What do you think?
Rate this book
Asher Lev #1
My Name Is Asher Lev
This is a previously-published edition of ISBN 9781400031047.
Asher Lev is a Ladover Hasid who keeps kosher, prays three times a day, and believes in the Ribbono Shel Olom, the Master of the Universe. Asher Lev is an artist who is compulsively driven to render the world he sees and feels, even when it leads him to blasphemy. In this stirring and often visionary novel, Chaim Potok traces Asher’s passage between these two identities, the one consecrated to God, the other subject only to the imagination.
Asher Lev grows up in a cloistered Hasidic community in postwar Brooklyn, a world suffused by ritual and revolving around a charismatic Rebbe. But in time, his gift threatens to estrange him from that world and the parents he adores. As it follows his struggle, My Name Is Asher Lev becomes a luminous portrait of the artist, by turns heartbreaking and exultant, a modern classic.
Asher Lev is a Ladover Hasid who keeps kosher, prays three times a day, and believes in the Ribbono Shel Olom, the Master of the Universe. Asher Lev is an artist who is compulsively driven to render the world he sees and feels, even when it leads him to blasphemy. In this stirring and often visionary novel, Chaim Potok traces Asher’s passage between these two identities, the one consecrated to God, the other subject only to the imagination.
Asher Lev grows up in a cloistered Hasidic community in postwar Brooklyn, a world suffused by ritual and revolving around a charismatic Rebbe. But in time, his gift threatens to estrange him from that world and the parents he adores. As it follows his struggle, My Name Is Asher Lev becomes a luminous portrait of the artist, by turns heartbreaking and exultant, a modern classic.
369 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1972
About the author
Chaim Potok
67 books1,588 followersHerman Harold Potok, or Chaim Tzvi, was born in Buffalo, New York, to Polish immigrants. He received an Orthodox Jewish education. After reading Evelyn Waugh's novel Brideshead Revisited as a teenager, he decided to become a writer. He started writing fiction at the age of 16. At age 17 he made his first submission to the magazine The Atlantic Monthly. Although it wasn't published, he received a note from the editor complimenting his work.
In 1949, at the age of 20, his stories were published in the literary magazine of Yeshiva University, which he also helped edit. In 1950, Potok graduated summa cum laude with a BA in English Literature.
After four years of study at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America he was ordained as a Conservative rabbi. He was appointed director of Leaders Training Fellowship, a youth organization affiliated with Conservative Judaism.
After receiving a master's degree in English literature, Potok enlisted with the U.S. Army as a chaplain. He served in South Korea from 1955 to 1957. He described his time in S. Korea as a transformative experience. Brought up to believe that the Jewish people were central to history and God's plans, he experienced a region where there were almost no Jews and no anti-Semitism, yet whose religious believers prayed with the same fervor that he saw in Orthodox synagogues at home.
Upon his return, he joined the faculty of the University of Judaism in Los Angeles and became the director of a Conservative Jewish summer camp affiliated with the Conservative movement, Camp Ramah. A year later he began his graduate studies at the University of Pennsylvania and was appointed scholar-in-residence at Temple Har Zion in Philadelphia.
In 1963, he spent a year in Israel, where he wrote his doctoral dissertation on Solomon Maimon and began to write a novel.
In 1964 Potok moved to Brooklyn. He became the managing editor of the magazine Conservative Judaism and joined the faculty of the Teachers’ Institute of the Jewish Theological Seminary. The following year, he was appointed editor-in-chief of the Jewish Publication Society in Philadelphia and later, chairman of the publication committee. Potok received a doctorate in philosophy from the University of Pennsylvania.
In 1970, Potok relocated to Jerusalem with his family. He returned to Philadelphia in 1977. After the publication of Old Men at Midnight, he was diagnosed with brain cancer. He died at his home in Merion, Pennsylvania on July 23, 2002, aged 73.
In 1949, at the age of 20, his stories were published in the literary magazine of Yeshiva University, which he also helped edit. In 1950, Potok graduated summa cum laude with a BA in English Literature.
After four years of study at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America he was ordained as a Conservative rabbi. He was appointed director of Leaders Training Fellowship, a youth organization affiliated with Conservative Judaism.
After receiving a master's degree in English literature, Potok enlisted with the U.S. Army as a chaplain. He served in South Korea from 1955 to 1957. He described his time in S. Korea as a transformative experience. Brought up to believe that the Jewish people were central to history and God's plans, he experienced a region where there were almost no Jews and no anti-Semitism, yet whose religious believers prayed with the same fervor that he saw in Orthodox synagogues at home.
Upon his return, he joined the faculty of the University of Judaism in Los Angeles and became the director of a Conservative Jewish summer camp affiliated with the Conservative movement, Camp Ramah. A year later he began his graduate studies at the University of Pennsylvania and was appointed scholar-in-residence at Temple Har Zion in Philadelphia.
In 1963, he spent a year in Israel, where he wrote his doctoral dissertation on Solomon Maimon and began to write a novel.
In 1964 Potok moved to Brooklyn. He became the managing editor of the magazine Conservative Judaism and joined the faculty of the Teachers’ Institute of the Jewish Theological Seminary. The following year, he was appointed editor-in-chief of the Jewish Publication Society in Philadelphia and later, chairman of the publication committee. Potok received a doctorate in philosophy from the University of Pennsylvania.
In 1970, Potok relocated to Jerusalem with his family. He returned to Philadelphia in 1977. After the publication of Old Men at Midnight, he was diagnosed with brain cancer. He died at his home in Merion, Pennsylvania on July 23, 2002, aged 73.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 3,242 reviews
June 19, 2019
The book is famous in part for its opening lines:
“My name is Asher Lev, the Asher Lev, about whom you have read in newspapers and magazines, about whom you talk so much at your dinner affairs and cocktail parties, the notorious and legendary Lev of the Brooklyn Crucifixion.”
A Jewish boy, only child to parents belonging to a strict Hasidic orthodox sect, is born with a gift for painting. (The sect is called Ladover in the book but wiki says it is the Lubavitch sect of Crown Heights, Brooklyn in which the author grew up.) The story is et in the 1950's. His mother encourages him to paint ‘pretty pictures’ but his strict father, a right-hand-man to the sect’s Rebbe, sees it as childish and from the ‘dark side.’ But his gift is so powerful that at age 13 even the Rebbe eventually gives the boy permission to take lessons from a famous Jewish but non-conforming painter within certain limits.
A key event in his childhood occurs when his mother loses her older brother in a car crash. The brother had been both a mother and father to her. For more than a year the mother goes into an almost-comatose mental and physical state, hardly eating and not talking. His father hires a nanny/maid to take care of his wife and son. She recovers but she fears all her life for her husband traveling first all over the US and eventually with long trips to Europe getting Jews out from under Stalin’s persecution in Russia, bringing some to the US, and setting up schools and synagogues for the sect in the US and Europe.
The boy is stubborn. He upsets his parents by showing no interest in ordinary school work, just painting. He refuses to go to Vienna when his parents want to go, initially forcing his mother to stay behind and later he stays with an uncle, rather than going with his parents. By the time he is of age to go to college he has stopped going with his family to the Berkshires for a month of summer vacation and instead goes with the artist for summers at the artist colony in Provincetown. Since he has his own money from selling paintings, he sets up a studio in Paris on his own for two years. When he returns they are somewhat strangers to each other. “Now they [his parents] possessed a language of shared experience in which I was nonexistent... Often I felt they were together now as they had been before I was born.”
In the end
I give the book a 4.5 rounded up to 5. There is a bit of repetition in some of the first half. Could we get by with a dozen references to the boy asking his father if he is going to travel again instead of 20? And ditto for not wanting to go to Vienna? And maybe five incidents of him going into a funk painting at school rather than 10 or so? But that’s quibbling a bit. I highly recommend this book and I’m adding it to my favorites. A good companion read to the author’s The Chosen which I also enjoyed.
Top photo, Lubavitch Jews of Crown Heights from almy.com
The Brooklyn Crucifixion painting by the author who was also an artist, from pinterest.com
The author, 1929-2002, from figtreebooks.net
“My name is Asher Lev, the Asher Lev, about whom you have read in newspapers and magazines, about whom you talk so much at your dinner affairs and cocktail parties, the notorious and legendary Lev of the Brooklyn Crucifixion.”
A Jewish boy, only child to parents belonging to a strict Hasidic orthodox sect, is born with a gift for painting. (The sect is called Ladover in the book but wiki says it is the Lubavitch sect of Crown Heights, Brooklyn in which the author grew up.) The story is et in the 1950's. His mother encourages him to paint ‘pretty pictures’ but his strict father, a right-hand-man to the sect’s Rebbe, sees it as childish and from the ‘dark side.’ But his gift is so powerful that at age 13 even the Rebbe eventually gives the boy permission to take lessons from a famous Jewish but non-conforming painter within certain limits.
A key event in his childhood occurs when his mother loses her older brother in a car crash. The brother had been both a mother and father to her. For more than a year the mother goes into an almost-comatose mental and physical state, hardly eating and not talking. His father hires a nanny/maid to take care of his wife and son. She recovers but she fears all her life for her husband traveling first all over the US and eventually with long trips to Europe getting Jews out from under Stalin’s persecution in Russia, bringing some to the US, and setting up schools and synagogues for the sect in the US and Europe.
The boy is stubborn. He upsets his parents by showing no interest in ordinary school work, just painting. He refuses to go to Vienna when his parents want to go, initially forcing his mother to stay behind and later he stays with an uncle, rather than going with his parents. By the time he is of age to go to college he has stopped going with his family to the Berkshires for a month of summer vacation and instead goes with the artist for summers at the artist colony in Provincetown. Since he has his own money from selling paintings, he sets up a studio in Paris on his own for two years. When he returns they are somewhat strangers to each other. “Now they [his parents] possessed a language of shared experience in which I was nonexistent... Often I felt they were together now as they had been before I was born.”
