Talk:Schindler's Ark

Plot Summary???????????

Is there a Plot Summary for this book anywhere? What happens?

I don't feel too good about the plot summary in this article. It's less of a plot summary and more of a back-cover synopsis, flaunting and advertising the book. I think it should be rewritten.

Jake Sinnott (talk) 01:19, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

Fiction???

• This edit of this page contained the text "Although Schindler's Ark is based on actual people and events, it is classified as fiction.". It seems rather a slander to class this book as fiction. As far as I can tell, Keneally, and Poldek Pfefferberg who he got the information from, told the information as accurately as they could. If some book librarian classified it in the fiction section, then that librarian is wrong. Anthony Appleyard (talk) 21:58, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

A "novel" is defined here in wikipedia as follows: A novel (from, Italian novella, Spanish novela, French nouvelle for "new", "news", or "short story of something new") is today a long written, fictional, prose narrative.

"Fiction" is defined as: Fiction is the telling of stories which are not real. More specifically, fiction is an imaginative form of narrative, one of the four basic rhetorical modes. Although the word fiction is derived from the Latin fingo, fingere, finxi, fictum, "to form, create", works of fiction need not be entirely imaginary and may include real people, places, and events.

So it seems to fit both of those so far.

The Man Booker Prize, which was awarded to Schindler's Ark in 1982, is 'The Man Booker Prize for Fiction, also known in short as the Booker Prize, is a literary prize awarded each year for the best original full-length novel, written in the English language, by a citizen of either the Commonwealth of Nations or the Republic of Ireland.' Please note the phrase "best original full-length novel". The judges of that award considered it a work of fiction.

The book club of "The Guardian" newspaper, run by John Mullan, looked at Schindler's Ark during 2007. They tackled the subject of the novel's flawed hero: "It seems odd to use this literary word -- 'hero' -- for the protagonist of Thomas Keneally's novel, precisely because Oskar Schindler was truly, in life, heroic...while Schindler was certainly heroic, his motives are not exactly made known. In novelistic terms, he is an awkwardly enigmatic hero." Again someone else considered the book a "novel".

You may well be right in stating that Keneally and Poldek Pfefferberg attempted to get as much of the action correct as possible, but if there is a single scene where Pfefferberg is not present then Keneally has made it up and the work has elements of fiction. We could argue the toss as to whether 10%, 50% or more was made up by Keneally but as I assume that Pfefferberg did not have a recording device during the time depicted in the novel and didn't keep detailed transcripts of his conversations, then he and Keneally concocted a lot of the dialog and all of the perceived motivations of everyone other than Pfefferberg.

The book was published as a novel, literary award judges considered it fiction, and I believe the general view amongst the reading public is that it is a work of fiction, not just designated as such by a librarian as you suggest. Based on true events, but a work of fiction nonetheless. Just as the author's previous novel The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith is also based on actual events and is still a work of fiction.

A similar accusation has recently been thrown at Helen Garner for her new novel The Spare Room. While that is heavily based on actual events that happened to the author, she still considers it a work of fiction. There are probably many other other such examples. If the author thinks it is fiction then it is.

I'll be changing the designation of this book back to fiction shortly.--Perry Middlemiss (talk) 00:09, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

• Fiction is the telling of stories which are not real: The events described in the book are real, all too real, and are a small part of events that took around 6 miilion Jewish lives, and Yad Vashem and many others will attest to this. The preface to the book says that Keneally was careful not to add unproven information. Anthony Appleyard (talk) 05:38, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

So you're saying he made none of this novel up? Not a word? That it was all verbatim? And you're saying that it should not have been awarded the Booker prize as it is non-fiction?

Powell's bookshop: "Schindler's List is a remarkable work of fiction based on the true story of German industrialist and war profiteer, Oskar Schindler, who, confronted with the horror of the extermination camps, gambled his life and fortune to rescue 1,300 Jews from the gas chambers."

If this novel is classified as non-fiction (and I honesty can't see how a "novel" can be non-fiction given the word "novel" really means "new") then just about every other novel based on historical events has to be suspect as well. The difference between fiction and non-fiction is that, in fiction, the writer has to use their imagination to fill in the gaps between the documented events. Schinder's List fits that description. Award judges have called it fiction, booksellers have called it fiction, and publishers have called it fiction. I'd say that makes it so.--Perry Middlemiss (talk) 02:42, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

• The book is careful NOT to invent conversations and suchlike. Schindler's speech on the day that the war ended is known because two prisoners took it down in shorthand, and their transcript is at Yad Vashem. Keneally had so much information available from Schindlerjuden that he did not need to invent matter. The Powell's bookshop statement looks like it was taken from advertizing text. Anthony Appleyard (talk) 04:56, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

fiction or non fiction? there is really a question here?

it says it inside the darn book that it is a work of fiction. so why is there even a question here? Statesboropow (talk) 03:30, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

The question here relates to which edition you read. It has been reported that the first edition listed the book as strictly fiction but that later editions moved away from this, hence the question, and the wording of the description in the article. --Perry Middlemiss (talk) 00:02, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

Reviewers' Reactions

Regarding the question of reviewers' reactions and the original sentence: "However, some reviewers thought it was more non-fiction than fiction." This has been edited to: "However, some reviewers thought it was more fiction than non-fiction."

The relevant section of the reference is as follows: "When it was published in Britain in 1982 as Schindler's Ark, Keneally's book was widely and prominently reviewed. Even before its publication, it had been short-listed for the Booker McConnell Prize, and there had been some mention in pre-publication reviews that the documentary style of the book made it an unusual contender for a fiction prize. The day after its official publication, Schindler's Ark won the Booker Prize, and a storm of controversy erupted. A number of critics felt that its deficiency in the fictional aspect undermined its quality."

This last sentence refers to a "deficiency in the fictional aspect" which led me to the view that the reviewers considered it non-fictional.

If the question is whether the book is fiction or non-fiction, then a deficiency on one side of the equation must lead to an increase in the other.

I'll be removing the most recent edit on the basis of this.--Perry Middlemiss (talk) 00:09, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

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"Fiction"

I removed mentions that this book is "fictional". Does it have some invented dialogue/scenes? Yes, every piece of historical media does. Are the events/characters depicted fictional? Absolutely not. Classifying this as a work of fiction is grossly inappropriate, and especially with how many people routinely deny the historical reality of the Holocaust, this is unacceptable for Wikipedia. Work that fits into "historical fiction" would be The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas or Titanic, as the plots and characters of both are wholly fictional, but set in the context of real historical events. This is not the case in the story of Oskar Schindler. Blade Jogger 2049 ^Talk 02:35, 27 November 2021 (UTC)

In the same line of "Once upon a time in Hollywood" some characters were real but the film is FICTION. 79.117.227.252 (talk) 20:17, 29 February 2024 (UTC)