Book Review: "The Pianist" by Wladyslaw Szpilman

The Pianist by Władysław Szpilman
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Amazon Book Description
Named one of the Best Books of 1999 by the Los Angeles Times, The Pianist is now a major motion picture directed by Roman Polanski and starring Adrien Brody (Son of Sam). The Pianist won the Cannes Film Festival’s most prestigious prize—the Palme d’Or.

On September 23, 1939, Wladyslaw Szpilman played Chopin’s Nocturne in C-sharp minor live on the radio as shells exploded outside—so loudly that he couldn’t hear his piano. It was the last live music broadcast from Warsaw: That day, a German bomb hit the station, and Polish Radio went off the air.

Though he lost his entire family, Szpilman survived in hiding. In the end, his life was saved by a German officer who heard him play the same Chopin Nocturne on a piano found among the rubble. Written immediately after the war and suppressed for decades, The Pianist is a stunning testament to human endurance and the redemptive power of fellow feeling.


This is one of those very, very rare occasions for me where my absolute love for a movie took away slightly from my overall experience of reading the book.  As a Holocaust memoir on its own merits, I give extraordinary true story a 5 out of 5 stars in terms of the author's writing style and compelling and heart-wrenching narrative.  This example in history demonstrates that there was decency among soldiers and officers on both the Allied and Axis sides.  The biggest impact for me was not only Szpilman's resourcefulness and determination to survive, but mostly it was how music saved his life.  And in that spirit, that is why I am so fond of Polanski's adaptation to the big screen- the combination of amazing acting, outstanding music score and the degree to which the screenplay honored the integrity of the original work by Szpilman.  With that combination, all your senses are involved and it makes an even bigger impression on your heart and mind.  I was so moved by the last paragraph of the postscript:


I sometimes give recitals in the building at number 8 Narbutt Street in Warsaw where I carried bricks and lime- where the Jewish brigade worked; the men who were shot once the flats for the German officers were finished.  The officers did not enjoy their new homes for long.  The building  still stands, and there is a school in it now.  I play to Polish children who do not know how much human suffering and mortal fear once passed through their sunny schoolrooms.
     I pray they may never learn what such fear and suffering are.