In the end
I give the book a 4.5 rounded up to 5. There is a bit of repetition in some of the first half. Could we get by with a dozen references to the boy asking his father if he is going to travel again instead of 20? And ditto for not wanting to go to Vienna? And maybe five incidents of him going into a funk painting at school rather than 10 or so? But that’s quibbling a bit. I highly recommend this book and I’m adding it to my favorites. A good companion read to the author’s The Chosen which I also enjoyed.
Top photo, Lubavitch Jews of Crown Heights from almy.com
The Brooklyn Crucifixion painting by the author who was also an artist, from pinterest.com
The author, 1929-2002, from figtreebooks.net
January 16, 2024
SITRA ACHRA
Crown Heights a Brooklyn.
Forse Chaim Potok non si può definire un grande scrittore, ma è certamente un ottimo narratore. Costruisce sempre le sue storie come se fossero un terreno di incontro/scontro, come se fossero una scacchiera: da una parte i chassidim, strenui difensori del loro mondo e del loro modo di vivere la religione ebraica. Dall'altra una cultura laica, non importa se anche questa rappresentata da ebrei.
Difficile dire quale sia il bianco e quale il nero.
Questa volta lo scontro è tra un padre e suo figlio, ancora bambino: tra un padre braccio destro del rabbino, pertanto ligio alla tradizione e immerso nella fede e nell’ortodossia - e un bambino che ha il dono (da cui, presumo, il titolo del romanzo successivo, Il dono di Asher) del disegno, della pittura, arte che il chassidismo considera appannaggio dei goyim, arte impura, perché rappresenta il corpo umano e la divinità. Una religione che non conosce ortodossia. Un dono così nefasto da essere considerato demoniaco, satanico, il regno dell’oscurità e del male, e cioè l’Altra Parte (sitra achra).
E lo scontro padre/figlio è perfino più forte e risoluto che nel suo esordio Danny l’eletto: direi che per Asher essere fedele alla propria anima è ancora più difficile che per Danny, quest’ultimo inseguendo la psicanalisi, l’altro invece la pittura.
Infatti, la frattura non si sana. Come dice il rabbino nel finale:
Asher Lev hai attraversato un confine. Non posso aiutarti. Sei solo ora. Ti do la mia benedizione.
Perfino geograficamente il terreno dove si concretizza lo scontro è sempre lo stesso, un reticolo (scacchiera) di isolati racchiusi tra Crown Heights e Williamsburg, quartieri del distretto di Brooklyn, parte della città di New York.
In questo romanzo si potrebbe avere un’apertura: il padre di Asher deve trasferirsi a Vienna per lavoro, e il figlio, per quanto ancora solo tredicenne, si rifiuta di seguirlo, di lasciare il suo mondo, il mondo che conosce, la scacchiera di strade e incroci dove è cresciuto e che così bene sa trasporre sulla carta con matita e carboncino, più avanti con pennelli e spatola.
La tenace resistenza di Asher a non farsi schiacciare, a dar vita e corpo al suo talento artistico, imprime a questo terzo romanzo di Potok una ventata di laicità.
Poi, più avanti, per la prima volta Potok si concede di viaggiare e per la ventina di pagine di un capitolo trasporta Asher Lev a Firenze (“un dono”), a Roma, a Parigi.
Sono sempre storie di ebrei più o meno ortodossi, alcuni religiosi e dotati di fede ma laici e aperti a ogni forma di sapere e cultura, altri strettamente osservanti - di solito chassidim, qui nella variante, se tale si può definire, ladover, una setta fittizia che Potok ha modellato sui reali Lubavitcher.
Ci sono sempre infiniti richiami alla religione ebraica, alle feste e i riti, e ai testi sacri di quella fede. Ci sono sinagoghe, rabbini, sabati, Talmud e Torah, kippah e tefillin.
Ci sono sempre uomini dominanti, più luminosi, più ingombranti. E donne che vivono nell’ombra, nel margine. Ci sono sempre coppie giovanissime che si sposano: quando nasce Asher Lev sua madre ha diciannove anni e suo padre venticinque. Ci sono sempre figli rispettosi e ubbidienti sin da bambini.
Ci sono sempre…
Eppure, ogni volta è come la prima volta. Non ho mai la sensazione di deja vu (deja lu?). e non lo sento mai asfittico: è sempre come se parlasse del mondo intero, senza confini, di tutta l’umanità, senza steccati.
Ma, sorpresa!
Questa volta compare un personaggio femminile vero, non solo un bozzetto: è la mamma di Asher, giovanissima, tenerissima, distrutta dalla morte del fratello che le fatto da padre e madre, essendo rimasta orfana da bambina, donna colta e studiosa.
Altra sorpresa: c’è un figlio, ancora bambino, che si oppone alla volontà del padre. Non è uno scontro diretto, di opposizione rabbiosa. È piuttosto un morbido, strisciante sforzo di seguire il proprio talento, la propria ispirazione alla vita.
Come dicevo, la crepa rimane: che si saldi nel seguito?
Jules Pascin e i precedenti sono tutti pittori ebrei.
Crown Heights a Brooklyn.
Forse Chaim Potok non si può definire un grande scrittore, ma è certamente un ottimo narratore. Costruisce sempre le sue storie come se fossero un terreno di incontro/scontro, come se fossero una scacchiera: da una parte i chassidim, strenui difensori del loro mondo e del loro modo di vivere la religione ebraica. Dall'altra una cultura laica, non importa se anche questa rappresentata da ebrei.
Difficile dire quale sia il bianco e quale il nero.
Questa volta lo scontro è tra un padre e suo figlio, ancora bambino: tra un padre braccio destro del rabbino, pertanto ligio alla tradizione e immerso nella fede e nell’ortodossia - e un bambino che ha il dono (da cui, presumo, il titolo del romanzo successivo, Il dono di Asher) del disegno, della pittura, arte che il chassidismo considera appannaggio dei goyim, arte impura, perché rappresenta il corpo umano e la divinità. Una religione che non conosce ortodossia. Un dono così nefasto da essere considerato demoniaco, satanico, il regno dell’oscurità e del male, e cioè l’Altra Parte (sitra achra).
E lo scontro padre/figlio è perfino più forte e risoluto che nel suo esordio Danny l’eletto: direi che per Asher essere fedele alla propria anima è ancora più difficile che per Danny, quest’ultimo inseguendo la psicanalisi, l’altro invece la pittura.
Infatti, la frattura non si sana. Come dice il rabbino nel finale:
Asher Lev hai attraversato un confine. Non posso aiutarti. Sei solo ora. Ti do la mia benedizione.
Perfino geograficamente il terreno dove si concretizza lo scontro è sempre lo stesso, un reticolo (scacchiera) di isolati racchiusi tra Crown Heights e Williamsburg, quartieri del distretto di Brooklyn, parte della città di New York.
In questo romanzo si potrebbe avere un’apertura: il padre di Asher deve trasferirsi a Vienna per lavoro, e il figlio, per quanto ancora solo tredicenne, si rifiuta di seguirlo, di lasciare il suo mondo, il mondo che conosce, la scacchiera di strade e incroci dove è cresciuto e che così bene sa trasporre sulla carta con matita e carboncino, più avanti con pennelli e spatola.
La tenace resistenza di Asher a non farsi schiacciare, a dar vita e corpo al suo talento artistico, imprime a questo terzo romanzo di Potok una ventata di laicità.
Poi, più avanti, per la prima volta Potok si concede di viaggiare e per la ventina di pagine di un capitolo trasporta Asher Lev a Firenze (“un dono”), a Roma, a Parigi.
Sono sempre storie di ebrei più o meno ortodossi, alcuni religiosi e dotati di fede ma laici e aperti a ogni forma di sapere e cultura, altri strettamente osservanti - di solito chassidim, qui nella variante, se tale si può definire, ladover, una setta fittizia che Potok ha modellato sui reali Lubavitcher.
Ci sono sempre infiniti richiami alla religione ebraica, alle feste e i riti, e ai testi sacri di quella fede. Ci sono sinagoghe, rabbini, sabati, Talmud e Torah, kippah e tefillin.
Ci sono sempre uomini dominanti, più luminosi, più ingombranti. E donne che vivono nell’ombra, nel margine. Ci sono sempre coppie giovanissime che si sposano: quando nasce Asher Lev sua madre ha diciannove anni e suo padre venticinque. Ci sono sempre figli rispettosi e ubbidienti sin da bambini.
Ci sono sempre…
Eppure, ogni volta è come la prima volta. Non ho mai la sensazione di deja vu (deja lu?). e non lo sento mai asfittico: è sempre come se parlasse del mondo intero, senza confini, di tutta l’umanità, senza steccati.
Ma, sorpresa!
Questa volta compare un personaggio femminile vero, non solo un bozzetto: è la mamma di Asher, giovanissima, tenerissima, distrutta dalla morte del fratello che le fatto da padre e madre, essendo rimasta orfana da bambina, donna colta e studiosa.
Altra sorpresa: c’è un figlio, ancora bambino, che si oppone alla volontà del padre. Non è uno scontro diretto, di opposizione rabbiosa. È piuttosto un morbido, strisciante sforzo di seguire il proprio talento, la propria ispirazione alla vita.
Come dicevo, la crepa rimane: che si saldi nel seguito?
Jules Pascin e i precedenti sono tutti pittori ebrei.
January 29, 2009
Chaim Potok is a brilliant author who refuses to write a page-turning book. I can't tell you how many bad books I have finished hoping for a Potok-esque finish...moving depth that justifies the slow pace of his books.
This was a book I had a hard time finishing. It was too easily put down and, to be truthful, I didn't even like this book until about 3/4 of the way into it. Now, I emphatically say that it is one of the best books I have ever read.
There is so much to say about this book. Throughout my entire reading of it, I kept thinking the book was about "this" or "that", only to be surprised by realizing the subject matter went far deeper. At first I thought it was about an art prodigy; that a difficult path is taken when your child is special or gifted.
It kind of is.
