As an avid fiction reader, I am not one to enjoy a nonfiction text.
I’ve tried in the past to push myself through nonfiction texts, but all failed. I’ve tried a few times with a couple choices but none gave me the NEED to keep on reading.
Earlier this month, though, I might have found the book to change my entire outlook.
Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl, focuses on the life of a Holocaust survivor as he explains about what it takes to find true meaning in life. The text starts off going in depth about how our author survived at the camps.
The story is super dark, speaking on death, lost, failed hope, and the need to survive. Viktor E. Frankl does not speak much on his experiences but instead on how he witnessed everyone else’s life. For instance, instead of speaking on how he felt during moments he grasps on everyone else’s thoughts and feelings. He makes connections with hope, religion, death and loss. He uses everyone’s pain in order to understand more about life in of itself. It’s all so very touching, having the reader really feel what these prisoners had to be feeling.
Now, while I love to read, that does not mean I know how to read every single writing style in the world. I’ve read hundreds of books and from this I know that every author has a style that speaks to them. Viktor E. Frankl when writing tends to speak as a psychiatrist since that’s what he was. When he speaks he analyzes, and for most people, including myself this could be very challenging to understand. So, yes the story was troubling to follow but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. IN FACT! I loved the fact the story was hard to read. I’m a growing reader and writer and having these challenging phrases and lines make the book all the more interesting. It has me reading paragraphs over and over until I’m able to really understand what the author is trying to say and I LOVE that about books. I love being able to analyze every single tiny detail.
With details came AMAZING lines that really stuck. I HATE TAKING NOTES! Personally it takes out all enjoyment in reading. If anything I make small comments here and there if I think something funny or shocking, but this book had me writing every single tiny line, because every line was so beautiful. Seven pages in and this line was dropped “for the war gave us the war of nerves and it gave us the concentration camp” This line alone kept me hooked. I DID NOT WANT TO STOP READING! This book truly is full of quotes that kept me thinking about them the whole day.
“I am but a small portion of a great mass of human flesh-” Page 31.
“We all felt more dead than alive” – page 33
“Love is as strong as death” – page 39
“…if there’s a meaning to life at all then there has to be a meaning to suffering” – page 67
“People have enough to live by but nothing to live for; they have the means but no meaning.’ – Page 140
“ I broke my neck, it didn’t b4reak me” – page 147
AND SO MANY MORE LINES!
I can give hundreds of lines but what’s the point of that when YOU! YES, YOU! Can read it for yourself. If you love deep heartbreaking stories, and are also trying to break out of your reading shell of only fiction. THEN Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl is the book for you!
I would read this over and over and still never get tired. 5/5.
