employs flashbacks to manipulate the narration and the timeline of events. This technique allows him to foreshadow certain events and keep other revelations hidden until the perfect moment.

However, I did have one minor gripe while reading. The amount of sex described in the book felt excessive at times. While I understand that Styron may have included it to depict the mindset of a twenty-something-year-old man and to add a touch of humor, it sometimes seemed gratuitous. The book could have been more concise and impactful if some of Stingo's sexual thoughts and explorations had been omitted.

Nonetheless, I would highly recommend Sophie's Choice to everyone. Styron tackles profound themes such as oppression, mental illness, and abusive relationships with great beauty and power. Be prepared to shed tears or at least experience a profound sense of heartbreak when you reach the end. It serves as a powerful reminder of the evil that mankind is capable of, as no one should ever have to face a choice as difficult as Sophie's.

*review cross-posted on my blog, the quiet voice.

I find it extremely challenging to describe this book without undermining its complexity and profound meaning.

It belongs to that rare category of reads that completely captivate you, refusing to release their hold until you have consumed the very last word, and continue to haunt you long after you have finished it.

The main characters in the book, namely Stingo, Sophie, and Nathan, are incredibly multi-faceted and, to me, they embody human nature in its purest form. I couldn't help but identify with even the darkest aspects of their emotions, thoughts, and behaviors.

All that they represent - innocence, suffering, fear, hatred, madness, and comfortable ignorance - lies dormant within us, just waiting for the opportune circumstances to surface.

I wholeheartedly recommend this book to those individuals who are weary of being "comfortably numb" and have the courage to face the possibility of never being able to forget.

It is a literary masterpiece that will undoubtedly leave a lasting impression on your soul.

At Auschwitz, a place of unfathomable horror and atrocity, the question rings out: "At Auschwitz, tell me, where was God?" This query has haunted the minds of many, as they try to grapple with the magnitude of the evil that occurred there. How could a loving and all-powerful God allow such suffering and death to take place?

(3.5)

The answer, however, is not as simple as one might think. It is not about blaming God or absolving Him of responsibility. Instead, the answer lies in the actions and choices of man. At Auschwitz, it was the actions of human beings, filled with hatred, prejudice, and a thirst for power, that led to the creation of that hell on earth. It was man who turned a blind eye to the suffering of others, who participated in the atrocities, and who failed to stand up and stop the madness.

So, while the question of where God was at Auschwitz may continue to be debated, perhaps the more important question is: where was man? What role did we play in allowing such evil to occur? And what can we do to ensure that something like this never happens again?

Sophie’s Choice is truly a remarkable work that is nearly overwhelming in its scope, emotion, and horror. The horror here feels almost palpable, like a physical entity with unfathomable menace. Reading this book, it is impossible not to reflect on the complex nature of human emotions, specifically the compassion and contempt that coexist within us. They don't neatly divide into black and white but rather exist on an infinite grayscale. This is just one of the many glorious achievements of the book.

The story of a Polish survivor of Auschwitz, who made multiple choices that would haunt her torturous days, is one of the most gut-wrenching I've ever read. Yet, it also has moments that made me laugh, reminding me in small ways of Portnoy’s Complaint and The Zone of Interest. This work is not only among William Styron's proudest but also among the greatest of twentieth-century literature. So much of it still feels like a fresh wound to me, but I am also in awe and stupefaction at this amazing piece of art, which I consider to be as close to a perfect novel as I've read or could imagine.

It's a marvel of the craft that I appreciate in an almost sterile, clinical way, while still clinging romantically and childishly to its fictitious characters, especially Sophie, as if they were real. Having never seen the movie, I was able to imagine all the Polish girls I grew up adoring in my native Chicago as Sophie. It only occurred to me later that it would have been their mothers who were of Sophie's generation, and I wonder how many of them may have lived similar stories in real life. I'm not sure if I could stomach reading this again, but I highly recommend it to anyone who thinks they have a novel in them or anyone who wants to have a novel in them.

Well, I finally finished it.

To be honest, I despised every single moment of it, starting from the very act of writing to the characters themselves.

Maybe it's just that I don't understand or appreciate a writing style like Styron's, but I found it incredibly tedious and tiresome to slog through all of Stingo's incessant (and lust-fueled) ramblings.

I truly hated him, and as a result, I ended up absolutely loathing Sophie and Nathan as well.

When you reach the climatic point in the novel and the only feeling you have is, thank god this means it is almost over, then you know that you should just call it a day and admit failure.

So, yes. Sophie's Choice. It was a huge, gigantic, and miserable no-go for me.

I simply couldn't connect with the story or the characters, and it felt like a chore to get through.

Perhaps others may find it to be a masterpiece, but for me, it was a disappointment.

For a story premise that's catchy and original, this is one truly dreadful execution. It's so bad that it can even induce anger when one encounters such poor handling of a serious theme.

As this is a classic novel, surely there are hundreds of reviews better and more articulate than mine. So, I'll only list my main grievances, and do so as succinctly as possible.