Then I thought it was about the pain and awkwardness of being a religious Jew right after the second world war.
Again, kind of.
Then I thought it was like The Namesake and the struggle between parents and children and different generations.
Getting closer.
Ultimately, I think this book is about perception. What is honoring your father and mother and what is following your dream? What is tradition and what is truth? What is the better choice? What is the better life? Whose point of view matters?
I experienced a lot of frustration while reading this. First of all, this book is about so many things that I either know nothing about or that don't interest me. For instance, Asher Lev is a art prodigy. As he is the main character, art - its history and technique - is a frequent subject matter. I know very little about art. It was hard for me to respond to Asher Lev's need to draw and paint. As a person without any particular passion, I had to take his word for it that for him, drawing and painting wasn't a hobby, or something he liked to do, but that it was who he was, an insatiable need that controlled him. That sort of passion would probably cause problems in any family but when you are a Hasidic Jew and the son of an important emissary of the Rebbe whose life work is to create safe places to teach the Torah to religious Jews throughout Europe, that passion tears apart a family.
My second frustration is probably apparent by now. I know very little about Judaism. There is a no apologizes approach to Potok's description of Jewish life. Obviously a Jew himself, he doesn't write for the goyim (are you frustrated? That's the Jewish term for the Gentile. Yeah...I know. I had to learn it all too).
There is a noticeable lack of emotion written about such an emotionally charged situation. Short, perfunctory sentences that made me feel as frustrated with the situation as I felt Asher Lev did with his father who did not get art. By the end of the book, I could appreciate it for the technique that it was. Asher Lev was the narrator and we experienced the story through Asher Lev. That containment of emotion, the abrupt conclusion of dialogue with his parents...that was his existence.
It all builds up to this pinnacle of frustration, this burst of emotion that brings the most hurt to his parents although that is what his art is about...his hurt, his mother's hurt, his father's hurt. I actually cried through this part. I rarely cry. It's that good.
An incredible book. An important book. A book, most definitely, worth reading.
This was a book I had a hard time finishing. It was too easily put down and, to be truthful, I didn't even like this book until about 3/4 of the way into it. Now, I emphatically say that it is one of the best books I have ever read.
There is so much to say about this book. Throughout my entire reading of it, I kept thinking the book was about "this" or "that", only to be surprised by realizing the subject matter went far deeper. At first I thought it was about an art prodigy; that a difficult path is taken when your child is special or gifted.
It kind of is.
Then I thought it was about the pain and awkwardness of being a religious Jew right after the second world war.
Again, kind of.
Then I thought it was like The Namesake and the struggle between parents and children and different generations.
Getting closer.
Ultimately, I think this book is about perception. What is honoring your father and mother and what is following your dream? What is tradition and what is truth? What is the better choice? What is the better life? Whose point of view matters?
I experienced a lot of frustration while reading this. First of all, this book is about so many things that I either know nothing about or that don't interest me. For instance, Asher Lev is a art prodigy. As he is the main character, art - its history and technique - is a frequent subject matter. I know very little about art. It was hard for me to respond to Asher Lev's need to draw and paint. As a person without any particular passion, I had to take his word for it that for him, drawing and painting wasn't a hobby, or something he liked to do, but that it was who he was, an insatiable need that controlled him. That sort of passion would probably cause problems in any family but when you are a Hasidic Jew and the son of an important emissary of the Rebbe whose life work is to create safe places to teach the Torah to religious Jews throughout Europe, that passion tears apart a family.
My second frustration is probably apparent by now. I know very little about Judaism. There is a no apologizes approach to Potok's description of Jewish life. Obviously a Jew himself, he doesn't write for the goyim (are you frustrated? That's the Jewish term for the Gentile. Yeah...I know. I had to learn it all too).
There is a noticeable lack of emotion written about such an emotionally charged situation. Short, perfunctory sentences that made me feel as frustrated with the situation as I felt Asher Lev did with his father who did not get art. By the end of the book, I could appreciate it for the technique that it was. Asher Lev was the narrator and we experienced the story through Asher Lev. That containment of emotion, the abrupt conclusion of dialogue with his parents...that was his existence.
It all builds up to this pinnacle of frustration, this burst of emotion that brings the most hurt to his parents although that is what his art is about...his hurt, his mother's hurt, his father's hurt. I actually cried through this part. I rarely cry. It's that good.
An incredible book. An important book. A book, most definitely, worth reading.
October 9, 2021
The World in One’s Hands
Sitra Achra, literally The Other Side in Aramaic, is the kabbalistic domain of evil. It contains what is false and impure, the most important component of which is the idea that evil is contained in the Master of the Universe. This idea is not only an impiety, it is also the source of countless other horrors that prevent human beings from appreciating their own reality. The struggle against the Sitra Achra is the central theme of My Name Is Asher Lev, established at the outset and pursued constantly throughout the book.
Evil is a very tricky theological issue. Typically it is either rationalised away as only apparent in a world governed by Providence; or it is considered an aberration brought about by human beings who act in error. Judaic Kabbalah, unlike most religious practices, however, takes the existence of evil seriously as a fundamental and pervasive fact. But it also refuses to fall into the Gnostic trap of including evil as an inherent part of the divine. Evil exists in a sort of parallel universe, one which lacks a crucial component of the divine and its Creation: language.
Such a universe is in one sense impossible to conceive. There are literally no words to describe it. The best we can do it to call it ‘darkness.’ Within this realm of darkness, chaos reigns. Out of it, the darkness seeks to overcome the light, in part by infecting language itself. Stalin, for example, as part of the Sitra Achra kills Jewish writers, both because they are Jewish and because they write, and substitutes Soviet propaganda for divine truth. There are even Jewish Communists who persecute other Jews. Ultimately it is words that killed the writers, the millions of others in Russia, and in the Holocaust - laws, and commands, and secret memoranda, and judicial verdicts, all in the language made unsafe by the Sitra Achra.
Kabbalah can be considered as a mystical approach to disinfecting language by turning language in on itself, using language to undermine the pretensions of language when it becomes something that it shouldn’t - lies, misrepresentations, distortions, and claims to reality. It is not enough to say the Krias Shema before sleep, the Modeh Ani upon waking, or the dozens of other prayers for every other occasion during the day. Even the language of these prayers must transcend language itself.
The artist in a community devoted to the Kabbalah is thus in an ambiguous position. On the one hand, he relativises written and spoken language through his pictorial interpretation of the world, even the world of darkness which is immune from linguistic description. Such interpretation challenges whatever existing representations of reality there might be and therefore is consistent with kabbalistic practice. On the other hand, it is unclear whether any artistic innovation might be yet another attempt by the forces of the Sitra Achra to dim the light of divine guidance. Is such art grace or heresy?
So the issue raised by Asher Lev’s artistic talent is not aesthetic. It is not even moral in the narrow sense of rightness and wrongness. His abilities as a painter have profound significance, not just for the community but for the entire cosmos. An artist attacks the Sitra Achra directly by entering into it with his art. His duty is to bring the Sitra Achra within the world of divine creation by giving it a language, a means of representing itself in order to see itself clearly.
This is a dangerous business. The danger is that the artist attempts to emulate the Master of the Universe rather than act as His instrument. Does the artist represent light or darkness? Is his art a purification or a desecration? These are as much questions for Asher Lev as they are for his community in Brooklyn’s Crown Heights in which even “washing for meals was a cosmic enterprise.”
Postscript: Also see: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Sitra Achra, literally The Other Side in Aramaic, is the kabbalistic domain of evil. It contains what is false and impure, the most important component of which is the idea that evil is contained in the Master of the Universe. This idea is not only an impiety, it is also the source of countless other horrors that prevent human beings from appreciating their own reality. The struggle against the Sitra Achra is the central theme of My Name Is Asher Lev, established at the outset and pursued constantly throughout the book.
Evil is a very tricky theological issue. Typically it is either rationalised away as only apparent in a world governed by Providence; or it is considered an aberration brought about by human beings who act in error. Judaic Kabbalah, unlike most religious practices, however, takes the existence of evil seriously as a fundamental and pervasive fact. But it also refuses to fall into the Gnostic trap of including evil as an inherent part of the divine. Evil exists in a sort of parallel universe, one which lacks a crucial component of the divine and its Creation: language.
Such a universe is in one sense impossible to conceive. There are literally no words to describe it. The best we can do it to call it ‘darkness.’ Within this realm of darkness, chaos reigns. Out of it, the darkness seeks to overcome the light, in part by infecting language itself. Stalin, for example, as part of the Sitra Achra kills Jewish writers, both because they are Jewish and because they write, and substitutes Soviet propaganda for divine truth. There are even Jewish Communists who persecute other Jews. Ultimately it is words that killed the writers, the millions of others in Russia, and in the Holocaust - laws, and commands, and secret memoranda, and judicial verdicts, all in the language made unsafe by the Sitra Achra.
Kabbalah can be considered as a mystical approach to disinfecting language by turning language in on itself, using language to undermine the pretensions of language when it becomes something that it shouldn’t - lies, misrepresentations, distortions, and claims to reality. It is not enough to say the Krias Shema before sleep, the Modeh Ani upon waking, or the dozens of other prayers for every other occasion during the day. Even the language of these prayers must transcend language itself.
The artist in a community devoted to the Kabbalah is thus in an ambiguous position. On the one hand, he relativises written and spoken language through his pictorial interpretation of the world, even the world of darkness which is immune from linguistic description. Such interpretation challenges whatever existing representations of reality there might be and therefore is consistent with kabbalistic practice. On the other hand, it is unclear whether any artistic innovation might be yet another attempt by the forces of the Sitra Achra to dim the light of divine guidance. Is such art grace or heresy?
So the issue raised by Asher Lev’s artistic talent is not aesthetic. It is not even moral in the narrow sense of rightness and wrongness. His abilities as a painter have profound significance, not just for the community but for the entire cosmos. An artist attacks the Sitra Achra directly by entering into it with his art. His duty is to bring the Sitra Achra within the world of divine creation by giving it a language, a means of representing itself in order to see itself clearly.
