The Longest Shadow

ÒA virtue of ½The Longest Shadow is that, despite the familiarity of many of its pieces, it feels more initiatory than recapitulative. . .Ó ÑModern Jewish Studies ÒIt is a book that carefully analyzes and weighs complex issues; it is infused with a sense of moral responsibility and passion without falling into either pathos or moralizing.Ó ÑJudaism Ò½The Longest Shadow illuminates the dangers inherent in representations of the Holocaust and of the obverse, the denial, of that unique...
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ÒA virtue of ½The Longest Shadow is that, despite the familiarity of many of its pieces, it feels more initiatory than recapitulative. . .Ó ÑModern Jewish Studies ÒIt is a book that carefully analyzes and weighs complex issues; it is infused with a sense of moral responsibility and passion without falling into either pathos or moralizing.Ó ÑJudaism Ò½The Longest Shadow illuminates the dangers inherent in representations of the Holocaust and of the obverse, the denial, of that unique part of our history.Ó ÑJudaism: Quarterly Journal Ò½The Longest Shadow, a collection of essays on the cultural ÔaftermathÕ of the Holocaust by the literary critic Geoffrey Hartman, epitomizes this conflicted legacy of silence and speech, of numbness and feelingÑand of withdrawal and desire for connection. If HartmanÕs essays confront the inadequcy of language in the bewildering, alienating wake of the Holocaust, they also resonate with a sense of loneliness that makes silence and isolation unbearable.ÓÊÑJoanne Jacobson, The Nation ÒThe personal narratives that frame the book also contain by far its richest pages, both emotionally and in the theoretical speculations to which they give rise.Ó ÑTimes Literary Supplement Distinguished literary scholar Geoffrey H. Hartman, himself forced to leave Germany at age nine, collects his essays, both scholarly and personal, that focus on the Holocaust. Hartman contends that although progress has been made, we are only beginning to understand the horrendous events of 1933 to 1945.