**Prose**: Frankly, this was one of the most pedantic and overwritten proses I've ever come across. It's so pretentious and wordy that it makes it difficult to concentrate on the plot. Styron seems to have a penchant for twisting simple and clear expressions into something grand and preciosist. He also loves to use a dozen synonyms for a common term, repeating the same things with different words, the more syllables and the rarer in common usage, the better.

To be fair, there's a small chance that this is deliberate on the author's part, as the protagonist, Stingo, is an aspiring writer with a severe case of literary snobbery and a need to prove his intellectual worth and superiority. However, I doubt it's just a literary device. I'm sure it's an authorial trait, and that Stingo is just a barely fictionalized Styron.

**Dialogue**: The dialogue is melodramatic, in parts long-winded to an unnatural extent, and suffers from the same excess of pretentiousness as the prose. It would have been more credible if only Stingo spoke in such a manner.

**Story**: If you thought the title "Sophie's Choice" was any indication of the contents, you were misled like probably everyone. This isn't the story of a Polish concentration camp survivor called Sophie who was subjected to a diabolically cruel mind-game while at Auschwitz, as one might logically assume from the cover. Instead, it's the story of a twenty-something youngster who spends most of his days thinking about sex, his literary aspirations, and quoting great writers. Sophie, whose story is supposed to be the driving plot point, is merely an object, a device to allow Stingo (and by extension William Styron) to pontificate on various topics.

The story is told from Stingo's POV, and his own ideas, feelings, and needs color the narration. When Sophie does tell him the tale of her time in Auschwitz, Stingo doesn't allow her to have her own voice and passes on her story unmolested. Instead, he interjects with his own commentary, which makes the story lack credibility.

Styron could have given Sophie her own POV, but instead, he uses her as a mere mouthpiece for his ideology and thoughts. Another thing that I found distracting was the author's tendency to use sexuality for shock, especially in Sophie's parts.

**Characterization**: To sum up the three main characters, it goes like this: Stingo = Author self-insert. Sophie = Writing device with a people name. Nathan = Third wheel.

**Wrap-Up**: By the time Sophie's "choice" is revealed in the penultimate chapter, interest has waned so much that it's hardly shocking. The author has stretched the story of Sophie's hard choice for too long, and when he finally reveals it, he further diminishes its impact with two details. In sum, the premise deserved a more deft narrative structure. The negatives outweigh the originality and interest in the story.

Selected by William Styron, Sophie's Choice is a book about the Holocaust, with a major difference: the German victim is no longer a Jewish individual. Sophie is a Polish Catholic and has grown up in a devout family. Sophie's father is also a university professor and is extremely anti-Semitic. Perhaps in terms of hatred for Jews, there is no difference between him and the Nazis. So what does Sophie do in Auschwitz?

In fact, the difference between this book and similar books lies in the fact that the author's intention is not another part of humanity. This Holocaust incident concerns all of humanity, and people from every class have become victims. Whether it is a fanatical anti-Semitic (Sophie's father), who is a university professor and is executed, or Sophie herself, who is sent to Auschwitz for the crime of carrying meat for her sick mother. In Sophie's world, everything has become a nightmare after going to Auschwitz, just like the story itself. Stingo, a young man who has come to live next to Sophie after seeing her tattooed number and is curious about Sophie's secret, tells the story in a flashback in a paradise called America, which is kilometers away from the European hell.

But this is not the whole story of Sophie. Sophie is essentially a person who seeks opportunities. She is someone who will do any immoral thing to save her own life. For example, when entering Auschwitz, when a Nazi officer holds her daughter and her son's hand in his hand and verbally abuses Sophie, Sophie uses her fluent German to say that she is not Jewish. But this word is completely in vain, and the German officer, as a greeting, gives her a chance to choose one of her children to take with him to the train station, and that one will be gassed to death. What is left of Sophie after such a choice?

The unlucky game of seeking opportunities for Sophie continues. Sophie's son, whom her mother has given new life to by choosing him, is separated from Sophie by the Nazis and sent to a special training camp for Aryan life. In essence, by making her choice, Sophie has lost both of her children.

But the author, Mr. William Styron, has created a miracle for Sophie. Sophie, who is completely proficient in the German language, works in the office of the commandant of the concentration camp. In a miraculous and very far from the Nazi administrative system, the commandant is alone with Sophie. But suddenly he comes to his senses and realizes what the consequences of having a relationship with a prisoner are. Sophie, who is unlucky and is looking for and trying to save her son, shows the commandant her father's anti-Semitic writings that have been in existence all this time to prove to him that she is also anti-Semitic like the Nazis. Naturally, the commandant does not attach any importance to Sophie and her papers, and Sophie remains ignorant of the situation of her son until the end of her life.

But this is not the end of Sophie's story. After the end of the war, she has wept from the burning hell of Europe and come to the paradise of America. But fate still follows her to America. She has not yet given up enough, so she has to fall into the delusions of a man with a very advanced disease who is in love with her and cannot get out of the thoughts and delusions of this sick love. She remains by his side until they commit suicide together.