This is a dangerous business. The danger is that the artist attempts to emulate the Master of the Universe rather than act as His instrument. Does the artist represent light or darkness? Is his art a purification or a desecration? These are as much questions for Asher Lev as they are for his community in Brooklyn’s Crown Heights in which even “washing for meals was a cosmic enterprise.”
Postscript: Also see: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
March 2, 2024
Many moons ago, my friend, Elyse (she has left Goodreads and I miss her), told me to read this book. I had never heard of the book or the author. She said that it was marvelous. I believed her. I bought the book. I promptly set it upon a shelf and moved on to something that was twinkling brighter–I am easily distracted. As so frequently happens to me, I fear I pushed one of the best books on the shelf to the back to read something I forgot as soon as I finished the last page.
Asher Lev is a Hasidic Jew born with a remarkable talent for drawing and painting. At six years old he is being compared to Chagall by his uncle, and the praise is not exaggeration. Unfortunately, his father sees drawing at best as a foolishness, at worst as a pull from the “Other Side,” the side that is evil, the side that is ungodly.
Asher’s father is an important man, not only in the Brooklyn community where they live, but as an emissary for hasidism throughout the world. He comes from a long line of such men, and he wishes his son to take up the baton and follow his lead. Asher is devout, but he is uncontrollably pulled by his artistic gift. He cannot not paint; he cannot fail to express himself through his art. He doesn't care for his studies, he only cares for learning all there is to know about capturing the light. The price of Asher's talent is high for all involved, particularly the mother who tries to bridge the gap between father and son.
While much of what transpires is far beyond my own experience, knowing nothing of hasidism before picking up this book, there is so much that is very relatable to any human being who has struggled between pleasing the world and pursuing their own dream and individuality. What do we owe parents? Society? Community? What do we owe our ancestors, who may have sacrificed so much themselves in order that we might be here and prosper? Are there things in us that are beyond our control? Things we are meant to be, regardless of the price we must pay in order to achieve them? And, can we go a bridge too far? Are there limits on how much we should express our feelings to the world, because we owe something in respect and privacy to those who would be hurt by our openness?
I could not help thinking about Vincent Van Gogh while reading this novel. The situation is nothing the same, but Van Gogh was driven to paint, despite the lack of support and approval he received from the public or his contemporaries. His choice was painful to himself and painful to his brother, Theo, who watched his anguish and could do little more than try to buoy him in any way he could. True talent can be obsession.
If you have ever made your father sad or ashamed, if you have ever made your mother cry, you will feel the anguish of the choices Asher is asked to make. If you have ever felt the joy of feeling you are doing exactly what you were put on this earth to do, you might understand his drive. The price of greatness can be devastating sometimes.
This is my first encounter with Chaim Potok, but it will not be my last. This is the kind of writing that touches the soul. I am looking forward to more.
Asher Lev is a Hasidic Jew born with a remarkable talent for drawing and painting. At six years old he is being compared to Chagall by his uncle, and the praise is not exaggeration. Unfortunately, his father sees drawing at best as a foolishness, at worst as a pull from the “Other Side,” the side that is evil, the side that is ungodly.
Asher’s father is an important man, not only in the Brooklyn community where they live, but as an emissary for hasidism throughout the world. He comes from a long line of such men, and he wishes his son to take up the baton and follow his lead. Asher is devout, but he is uncontrollably pulled by his artistic gift. He cannot not paint; he cannot fail to express himself through his art. He doesn't care for his studies, he only cares for learning all there is to know about capturing the light. The price of Asher's talent is high for all involved, particularly the mother who tries to bridge the gap between father and son.
While much of what transpires is far beyond my own experience, knowing nothing of hasidism before picking up this book, there is so much that is very relatable to any human being who has struggled between pleasing the world and pursuing their own dream and individuality. What do we owe parents? Society? Community? What do we owe our ancestors, who may have sacrificed so much themselves in order that we might be here and prosper? Are there things in us that are beyond our control? Things we are meant to be, regardless of the price we must pay in order to achieve them? And, can we go a bridge too far? Are there limits on how much we should express our feelings to the world, because we owe something in respect and privacy to those who would be hurt by our openness?
I could not help thinking about Vincent Van Gogh while reading this novel. The situation is nothing the same, but Van Gogh was driven to paint, despite the lack of support and approval he received from the public or his contemporaries. His choice was painful to himself and painful to his brother, Theo, who watched his anguish and could do little more than try to buoy him in any way he could. True talent can be obsession.
If you have ever made your father sad or ashamed, if you have ever made your mother cry, you will feel the anguish of the choices Asher is asked to make. If you have ever felt the joy of feeling you are doing exactly what you were put on this earth to do, you might understand his drive. The price of greatness can be devastating sometimes.
This is my first encounter with Chaim Potok, but it will not be my last. This is the kind of writing that touches the soul. I am looking forward to more.
August 31, 2023
Could Art and Religion be compatible? This book tells us the story of a little boy named Asher Lev, a Hasidic Jew who develops an extraordinary artistic sense from 4. Unfortunately for his parents, who are very believers in his community, it is only a vice he must combat to not "fall" into the other world. It is, therefore, a real heartbreak for Asher, and it is exciting/interesting to follow this child's journey and then this adolescent.
April 8, 2023
I have no words. Truly. Tina, thank you for the gift of this recommendation. I would never have read this book on my own, and I will never forget it.
April 8, 2023. My first reading of this book was 4 years ago, and left me speechless. That hasn't changed because it's impossible for me to find the words to describe it. Still a 5 star read which equals 10 in my book. Still beautiful and devastating.
April 8, 2023. My first reading of this book was 4 years ago, and left me speechless. That hasn't changed because it's impossible for me to find the words to describe it. Still a 5 star read which equals 10 in my book. Still beautiful and devastating.
December 28, 2022
I hated to finish this book, because I loved it so much.
It is the story of a Hasidic boy who loves to draw and paint and has the ability to become a great artist, but his father hates his obsession with art because he thinks it is from the Other Side and is evil.
I loved how this story drew me into the daily life of this young boy, his family and his struggle to become who he was meant to be. I, too, had a gift for drawing and know how devastating it is to be not only not encouraged, but actively discouraged, from doing the one thing you love to do most.
I also realized how much I didn't know about Judaism and Hasidism in particular. I loved learning about the prayers, customs, history and vocabulary.
This is a beautiful book. There was a sequel written in 1990 that I will be reading too.
It is the story of a Hasidic boy who loves to draw and paint and has the ability to become a great artist, but his father hates his obsession with art because he thinks it is from the Other Side and is evil.
I loved how this story drew me into the daily life of this young boy, his family and his struggle to become who he was meant to be. I, too, had a gift for drawing and know how devastating it is to be not only not encouraged, but actively discouraged, from doing the one thing you love to do most.
I also realized how much I didn't know about Judaism and Hasidism in particular. I loved learning about the prayers, customs, history and vocabulary.
This is a beautiful book. There was a sequel written in 1990 that I will be reading too.
June 1, 2023
My name is Asher Lev, the Asher Lev, about whom you have read in newspapers and magazines, about whom you talk so much at your dinner affairs and cocktail parties, the notorious and legendary Lev of the Brooklyn Crucifixion.
I admit to not having heard of this book until I was looking for something to read that would fit an art challenge category. I don’t typically read books with an art focus so this would be new territory. Not to mention the fact that the main characters are Hasidic Jews, another topic that I know next to nothing about. So, I dove into this with eyes wide open not knowing what to expect.
Asher Lev is the son of an important emissary for the Rebbe of their community of Crown Heights in Brooklyn. In his work, he builds safe places for teaching the Torah throughout Europe. His way of life encompasses Judaism and the ways of the world do not match with his religious views. Asher is an art prodigy so throughout there is much about art and its technique as well as its history. Asher’s need for drawing and painting is evident but a part of me didn’t really understand this need. However, Asher’s talent is more than just a hobby or something that he does for fun, it is an innate part of him, a definer of his being, something that he didn’t really have control of himself but as if an insatiable appetite within him for his passion took him over.
There was a sensation of something tearing wide apart inside me and a steep quivering climb out of myself.
Needless to say, this passion of Asher’s is not something that his father would naturally be proud of. In fact, it caused quite a lot of turbulence within their family.
Chaim Potok wrote with a kind of inner knowledge a Jewish person would claim. A Gentile, such as myself, would not necessarily understand these specific descriptions but I found myself wanting to know and to understand. I ached for the turmoil and hurt that encircled Asher and his family. What was happening to Asher was troubling for a person like me to understand only because I am not trapped between two worlds - one where it is ultimately important to honor your mother and father and the other in which you want to follow your dream. Asher is caught in the middle of the tradition of his family’s religion and the truth of himself. His passion to express himself through his paintings defines him differently than the tradition of his religion. Which way is the choice that matters in his life? Should he have to choose? Is it possible to have both? How will he be perceived by his own people if he chooses a way of life that could be blasphemous? Will he always struggle with a decision to choose a life that will put his close relationships at risk or is it enough to be able to express his individuality? Can he handle the sacrifice?
Asher’s father does not understand art and believes that it comes from the Other Side - where things are false and impure. It couldn’t possibly come from the Master of the Universe. I could understand the frustration that Asher experienced as he tried to talk with his father and make him understand. Asher tells his own story. We are with him when he makes his biggest breakthrough which will conflict him even further in regards to his family. His pinnacle is reached and it is devastating. Emotions burst through where they’ve been kept down for the majority of his life finally expressed through the hurt he brings to his parents and visible as their collective hurts.
This is a fantastic novel. It needs to be read again just to be able to grasp a little bit more of what Asher’s conflicts meant. This is a slow building novel, but it is worth it to get to the finale. It will make you think about perceptions and about the need for expression.
