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Anne Frank: The Book, The Life, The Afterlife |
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Amazon Sales Rank: 6388
Publication Date: 2009-10-01
Release Date: 2009-09-29
Publisher: Harper
ISBN: 006143079X
Type: Hardcover
Number Of Pages: 336
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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.
Average Rating: 
Review: 2009-11-18
Highly readable
Francine Prose makes you realize that the diary is not just a teaching tool but a major literary masterpiece. The diary, which Prose includes in her course at Bard, should be wider taught in colleges, as well as high schools, rather than just middle schools.
Review: 2009-11-11
Anne Frank, theBook,TheLife,theAfterlife
Anne Frank's love of writing and desire to be a writer is emphasized in this book, as well as her thoughtful, very bright personality. I was reminded of the terrible tragedy it was to lose her along with 6 million other precious lives destroyed because of one man's insanity. Her name lives on because her diary is a work of art.
Review: 2009-11-10
A moving analysis of Anne Frank as artist
I found this book to be a moving, thought-provoking, enlightening analysis of Anne Frank and her remarkable artistic achievement in "The Diary of a Young Girl." The last chapter alone, about Francine Prose's semester teaching "The Diary" at Bard College, is worth the price of the book, but the whole thing is a fine work that cannot but help send one back to reading Anne herself, which I intend to do as soon as my copy of the "Definitive Edition" arrives in the mail. Prose tackles not just the diary but how it has been interpreted on Broadway and by Hollywood and how those treatments have fared, for better and for worse, in bringing Anne Frank to the attention of a wider audience. In all, a wonderful, compelling read that accomplishes exactly what it sets out to do: make one want to connect, or reconnect, with a young woman who undoubtedly would have gone on to other great achievements had she not been brutally murdered more than 60 years ago.
Review: 2009-10-09
As Literature, as Drama, as Film, as Life
Millions have read it. It's been a successful play, an Academy award winning film, and the basis of studies, documentaries, and features of great museums. Taught in schoolrooms across the country and around the world, the Diary of a Young Girl is not only a great account of people living in hiding for two years, but held up as a beacon of hope, a voice for the downtrodden, a source of courage from people no less than Nelson Mandela. Still, one wonders how many people take this book as great literature? Francine Prose does, and she goes great lengths in dissecting, and ultimately, affirming Anne Frank in her marvelous study, "Anne Frank: The Book, The Life, The Afterlife."
The aptly named Ms. Prose fell in love with Anne's book as a young girl, and now, as an adult, takes time to contemplate the deeper significance of the diary, addressing Anne as a writer (and not just a silly teenage girl), the themes she built into the writing and rewriting of her diary, and the following media that truly shaped how many of us approach Anne's diary, often in mistaken ways.
At the start of her study, Prose begins by providing an accurate and quick summary of Anne's life, and the context in which she began her diary, and the development of the book itself. One of the marvelous threads in this discussion is her revelation (although, for me, it shouldn't have been even though it was!) that Anne's diary wasn't written in a single draft, but went through extensive revisions by Anne as she developed her writer's voice, a recognition of a possible audience, and the desire for her diary to be consistant, tell a story, tell a cohesive story. Prose's assertion of Anne's development of her writer's craft has been missing from any discussion of the diary in schoolrooms, and it refreshens and deepens our appreciation of this budding and silenced author.
Prose's chapters on the play and the film are complete and somewhat harsh; from Prose's opinion, deservedly so. She is no fan of either, mostly based on the portrayals of Anne in the films as a giddy, young girl without a brain (Prose's most painful moment from the film? The first scene with Anne where we see her removing her underwear. Oy!). It disservices the image Prose works to create in the previous chapters of a proactive Anne; after watching the film, it is nearly impossible to connect the deep work of this author with this Anne on the screen.
In fact, it goes into a deeper thought of what we need of our heroes. Anne has passed from writer and Holocaust victim to symbol of hope, optimism, courage, and inner strength. In doing so, we need to transform Anne from human to almost mythical, yet, we do not maintain in our society many images of strong women, much less strong girls (and those that are are labeled quickly with an unflattering label that shant appear in this review). Is Anne's rise as a giddy young girl a result of our inability to see young girls as anything else? What if there was a play, or a film, with Anne, closer as to what she really was? Maybe it is Anne Frank Remembered?
At any rate, Prose's book is a great read for those Anne Frank devotees wanting more about this miraculous girl ... no, this miraculous author, who continues to impress, amaze, and inspire us, with her words, her writing, and her two years spent in hiding just to survive.
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