Book Review: The Diary of a Young Girl
My review of ‘The Boy in the Stripped Pyjamas’ prompted an emotional response from my son Anirudh Narayanan.A, as he ordered a copy of ‘The Diary of a Young Girl’ by Anne Frank. Like all youngsters these days, his attention span did not allow him to read the book. That is when I picked up Anne Frank’s Diary. My reading has been sporadic due to work exigencies, but I raced to the finish in one sitting today.
One could read Anne Frank’s diary wearing four perspectives. But whichever perspective we wear, her writings remind us about the profundity of the human mind, despite the age of the person in question. If only, we allow every human mind to flow!
Here was a writer of almost Nobel-prizing winning potential like Anne Ernaux (2022 Nobel Prize winner for Literature) who has made journals as literary pieces of work by her bare-knuckled writing. But I also carry a deep suspicion that there was a ghostwriter who either edited or rewrote — because some of the writing is almost unbelievably mature, exploring the deep aspects of the human mind and relationships.
“Because paper has more patience than people. ”
― Anne Frank
The second perspective is that of a teenage girl giving a glimpse of her mind through her first-person narrative and monologues to her ‘dear Kitty.’ The final perspective is that there are aspects of the struggle of a Jewish family through the times of German occupation and the Holocaust. There is a fourth perspective, the psychology of humans who lived in a closeted group for over two years — an exploration of familial bonds and adolescent relationships under a fear psychosis with the constant threat of being discovered.
My review is just the tip of the iceberg of this iconic journal. I have used quotes to illuminate the profundity of Anne’s writing.
The Background:
Anne Frank, a Jewish girl, stayed in hiding with her family and others for over two years to escape the Nazi persecution of Jews. She wrote a detailed account of her life inside the Secret Annex, their hideaway during the period in hiding.
The Journal
“The reason for my starting a diary is that I have no real friend.”
― Anne Frank
She does not have a friend. A real friend. Margot is her sister and a senior, and her parents — well — are normal. Other inmates are strangers. Anne starts talking to her imaginary friend — Kitty from the start of her book.
‘Dear Kitty… I like writing to you most, you know that don’t you, and I hope the feeling is mutual
Anne’s website says that Anne conceived many imaginary friends.
Anne wrote that she wanted ‘to correspond with someone’ and invented several fictional characters (Kitty, Pop, Phien, Conny, Lou, Marjan, Jettje, and Emmy) to do so. In Anne’s fantasy, these characters form a circle of friends. ~Anne Frank Website.
But I have a different view. She points out that ‘I will begin the moment I got you’, and ‘I went along when you were bought’ — indicating that she was addressing her diary itself as an imaginary friend, named Kitty.
Each of her entries started with ‘Dear or Dearest Kitty,’ and ended with ‘Your dearest Anne M. Frank’. The conversational style of writing allowed her to act as the narrator, giving a peek into the people and events inside the Secret Annex, and also the action that was happening outside — the Jews’ persecution and purge by Nazis, the War, the expectation around the invasion, the D-Day, the bombings, the updates on the war that the inmates heard through the radio and so on. It also allowed her to express her feelings both as a budding writer and teenage girl seeking to express.
I believe that a journal is an ideal or more convenient way to write a story without worrying about the points of view. We are presented with the point of view of a mature teenage girl, but as we dive into the depths — it is a telling account of history and a literary work at the same time. The diary entries start on June 12, 1942, and end on August 1, 1944.
She wrote poetry. She talked about God. She talked about children and adults. She talked about her depression and solitude. Each journal entry dealt with a new realm of life — people, events, thoughts, musings, emotions, and wants. It is hard to miss the variety of human existence in her writings.
The Inmate
For a 12-year-old girl, Anne had a great level of understanding of shifting from her home on the morning of July 8th, a Sunday. The Secret Annex lay behind many doors at the back of the office. Two families shifted — the Frank family — Anne, her 16-year-old sister Margot, her father Otto, and her mother Edith. The Van Daans — the Mr and Mrs, and their son, Peter. Then after a few days, Dussell, a dentist joined the group. He had weird routines and pedantic behavior that caused a lot of consternation to Anne, as he became her roommate. Each inmate had their quirks, but they held on to their secrecy together, despite their quarrels and troubles.
“Anyhow, I’ve learned one thing now. You only really get to know people when you’ve had a jolly good row with them. Then and then only can you judge their true characters!”