I admit to not having heard of this book until I was looking for something to read that would fit an art challenge category. I don’t typically read books with an art focus so this would be new territory. Not to mention the fact that the main characters are Hasidic Jews, another topic that I know next to nothing about. So, I dove into this with eyes wide open not knowing what to expect.
Asher Lev is the son of an important emissary for the Rebbe of their community of Crown Heights in Brooklyn. In his work, he builds safe places for teaching the Torah throughout Europe. His way of life encompasses Judaism and the ways of the world do not match with his religious views. Asher is an art prodigy so throughout there is much about art and its technique as well as its history. Asher’s need for drawing and painting is evident but a part of me didn’t really understand this need. However, Asher’s talent is more than just a hobby or something that he does for fun, it is an innate part of him, a definer of his being, something that he didn’t really have control of himself but as if an insatiable appetite within him for his passion took him over.
There was a sensation of something tearing wide apart inside me and a steep quivering climb out of myself.
Needless to say, this passion of Asher’s is not something that his father would naturally be proud of. In fact, it caused quite a lot of turbulence within their family.
Chaim Potok wrote with a kind of inner knowledge a Jewish person would claim. A Gentile, such as myself, would not necessarily understand these specific descriptions but I found myself wanting to know and to understand. I ached for the turmoil and hurt that encircled Asher and his family. What was happening to Asher was troubling for a person like me to understand only because I am not trapped between two worlds - one where it is ultimately important to honor your mother and father and the other in which you want to follow your dream. Asher is caught in the middle of the tradition of his family’s religion and the truth of himself. His passion to express himself through his paintings defines him differently than the tradition of his religion. Which way is the choice that matters in his life? Should he have to choose? Is it possible to have both? How will he be perceived by his own people if he chooses a way of life that could be blasphemous? Will he always struggle with a decision to choose a life that will put his close relationships at risk or is it enough to be able to express his individuality? Can he handle the sacrifice?
Asher’s father does not understand art and believes that it comes from the Other Side - where things are false and impure. It couldn’t possibly come from the Master of the Universe. I could understand the frustration that Asher experienced as he tried to talk with his father and make him understand. Asher tells his own story. We are with him when he makes his biggest breakthrough which will conflict him even further in regards to his family. His pinnacle is reached and it is devastating. Emotions burst through where they’ve been kept down for the majority of his life finally expressed through the hurt he brings to his parents and visible as their collective hurts.
This is a fantastic novel. It needs to be read again just to be able to grasp a little bit more of what Asher’s conflicts meant. This is a slow building novel, but it is worth it to get to the finale. It will make you think about perceptions and about the need for expression.
March 11, 2024
“I worked for--what? How could I explain it? For beauty? No. Many of the pictures I painted were not beautiful. For what, then? For a truth I did not know how to put into words. For a truth I could only bring to life by means of color and line and texture and form.”
This is a warm and wonderful bildungsroman story, about the boy Asher Lev, born to a devout Hasidic Jewish family, and how he grows into a gifted, though controversial, artist. There appears to be no path within the faith for someone who is as driven as Asher is by his artistic talent. He must create this path, and it is a painful journey.
There are mythic ideas explored here: art and evil, reverence and duty, what is owed to a family and what is passed down through that family.
It’s so beautifully told, so perfectly paced to keep the tension building, and peopled with such genuine characters (his mother deserves a story of her own) that the reader feels Asher’s pain deeply. But the joy of creating a brilliant work of art, which most of us will never know, is also conveyed.
I love a book that takes me to a world I don’t know and brings it so clearly to life for me that I feel like I’ve lived it. This is such a book, and I’m so happy to have discovered it.
This is a warm and wonderful bildungsroman story, about the boy Asher Lev, born to a devout Hasidic Jewish family, and how he grows into a gifted, though controversial, artist. There appears to be no path within the faith for someone who is as driven as Asher is by his artistic talent. He must create this path, and it is a painful journey.
There are mythic ideas explored here: art and evil, reverence and duty, what is owed to a family and what is passed down through that family.
It’s so beautifully told, so perfectly paced to keep the tension building, and peopled with such genuine characters (his mother deserves a story of her own) that the reader feels Asher’s pain deeply. But the joy of creating a brilliant work of art, which most of us will never know, is also conveyed.
I love a book that takes me to a world I don’t know and brings it so clearly to life for me that I feel like I’ve lived it. This is such a book, and I’m so happy to have discovered it.
March 17, 2019
The Absence of Italics
I returned to reread this classic after reading Talia Carner's recent novel Jerusalem Maiden, since the protagonists of both are talented artists raised within Orthodox Judaism, struggling to reconcile their art to their faith. To succeed, the writers must convey the nature of both religious belief and artistic inspiration, a challenge that Potok meets brilliantly. Consider one significant example. Both novels are full of Hebrew words—Shabbos, Rosh Hadesh, Krias Shema, Hasidus, Rebbe, Mashpia, Torah, Chumash, Hashem, Ribbono Shel Olom—but one comparison struck me immediately upon opening the Potok book: he never uses italics.
Trivial? I think not. Italics imply a gap between the writer and the reader. They say, "I know these words are foreign to you, so I'll mark them as such and explain them as we go along." But Potok's absence of italics takes away all foreignness; these are words that his characters use every day, as common as "overcoat" and "arithmetic." By using them matter-of-factly, without self-consciousness, Potok's Asher Lev invites us into his world as an equal, erasing any gap between us. He is also denying any sense of religious observance as something special reserved for the Sabbath, rather a part of ordinary life, every hour of every day. Though not Jewish myself, I have read a great many novels with Jewish settings, but cannot think of any that immerse me so deeply in the culture as Potok's novels: this one and The Chosen.
Asher is the only child of Aryeh and Rivkeh Lev, descendants of two of the most prominent families of Ladover Hasidim; the branch of the sect is fictitious, but clearly based on the Chabad-Lubavitcher movement in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. The Rebbe, or leader of the sect, is a charismatic figure—a marvelous creation on Potok's part, though undoubtedly inspired by the Lubavitcher Rebbe of the time, who preached a relatively liberal form of Orthodox Judaism at home coupled with widespread outreach abroad. Asher's father, like his father before him, travels widely for the Rebbe, and his mother takes a doctorate in Russian to help him in his work. The story, which begins in the fifties, is set against the persecution of Jews in Russia under Stalin and the Ladovers' attempts to bring them out after the dictator's death. It gives a strong undertone of historical fact to a story that, otherwise, is largely in the mind and home of its title character.
Asher is naturally expected to follow in the family tradition. But although he remains a pious and observant Jew throughout his life, he is consumed by a different force: a precocious talent for drawing. Here again, it is the absence of notional italics that convinces us of Asher's genius. Potok makes no attempt to highlight or explain; he writes no set pieces translating Asher's creations into picturesque words. Instead, he simply admits us into his thought, showing the process by which those pictures were created—more than that, showing art as the language through which Asher processes his entire life and conflicted feelings. As Jacob Kahn, his teacher throughout his teens, says, "Art is whether or not there is a scream in him wanting to get out in a special way."
And he has plenty to scream about. Although he will be very lucky in his mentors, Asher's gift isolates him from his classmates and alienates his father, who calls his pursuit of Art rather than Torah a "foolishness"—the same accusation that Potok's parents had leveled against his own artistic pursuits. Overruled by the Rebbe, who understands the different needs of both men, Aryeh Lev stores up increasing bitterness against what he sees as the irreligion of his son, especially when he starts painting subjects anathema to the Jewish tradition. Asher's mother, Rivkeh, is torn in two, not only between her husband and her son, but also between two radically different ways of honoring God—through a life of practical good works, or through following the truth of a God-given spirit. The strife within his family and in his own mind will be the subject of the work which launches Asher Lev to notoriety and success: a pair of canvases known as "The Brooklyn Crucifixion."* Asher mentions this in his very first paragraph, writing the book to explain how an observant Jew could reach such an unlikely pinnacle. But never to apologize: "It is absurd to apologize for a mystery." Potok's great achievement is to exalt the mystery of both God and Art, while sharing the pursuit of each as though it were the most normal thing in the world. Extraordinary things described in everyday words; the absence of italics.
======
*
Potok was also a painter himself, and painted his own version of "The Brooklyn Crucifixion." It is here if you want to look at it, but I am protecting it as a spoiler since I personally find his verbal evocation comes across much more strongly.
I returned to reread this classic after reading Talia Carner's recent novel Jerusalem Maiden, since the protagonists of both are talented artists raised within Orthodox Judaism, struggling to reconcile their art to their faith. To succeed, the writers must convey the nature of both religious belief and artistic inspiration, a challenge that Potok meets brilliantly. Consider one significant example. Both novels are full of Hebrew words—Shabbos, Rosh Hadesh, Krias Shema, Hasidus, Rebbe, Mashpia, Torah, Chumash, Hashem, Ribbono Shel Olom—but one comparison struck me immediately upon opening the Potok book: he never uses italics.
Trivial? I think not. Italics imply a gap between the writer and the reader. They say, "I know these words are foreign to you, so I'll mark them as such and explain them as we go along." But Potok's absence of italics takes away all foreignness; these are words that his characters use every day, as common as "overcoat" and "arithmetic." By using them matter-of-factly, without self-consciousness, Potok's Asher Lev invites us into his world as an equal, erasing any gap between us. He is also denying any sense of religious observance as something special reserved for the Sabbath, rather a part of ordinary life, every hour of every day. Though not Jewish myself, I have read a great many novels with Jewish settings, but cannot think of any that immerse me so deeply in the culture as Potok's novels: this one and The Chosen.
Asher is the only child of Aryeh and Rivkeh Lev, descendants of two of the most prominent families of Ladover Hasidim; the branch of the sect is fictitious, but clearly based on the Chabad-Lubavitcher movement in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. The Rebbe, or leader of the sect, is a charismatic figure—a marvelous creation on Potok's part, though undoubtedly inspired by the Lubavitcher Rebbe of the time, who preached a relatively liberal form of Orthodox Judaism at home coupled with widespread outreach abroad. Asher's father, like his father before him, travels widely for the Rebbe, and his mother takes a doctorate in Russian to help him in his work. The story, which begins in the fifties, is set against the persecution of Jews in Russia under Stalin and the Ladovers' attempts to bring them out after the dictator's death. It gives a strong undertone of historical fact to a story that, otherwise, is largely in the mind and home of its title character.
