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Sophie’s Choice

William Styron

Start date: July 1, 2022

Finish date: September 30, 2022

Discussion: Sophie's Choice - July-Sept 2022

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Sophie's Choice - July-Sept 2022

Sophie’s Choice - General Discussion
By Matthew , Assistant List Master · 1 post · 8 views

last updated Jul 02, 2022 12:43PM

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Jan 26, 2022 Michael Finocchiaro rated it it was amazing

Shelves: pulitzer-fiction, novels, classics, national-book-award, american-20th-c, fiction, made-into-movie, holocaust-literature

Devastating. That is the one word that comes to mind when trying to summarize the suffering that Sophie goes through during this book. I liked the narrator and detested Nathan, but the true story here is Sophie. Her experiences before and during WWII in Warsaw and Auschwitz are harrowing. Having visited Auschwitz two years ago, I think there was a little bit of inaccuracy as to what could be seen from Haus Höss (the Arbeit sign, for example, is not visible from that part of the compound to name Devastating. That is the one word that comes to mind when trying to summarize the suffering that Sophie goes through during this book. I liked the narrator and detested Nathan, but the true story here is Sophie. Her experiences before and during WWII in Warsaw and Auschwitz are harrowing. Having visited Auschwitz two years ago, I think there was a little bit of inaccuracy as to what could be seen from Haus Höss (the Arbeit sign, for example, is not visible from that part of the compound to name one example). Nonetheless, the details about the life in the camp are realistic and align with the reading I have done (Primo Levi, Elie Weisel, etc) and is a gruesome reminded of why all forms of fascism should be condemned and fought tooth and nail in order to avoid a repeat of the brutality suffered by literally millions of Jews, Poles, gypsies, and homosexuals in the Nazi Death Camps.

-(some near spoilers ahead)-
I found the idea of the choices that Sophie makes during the book very poignant. There is something close to hopelessness when we see that each of her choices - whether she is trying to protect her children, or just one child, or to leave… - are all ultimately the wrong choices because death follows nearly every time in one form or another. And yet, had she chosen otherwise, nothing would really have changed. I think the question comes down to whether Sophie is able to evolve from choice to choice, and I felt that the real tragedy here is that she does not evolve except that she is finally able to unburden her soul to Stingo before making her final choice. Styron is certainly showing us his own impuissance when faced with trying to understand and cope with the idea of a genocide that happened during his lifetime. The idea of the absurdity of simultaneity was really interesting in that sense, and he goes back to that several times.

As for the book, it is very well-written with some good stories and humor threw in towards the beginning of the book before it takes its tragic turn. It is written in a semi-autobiographical format and makes reference to this period when Styron really was working on his first book and looking forward to writing his third book about Nat Turner (for which he won the 1968 Pulitzer Prize).

The Academy Award-winning film from 1982 cast the effervescent Meryl Streep as a stunning and unforgettable Sophie with a young Kevin Klein in his first big-screen appearance as Nathan. It is very respectful of the bookmaking only minor editorial changes to fit the 35mm format. The viewer gets 2 1/2h of primarily staged sets, but a few sequences from a (rather inaccurate) depiction of Auschwitz. It is not the greatest film adaptation of a major novel (I would place Gone with the Wind, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, and To Kill a Mockingbird above it), but it is an absolute classic and a must-see due to the over the top performance by the greatest actress of her generation, Meryl Streep.
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