― Anne Frank, The Diary of a Young Girl
Anne’s diary covers each topic in her journal entries — their routines, habits, personalities, skirmishes, behaviors, situations, and responses in detail.
The Nature Lover
Stuck in the Secret Annex for more than 2 years, Anne stole her chances while sitting in the front attic. Through the little window, she could see the sky. When she got out, she was loaded in the cattle wagon, so, it is easy to imagine a life that cherished those little moments of bliss just by a peek at nature through a tiny window.
“As long as this exists, this sunshine and this cloudless sky, and as long as I can enjoy it, how can I be sad?”
― Anne Frank, The Diary of a Young Girl
She loved the sunshine. She loved the clear sky. A little dose of nature made her happy. The front attic was their nest of love and their peek into nature.
I don’t think of all the misery, but of the beauty that remains….My advice is: Go outside, to the fields, enjoy nature and the sunshine, go out, and try to recapture happiness in yourself and God. Think of all the beauty that’s still left in and around you and be happy! ― Anne Frank, The Diary of a Young Girl
She loved the open air and she hoped to see it one day. But the day she saw the skies again, she was heading towards a Nazi concentration camp.
The Budding Love
Anne Frank falls in love with her inmate at the Secret Annex, Peter Van Daan. Initially acquainted they spend time together in the second year, in the front attic, often talking in the mornings and then slowly, in the evenings.
I sat pressed against him and felt a wave of emotion come over me. Tears rushed to my eyes; those from the left fell on his overalls, while those from the right trickled down my nose and into the air and landed beside the first. Did he notice? He made no movement to show that he had. Did he feel the same way I did? He hardly said a word. Did he realize he had two Annes at his side? My questions went unanswered.
Peter is a sensitive and soft boy, but slowly they kiss and cuddle. Anne’s mother is worried and her father is not bothered. But slowly, as they get closer, Anne and Peter agree that they will talk. After that chat, Anne speaks to her father who advises her not to visit the attic in the evenings. She defies her father. But slowly, she misses their talks about the little things, because all that boy wants is now to kiss and cuddle.
I know very well that he was my conquest and not the other way around. I created an image of him in my mind, pictured him as a quiet, sweet, sensitive boy badly in need of friendship and love! I needed to pour out my heart to a living person. I wanted a friend who would help me find my way again. I accomplished what I set out to do and drew him, slowly but surely, toward me. When I finally got him to be my friend, it automatically developed into an intimacy that, when I think about it now, seems outrageous.
As things become desperate, she feels that Peter is leaning on her, and his soft and sensitive side is becoming too much for her. He did not measure up to her need for love and being lived. Eventually, Peter is just friend-zoned by Anne, but I wonder if Peter ever knew that.
Note that she had mentioned two Annes, which eventually blossoms into her last piece of writing.
The Daughter
I want something from Daddy that he is not able to give me. … It is only that I long for Daddy’s real love: not only as his child but for me — Anne, myself. ~Anne Frank
Anne loved her dad, Otto Frank, and as destiny would have it, he was the one who saw the profundity of her writings. He was a typical father, protective on one hand and loving on the other; but in her eyes, Anne was conflicted in her relationship with her father, as she thought he was treating her as a child; and in many places, she has professed about her independent and adult mind; she wanted her father to recognize it. Her conflicts with her mother slowly turned into an understanding of their closeted life in the Secret Annex. The journal form of narration brings out both the events and inner turmoil in context.
“Parents can only give good advice or put them on the right paths, but the final forming of a person’s character lies in their own hands.”
― Anne Frank
Anne Frank advocates the need for individuals to take responsibility in terms of their character development. She mentions often that independence of thoughts and having opinions is key to an individual’s growth. Parents, teachers, and others can be only advisors and guides.
The Wannabe Writer
“I want to go on living even after my death! And therefore I am grateful to God for this gift, this possibility of developing myself and of writing, of expressing all that is in me. I can shake off everything if I write; my sorrows disappear; my courage is reborn. But, and that is the great question, will I ever be able to write anything great, will I ever become a journalist or a writer?”
― Anne Frank
Anne Frank’s diary is proof of the depth of her writing. The world is wiser with her words. She writes about the joy of writing and questions her future as a writer. How can I not relate to that? A familiar feeling flows through me as I read about her thoughts and dreams as a writer. She completes two stories that I can recall — Eva’s Dream, a fairy tale, and Cady’s Life. She gives a glimpse of the progress across multiple entries in the book. Her desire to live on after her death became true, just that she does not know it now.