Asher is naturally expected to follow in the family tradition. But although he remains a pious and observant Jew throughout his life, he is consumed by a different force: a precocious talent for drawing. Here again, it is the absence of notional italics that convinces us of Asher's genius. Potok makes no attempt to highlight or explain; he writes no set pieces translating Asher's creations into picturesque words. Instead, he simply admits us into his thought, showing the process by which those pictures were created—more than that, showing art as the language through which Asher processes his entire life and conflicted feelings. As Jacob Kahn, his teacher throughout his teens, says, "Art is whether or not there is a scream in him wanting to get out in a special way."
And he has plenty to scream about. Although he will be very lucky in his mentors, Asher's gift isolates him from his classmates and alienates his father, who calls his pursuit of Art rather than Torah a "foolishness"—the same accusation that Potok's parents had leveled against his own artistic pursuits. Overruled by the Rebbe, who understands the different needs of both men, Aryeh Lev stores up increasing bitterness against what he sees as the irreligion of his son, especially when he starts painting subjects anathema to the Jewish tradition. Asher's mother, Rivkeh, is torn in two, not only between her husband and her son, but also between two radically different ways of honoring God—through a life of practical good works, or through following the truth of a God-given spirit. The strife within his family and in his own mind will be the subject of the work which launches Asher Lev to notoriety and success: a pair of canvases known as "The Brooklyn Crucifixion."* Asher mentions this in his very first paragraph, writing the book to explain how an observant Jew could reach such an unlikely pinnacle. But never to apologize: "It is absurd to apologize for a mystery." Potok's great achievement is to exalt the mystery of both God and Art, while sharing the pursuit of each as though it were the most normal thing in the world. Extraordinary things described in everyday words; the absence of italics.
======
*
Potok was also a painter himself, and painted his own version of "The Brooklyn Crucifixion." It is here if you want to look at it, but I am protecting it as a spoiler since I personally find his verbal evocation comes across much more strongly.
December 8, 2023
*5+*
I'm not so sure how to review this. It started off slowly (but never dull) and just became magnificent . It was like watching a very beautiful flower bloom.
I'm not so sure how to review this. It started off slowly (but never dull) and just became magnificent . It was like watching a very beautiful flower bloom.
May 27, 2008
Powerful. This is the story of a Hasidic Jew who is a gifted painter, a talent not approved of among orthodox Jews. His life becomes a struggle between his father--who tries to stir him away from the arts to more traditionally accepted hobbies all the while trying to understand him--and his need to draw to express himself. I could sympathize with all the characters in the book: his father for trying to hold onto his religious convictions without dominance but love, his mother for trying to love and encourage her son while staying at one with her husband, the mentor for his love and devotion to art, and especially Asher for trying to balance it all.
I loved that it wasn't a story about how his parents rejected him because he was different but tried to understand and love their son the best way they knew how and still maintain their faith. It was an honest parent/child relationship and I think Asher valued his faith and his parents more for their attempt at understanding him. I enjoyed learning about Hasidic Jews and understanding their religious convictions as well as experiencing the aesthetic pull to explain the world through art. The backdrop was so real to me that I could feel this boy's life. My one complaint would be that I still wonder what a few of terms mean. Like what exactly does Ladover mean?
Asher says this of painting: "I paint my feelings. I paint how I see and feel about the world. But I paint a painting, not a story." I absolutely loved that the writing style correlates with a painting style. Asher is non-descriptive about his feelings, only stating his replies to people's questions instead of delving inside his own emotions. Just a painting, the reader is left to interpret those for himself. The story flows through the years smoothly, but it is the writing style that puts it on a higher level. When style can add another layer by making you feel Asher's love of painting, it makes the book beautiful.
The reason this is one of my favorite books is that I connected with this book on a deeply personal level. As someone who dabbles with the art of writing and an extremely religious person, I often wonder how I would balance art and religion. I hate that it has to be a choice, but if you are going to commit yourself that deeply to an art, there will come a time when you have to pick your art or your faith. I hope I would pick faith, but where I draw the line may different than someone else's and therefore I run the risk of offending. Part of being an artist is coming to terms with this displacement. It is the reason I empathized with Asher and come back to his story time and again in my own quest to balance it all.
I loved that it wasn't a story about how his parents rejected him because he was different but tried to understand and love their son the best way they knew how and still maintain their faith. It was an honest parent/child relationship and I think Asher valued his faith and his parents more for their attempt at understanding him. I enjoyed learning about Hasidic Jews and understanding their religious convictions as well as experiencing the aesthetic pull to explain the world through art. The backdrop was so real to me that I could feel this boy's life. My one complaint would be that I still wonder what a few of terms mean. Like what exactly does Ladover mean?
Asher says this of painting: "I paint my feelings. I paint how I see and feel about the world. But I paint a painting, not a story." I absolutely loved that the writing style correlates with a painting style. Asher is non-descriptive about his feelings, only stating his replies to people's questions instead of delving inside his own emotions. Just a painting, the reader is left to interpret those for himself. The story flows through the years smoothly, but it is the writing style that puts it on a higher level. When style can add another layer by making you feel Asher's love of painting, it makes the book beautiful.
The reason this is one of my favorite books is that I connected with this book on a deeply personal level. As someone who dabbles with the art of writing and an extremely religious person, I often wonder how I would balance art and religion. I hate that it has to be a choice, but if you are going to commit yourself that deeply to an art, there will come a time when you have to pick your art or your faith. I hope I would pick faith, but where I draw the line may different than someone else's and therefore I run the risk of offending. Part of being an artist is coming to terms with this displacement. It is the reason I empathized with Asher and come back to his story time and again in my own quest to balance it all.
February 25, 2019
“Per dipingere il mondo in tutta la storia dell'arte ci sono solo questi due modi: uno - il mondo della Grecia e dell'Africa- vede il mondo come un disegno geometrico; l'altro - il modo della Persia dell'India e della Cina - vede il mondo come un fiore. Ingres, Cézanne e Picasso dipingono il mondo come geometria; Van Gogh e Renoir, Kandinsky e Chagall dipingono il mondo come un fiore” .
Un viaggio splendido nel mondo chassidico, visto attraverso gli occhi di un piccolo che cresce e diventa un uomo.
Asher è un bambino speciale. Vive il mondo con gli occhi, sente il mondo attraverso lo sguardo. E la matita si muove fra le sue mani inconsapevolmente, è un istinto primordiale il suo. Disegna e disegnando vive. Si astrae da tutto, non si cura di nulla se non delle sue linee, dei suoi colori, della forma che le sue mani danno al suo sguardo. Nonostante tutto Asher è inglobato nel suo mondo di osservante ebreo chassidico, con un padre che viaggia per il mondo per creare scuole in cui insegnare e far rivivere le tradizioni ebree, e una madre con il cuore spezzato che vive aspettando, prima un marito alla finestra che torni dai suoi viaggi, poi un figlio, e che si trova in mezzo ai due, ai loro contrasti, al loro modo diverso, eppure così carnale e umano di vedere la vita.
Per la dottrina ebrea pensare di vivere per la propria passione, senza mettersi al servizio del proprio fratello è un male. E’ questo il primo contrasto da superare per Asher. E una volta che “ il mondo” prende atto del suo non poter far diversamente, Asher si dedica alla sua passione. Ma ogni quadro è un tormento, un voler esprimere se stesso e andare allo stesso tempo contro le sue origini, la sua tradizione, le sue radici. Vive cercando di trovare un equilibrio fra le due parti di sè, non tradire e non tradirsi fino ad una rottura finale.
“Diventa un grande artista. È l'unico modo di giustificare ciò che fai alla vita di tutti” .
E’ il primo libro che leggo di Potok ed è stato subito amore. Parole potenti, che richiamano immagini, come gli alberi che diventano neri sotto la pioggia o il velo di acqua sulla spiaggia che descrive un’assenza, e che hanno in sè la storia della sua gente. Accenni, semplici ma dolorosi, brevi ma efficaci. E il dissidio che lacera l’anima di Asher arriva fino a noi, in un sentimento che ce lo fa capire ed insieme amare.
“ Se il tuo nemico cade non gioire”.
Un viaggio splendido nel mondo chassidico, visto attraverso gli occhi di un piccolo che cresce e diventa un uomo.
Asher è un bambino speciale. Vive il mondo con gli occhi, sente il mondo attraverso lo sguardo. E la matita si muove fra le sue mani inconsapevolmente, è un istinto primordiale il suo. Disegna e disegnando vive. Si astrae da tutto, non si cura di nulla se non delle sue linee, dei suoi colori, della forma che le sue mani danno al suo sguardo. Nonostante tutto Asher è inglobato nel suo mondo di osservante ebreo chassidico, con un padre che viaggia per il mondo per creare scuole in cui insegnare e far rivivere le tradizioni ebree, e una madre con il cuore spezzato che vive aspettando, prima un marito alla finestra che torni dai suoi viaggi, poi un figlio, e che si trova in mezzo ai due, ai loro contrasti, al loro modo diverso, eppure così carnale e umano di vedere la vita.
Per la dottrina ebrea pensare di vivere per la propria passione, senza mettersi al servizio del proprio fratello è un male. E’ questo il primo contrasto da superare per Asher. E una volta che “ il mondo” prende atto del suo non poter far diversamente, Asher si dedica alla sua passione. Ma ogni quadro è un tormento, un voler esprimere se stesso e andare allo stesso tempo contro le sue origini, la sua tradizione, le sue radici. Vive cercando di trovare un equilibrio fra le due parti di sè, non tradire e non tradirsi fino ad una rottura finale.
“Diventa un grande artista. È l'unico modo di giustificare ciò che fai alla vita di tutti” .
E’ il primo libro che leggo di Potok ed è stato subito amore. Parole potenti, che richiamano immagini, come gli alberi che diventano neri sotto la pioggia o il velo di acqua sulla spiaggia che descrive un’assenza, e che hanno in sè la storia della sua gente. Accenni, semplici ma dolorosi, brevi ma efficaci. E il dissidio che lacera l’anima di Asher arriva fino a noi, in un sentimento che ce lo fa capire ed insieme amare.
“ Se il tuo nemico cade non gioire”.
January 30, 2018
devo dire che è un libro scritto molto bene; non so se l'autore, Chaim Potok, abbia seguito il consiglio di Cechov di scrivere soltanto quando si è freddi come il ghiaccio, perché qui e là trapelano punte di nostalgia scottante, bollori e schegge arroventate di rivalsa personale. Ma gli ebrei scrivono sempre per espiare colpe come in un inferno, mai trionfalmente.
Non è quello che propriamente si potrebbe considerare un romanzo, con una trama vera e propria, ma una specie di autobiografia artistica (fittizia) con tanto di anelito e di ostacolo. Numerose sono le frasi a uso dei giovani artisti presenti. Asher Lev si scontra con una tradizione, quella del suo popolo, per rimanere fedele a un'altra tradizione occidentale, quella della pittura e dei suoi soggetti. Questo lo spunto drammatico che ci accompagnerà per tutto il libro. Così che si avvicina al soggetto per eccellenza, la crocifissione di Cristo, perché il suo ebraismo è così ben assorbito che sa bene quanto la teologia ebraica sia solo una teologia negativa, come diceva Steiner. Persino il mondo divino dei greci è tanto vicino alle nostre sofferenze, poiché riempie la natura delle sue manifestazioni. Ma il monoteismo ebraico stacca come la vetta del Sinai, e solo una capacità estrema di astrazione potrebbe figurare quel dio ammonitore vicino a noi. Egli rimane lontano e non ci consola nei nostri piccoli tormenti quotidiani. Però quanto più è lontano, tanto più invade il presente, in maniera insopportabile, come un occhio perennemente puntato, e sparge ovunque i suoi dettami, i suoi decreti, le sue regola e precetti. Castiga fino alla terza generazione. Potok, benevolmente, è affianco ad Asher Lev, a raccontare la sua piccola grande battaglia contro il dio invisibile.
Non è quello che propriamente si potrebbe considerare un romanzo, con una trama vera e propria, ma una specie di autobiografia artistica (fittizia) con tanto di anelito e di ostacolo. Numerose sono le frasi a uso dei giovani artisti presenti. Asher Lev si scontra con una tradizione, quella del suo popolo, per rimanere fedele a un'altra tradizione occidentale, quella della pittura e dei suoi soggetti. Questo lo spunto drammatico che ci accompagnerà per tutto il libro. Così che si avvicina al soggetto per eccellenza, la crocifissione di Cristo, perché il suo ebraismo è così ben assorbito che sa bene quanto la teologia ebraica sia solo una teologia negativa, come diceva Steiner. Persino il mondo divino dei greci è tanto vicino alle nostre sofferenze, poiché riempie la natura delle sue manifestazioni. Ma il monoteismo ebraico stacca come la vetta del Sinai, e solo una capacità estrema di astrazione potrebbe figurare quel dio ammonitore vicino a noi. Egli rimane lontano e non ci consola nei nostri piccoli tormenti quotidiani. Però quanto più è lontano, tanto più invade il presente, in maniera insopportabile, come un occhio perennemente puntato, e sparge ovunque i suoi dettami, i suoi decreti, le sue regola e precetti. Castiga fino alla terza generazione. Potok, benevolmente, è affianco ad Asher Lev, a raccontare la sua piccola grande battaglia contro il dio invisibile.
January 30, 2018
Dice Chaim Potok: “Noi abbiamo sempre raccontato storie, fin dall’inizio della nostra specie: le storie sono il modo grazie al quale diamo un significato alla nostra vita. (…) La tensione fra l’individuo solo che aspira alla propria realizzazione e la comunità è proprio l’argomento delle storie moderne, diversamente da quanto avveniva in passato. La vita non è semplice così le storie non sono semplici, la vita è tragica così le storie sono tragiche, la vita è piena di domande difficili così le storie sono colme di domande difficili”.
Il rapporto che intercorre tra l’esigenza di affermazione di se stessi e il bisogno – tutto umano – di essere accettati dalla propria famiglia e dalla comunità di cui si è parte, è un rapporto altamente drammatico.
Asher Lev (ebreo, della comunità chassidica di Brooklyn) ha un dono e una vocazione, la pittura. Coltivarlo, perseguirlo, però, significa mettere a repentaglio tutto ciò che ha: famiglia, tradizioni, comunità di appartenenza, credo, amici… che fare? Affermare sé, assecondare le proprie aspirazioni o rinunciare in favore dell’appartenenza al proprio popolo, alle tradizioni? Dove sta di casa la libertà?
C’è una frase del Vangelo di Luca (Lc 9,25) che dice: “Che giova all’uomo guadagnare il mondo intero se poi perde se stesso?”.
Qui, in un certo senso, è come se Potok capovolgesse l’interrogativo: giova all’uomo realizzare se stesso se poi perde tutto il (suo) mondo?
Che romanzo potente! Che scrittore magnifico! Che bella sorpresa!
E il pensiero vola a Marc Chagall…
Il rapporto che intercorre tra l’esigenza di affermazione di se stessi e il bisogno – tutto umano – di essere accettati dalla propria famiglia e dalla comunità di cui si è parte, è un rapporto altamente drammatico.
Asher Lev (ebreo, della comunità chassidica di Brooklyn) ha un dono e una vocazione, la pittura. Coltivarlo, perseguirlo, però, significa mettere a repentaglio tutto ciò che ha: famiglia, tradizioni, comunità di appartenenza, credo, amici… che fare? Affermare sé, assecondare le proprie aspirazioni o rinunciare in favore dell’appartenenza al proprio popolo, alle tradizioni? Dove sta di casa la libertà?
C’è una frase del Vangelo di Luca (Lc 9,25) che dice: “Che giova all’uomo guadagnare il mondo intero se poi perde se stesso?”.
Qui, in un certo senso, è come se Potok capovolgesse l’interrogativo: giova all’uomo realizzare se stesso se poi perde tutto il (suo) mondo?
Che romanzo potente! Che scrittore magnifico! Che bella sorpresa!
E il pensiero vola a Marc Chagall…
December 1, 2008
A tragically gripping, page turning work of total genius. I hate to even review it because it was that good and maybe just five stars would be better than me blubbering about it... I was completely engrossed and almost read 3/4ths of it one night, but stopped abruptly to have the novel follow me around the house and in my bag for another week because I didn't want to be through with it. I came back to it and finished it in one sitting. Some books change your life, some books are your life. Different art professors who meant a lot to me and friends through the years all have urged and recommended me to read this. All the recommendations were given at different times and curiously still,from people unrelated to each other - which held the title of the book in my memory for a long time as something of significance, especially in the way that they told me it especially for me. But like trips to Paris and having children... somethings take time to happen. The years have passed and a copy of the book never seemed to come my way. I'm so glad it finally did.
June 19, 2023
I read this in February 2022. The dates didn’t stick when I put them in!!!
This is a story about a boy who is a very good artist growing up in A Hasidic home in Brooklyn, NY. His dad works for the Reb (the rabbi of this group) and wants his son to be other then who he is. To “put away the art” and follow in his footsteps. He loves his dad and doesn’t understand his harshness and his dad not seeing his gift
What interested me in this book was what happened when the Reb finds him a very well known artist to be his mentor. We get to see him blossom and learn to adapt to the world outside the Hasidic community and the choices he made to keep his faith. This was during the time of Picasso. And I enjoyed learning about his art training and where he went with it.
This is a story about a boy who is a very good artist growing up in A Hasidic home in Brooklyn, NY. His dad works for the Reb (the rabbi of this group) and wants his son to be other then who he is. To “put away the art” and follow in his footsteps. He loves his dad and doesn’t understand his harshness and his dad not seeing his gift
What interested me in this book was what happened when the Reb finds him a very well known artist to be his mentor. We get to see him blossom and learn to adapt to the world outside the Hasidic community and the choices he made to keep his faith. This was during the time of Picasso. And I enjoyed learning about his art training and where he went with it.
December 10, 2018
I've heard good things about Potok's "Chosen" and it sounds like that's his book that most people have read. I enjoyed his style here and I suspect I'll pick up The Chosen to read later.
Content/Theme
Before commenting on anything else, I need to comment on the theme and content of the book.
This book is deeply entrenched in the Jewish culture and has many references that are likely very commonplace to those in the Jewish culture, but were very foreign to me. I got the general meaning of most things from context, but I still have a long list of terms, phrases and actions to look up and better understand.
This book also has a lot of great detail about the art world. This is another realm in which I am an inexperienced traveler. I had a better understanding of art than Judaism, but there were still numerous names, periods, phrases and theories that I didn't understand directly.
One suggestion that I would make which added huge depth to me, is to Google the names of the various paintings/sculpures/artists that are referenced and that Asher studies intently. Some are more important than others, but just seeing what it is he's seeing and experiencing brought a huge new depth to the book.
Characters
Obviously, Asher is the main character. He is a very deep character with a ton of internal conflict and a lot of passion which he doesn't understand or know fully how to direct. His development throughout the novel was very subtle. I found it very interesting that he was portrayed largely as a pawn in his own life. A few times, he tells his father that he "can't control it", meaning his art. In much of the "dialog" that happens between Asher and most characters, he is largely a character who isn't directing the actions of his world. He is often silent and lets others make their assumptions and their decisions. And yet, through that silence, he imposes his will on those who are closest to him.