The Hope:
“Look at how a single candle can both defy and define the darkness.”
― Anne Frank
In many places, there is despair and hope; the fear of being caught, and the loneliness of isolation bearing down upon her, but Anne lends hope, like a bright light that both defines and defies darkness.
“It’s really a wonder that I haven’t dropped all my ideals because they seem so absurd and impossible to carry out. Yet I keep them because, despite everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart. I simply can’t build up my hopes on a foundation consisting of confusion, misery, and death. I see the world gradually being turned into a wilderness, I hear the ever-approaching thunder, which will destroy us too, I can feel the sufferings of millions and yet, if I look up into the heavens, I think that it will all come right, that this cruelty too will end, and that peace and tranquility will return again.”― Anne Frank
Dogma is a curse, but ideals are not. Ideals are guiding lights, but dogma is fanaticism and fuels hatred. Anne’s words resound that message clearly, but she also holds out hope. Death rains as bombs around her, persecution is prolific, and life in hiding is scary. The very reason the war is going on is to discover peace and tranquility again. Her words carry the burden of losing lives on the path to peace, yet wishes that the peace will return.
“If we bear all this suffering and if there are still Jews left, when it is over, then Jews, instead of being doomed, will be held up as an example.”
― Anne Frank
Anne is proud of her identity as a Jew, for being Dutch is her desire, but being a Jew is what she has embraced. Her words, despite the atrocities and grotesqueness of the Holocaust, hold out hope — a hope that I wish the Jews of today see and consider a peaceful co-existence with Palestinians in Israel. Jews are the candles of this world — defining and defiant about the darkness.
The two Annes ( The Philosopher)
There are many pieces of philosophy and self-analysis. I will pick one piece, which I felt was the most profound one. Let us call it the case of two Anne’s. Incidentally, this is the last entry in her diary.
As I’ve told you many times, I’m split in two. One side contains my exuberant cheerfulness, my flippancy, my joy in life, and, above all, my ability to appreciate the lighter side of things …
…My lighter, more superficial side will always steal a march on the deeper side and therefore always win. You can’t imagine how often I’ve tried to push away this Anne, which is only half of what is known as Anne — to beat her down, hide her…
… I get cross, then sad, and finally end up turning my heart inside out, the bad part on the outside and the good part on the inside, and keep trying to find a way to become what I’d like to be and what I could be if … if only there were no other people in the world. Yours, Anne M. Frank
This last piece starts by describing herself as a ‘bundle of contradictions.’ Anne brings out two versions — an exuberant, lighter, superficial side, where she is expected to be joking like any normal girl; the other — the quieter, stoic one — the good Anne, but the superficial one hides the weaker, nicer Anne inside. The quieter one prefers solitude in profundity, and the lighter one tries to compensate and takes over. While Anne has often expressed confidence in her personality, this internal conflict stands out often in her book. The core of her philosophy is that there is a good person in everybody beneath the superficial layer and the good person needs to assert themselves.
Incidentally, this is the last entry from her book.
The Abrupt End
‘Anne’s Diary Ends Here.’
The diary ends abruptly with a poignant sentence that leaves the readers hanging while they have just realized the depth and profoundness of Anne’s writing. Her dream was to publish her diary, bolstered by Mr. Bolkestein, the Cabinet Minister’s suggestion that after the war, a collection would be made of diaries and letters dealing with the war. She had wondered if she could publish a novel about the Secret Annex.
Finally, it happened. Her father Otto Frank found the scattered pages of her diary when he returned to the Secret Annex. He arranged and finally published them in 1947, two years after Anne Frank died in February 1945, after contracting typhus in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in Germany.
I went back and read the last entry in her diary again. I just realized that the world has been blessed with a marvelous piece of self-analysis, and we will miss both Annes — the superficial and gregarious Anne, and the brooding, softer Anne who always stayed in the background.
As I have tried to explain, this book is a literary masterpiece, because it was written by a teenager who saw beauty and hope in this world despite living in a hideaway for more than twenty-four months. It leaves me wondering if those people who have to read this book would ever read it, for if we did, we would think of figuring out a better future for our children.
Read more about Anne Frank here.
~Ashok Subramanian © 2023