Asher's parents are also very lucid characters. Asher's mother is passionate and very torn between her devotion to her husband and to her son. The final climactic work of Asher truly captures his mother's character. His father was also very well portrayed. I found myself frustrated with him at times but also sympathizing with him. There was a section where Asher tries to explain art to his father, going into the technical artistic terms and phrases. That scene was a very profound description of the huge disparity between their two worlds.
The other characters in the book were largely there as tools either for Asher's own development or for exploring the gap between Asher's two worlds, art and Judaism.
Plot/Writing/Pacing
There were times that I would have liked the story to pick up the pace a bit. The descriptions were great (very artistic) and the depth that the scenes gave to Asher and his family and friends was huge. I'm not sure what scenes I would have cut or tightened up, but there were times that I would to have liked it to speed up a little.
The plot itself was intense. The novel was divided into "books" outlining different parts in Asher's life and development. Each "book" built on those before it and none of the sections came to a final "conclusion" or at least to a "happy ending." Even though I would not like to see them split into stand alone books, looking back, I see that as a possibility. They each had their own rising action, climax, and hint of resolution. And together through the course of the novel, they provided an overall rising action, with the final book having the greatest climax before the final "resolution."
Overall
Even though this book focussed on conflict between art and Judaism, it goes much deeper than that dynamic. I found myself relating many times to things that Asher would say or think. He was conflicted between his religious heritage and the "carnal" world. He was conflicted between respecting his parents and becoming his own person. He was conflicted between Tradition and Growth. He was conflicted between two things that were both "good." So much of his character development embodies principles that apply to us all.
The story and the writing was very interesting and thought provoking. I enjoyed reading it. The final climax made my soul churn as I realized there was no "happy" way for things to resolve. I'm not one to beg for happy endings, but after getting so attached to Asher, I had hoped that things would turn out better. Still (not to spoil the end), things didn't end up as grim as they could have done. I believe Potok wrote a second book about Asher Lev. I may have to read that as well to see what becomes of him beyond this novel.
The reading isn't "heavy", but the tone of the book is heavy. But Definitely Recommended.
****
4 Stars
Content/Theme
Before commenting on anything else, I need to comment on the theme and content of the book.
This book is deeply entrenched in the Jewish culture and has many references that are likely very commonplace to those in the Jewish culture, but were very foreign to me. I got the general meaning of most things from context, but I still have a long list of terms, phrases and actions to look up and better understand.
This book also has a lot of great detail about the art world. This is another realm in which I am an inexperienced traveler. I had a better understanding of art than Judaism, but there were still numerous names, periods, phrases and theories that I didn't understand directly.
One suggestion that I would make which added huge depth to me, is to Google the names of the various paintings/sculpures/artists that are referenced and that Asher studies intently. Some are more important than others, but just seeing what it is he's seeing and experiencing brought a huge new depth to the book.
Characters
Obviously, Asher is the main character. He is a very deep character with a ton of internal conflict and a lot of passion which he doesn't understand or know fully how to direct. His development throughout the novel was very subtle. I found it very interesting that he was portrayed largely as a pawn in his own life. A few times, he tells his father that he "can't control it", meaning his art. In much of the "dialog" that happens between Asher and most characters, he is largely a character who isn't directing the actions of his world. He is often silent and lets others make their assumptions and their decisions. And yet, through that silence, he imposes his will on those who are closest to him.
Asher's parents are also very lucid characters. Asher's mother is passionate and very torn between her devotion to her husband and to her son. The final climactic work of Asher truly captures his mother's character. His father was also very well portrayed. I found myself frustrated with him at times but also sympathizing with him. There was a section where Asher tries to explain art to his father, going into the technical artistic terms and phrases. That scene was a very profound description of the huge disparity between their two worlds.
The other characters in the book were largely there as tools either for Asher's own development or for exploring the gap between Asher's two worlds, art and Judaism.
Plot/Writing/Pacing
There were times that I would have liked the story to pick up the pace a bit. The descriptions were great (very artistic) and the depth that the scenes gave to Asher and his family and friends was huge. I'm not sure what scenes I would have cut or tightened up, but there were times that I would to have liked it to speed up a little.
The plot itself was intense. The novel was divided into "books" outlining different parts in Asher's life and development. Each "book" built on those before it and none of the sections came to a final "conclusion" or at least to a "happy ending." Even though I would not like to see them split into stand alone books, looking back, I see that as a possibility. They each had their own rising action, climax, and hint of resolution. And together through the course of the novel, they provided an overall rising action, with the final book having the greatest climax before the final "resolution."
Overall
Even though this book focussed on conflict between art and Judaism, it goes much deeper than that dynamic. I found myself relating many times to things that Asher would say or think. He was conflicted between his religious heritage and the "carnal" world. He was conflicted between respecting his parents and becoming his own person. He was conflicted between Tradition and Growth. He was conflicted between two things that were both "good." So much of his character development embodies principles that apply to us all.
The story and the writing was very interesting and thought provoking. I enjoyed reading it. The final climax made my soul churn as I realized there was no "happy" way for things to resolve. I'm not one to beg for happy endings, but after getting so attached to Asher, I had hoped that things would turn out better. Still (not to spoil the end), things didn't end up as grim as they could have done. I believe Potok wrote a second book about Asher Lev. I may have to read that as well to see what becomes of him beyond this novel.
The reading isn't "heavy", but the tone of the book is heavy. But Definitely Recommended.
****
4 Stars
April 1, 2024
The power of art, and I view writing as a kind of art, is that it leads to feelings of all sorts, sometimes to memory.
I understand the compulsion of artists. When I was young, I started drawing compulsively. I drew the faces of the Beatles. I drew pretty girls. After drawing the faces in fashion magazines, I learned how to apply makeup. As I grew into womanhood, and continued my passion to draw, there were things that happened to me that I did not want to confront. I wanted to forget them and get on with a life.
I started studying art. I continued to draw, mostly pencil portraits at first. I got very good at representational art. I learned to paint. I painted pretty things. I painted landscapes and still lifes. I painted abstractions. Time would disappear when I was painting. Those beginning paintings hang in the houses of my relatives and friends. I gave some away to strangers. I sold a few. They were only steps in learning the craft of painting. I gave them away.
One drawing stands out in my memory because it represented the terror I felt as a young woman. It was a black and white, pen and ink drawing of a woman fleeing through a forest with a target centered and superimposed on her. It was a drawing of what I feared to confront and wanted to forget. It wasn’t good enough to hang in a gallery, although it could have led to a suite of paintings which would show girls and children at risk.
I became instead a landscape archiect. I needed something that I could do without relying on a man for support. I used my artistic skills to develop a craft and career that does not require putting as much of myself into the subject of my work, and has offered me something of a career and a living. Now, instead of painting pretty things and places, I create places that are pretty, like Rivkeh’s birds and flowers.
I stopped painting, which takes time and requires a room of one’s own. And yet, some of that artistic imagination finds its way into my best work, which, by the way, is usually more collaborative than a painter’s art. I have evoked power with standing stones and wonder at the universe through suspended circles of light at a campus quad. At its best, it is work that inspires the imagination of others.
All of this is to say that My Name is Asher Lev is a work of art about art. The ending of this book touched my memories. Five tearful stars.
I understand the compulsion of artists. When I was young, I started drawing compulsively. I drew the faces of the Beatles. I drew pretty girls. After drawing the faces in fashion magazines, I learned how to apply makeup. As I grew into womanhood, and continued my passion to draw, there were things that happened to me that I did not want to confront. I wanted to forget them and get on with a life.
I started studying art. I continued to draw, mostly pencil portraits at first. I got very good at representational art. I learned to paint. I painted pretty things. I painted landscapes and still lifes. I painted abstractions. Time would disappear when I was painting. Those beginning paintings hang in the houses of my relatives and friends. I gave some away to strangers. I sold a few. They were only steps in learning the craft of painting. I gave them away.
One drawing stands out in my memory because it represented the terror I felt as a young woman. It was a black and white, pen and ink drawing of a woman fleeing through a forest with a target centered and superimposed on her. It was a drawing of what I feared to confront and wanted to forget. It wasn’t good enough to hang in a gallery, although it could have led to a suite of paintings which would show girls and children at risk.
I became instead a landscape archiect. I needed something that I could do without relying on a man for support. I used my artistic skills to develop a craft and career that does not require putting as much of myself into the subject of my work, and has offered me something of a career and a living. Now, instead of painting pretty things and places, I create places that are pretty, like Rivkeh’s birds and flowers.
I stopped painting, which takes time and requires a room of one’s own. And yet, some of that artistic imagination finds its way into my best work, which, by the way, is usually more collaborative than a painter’s art. I have evoked power with standing stones and wonder at the universe through suspended circles of light at a campus quad. At its best, it is work that inspires the imagination of others.
All of this is to say that My Name is Asher Lev is a work of art about art. The ending of this book touched my memories. Five tearful stars.
February 26, 2023
Feb 24, 22pm ~~ Review asap.
Feb 25, 820pm ~~ This book was my introduction to Chaim Potok so many years ago that I don't even remember exactly when I first read it. But it made a tremendous impression on me back then: Potok became a favorite author, one I kept my eyes open for at all the used book sales I used to visit.
This year I am rereading my Potok library (and added a few new-to-me titles to it). I am reading in order of publication: I started with The Chosen and The Promise. My Name Is Asher Lev is the author's third novel, originally published in 1972.
This is another intense, intimate novel that might leave the reader a bit drained by the final page. Once again Potok creates a character who is vibrantly alive and makes the reader live in that character's world, experience all the events swirling through Asher's sometimes tortured psyche.
We see through Asher's eyes what it is like to have a talent that is beyond anything the people around you could ever imagine; a talent that scares people, but a talent that insists on being used. Asher was an artist before he ever knew the meaning of the word, but his ability made life hard for him. How can he learn to make his gift work for him without losing himself in the process?
Because artists don't wear the earlocks and clothing of Haisidic Jews. Do they? That talent is not a gift, it is something evil that comes from the Other Side. Isn't it?
We follow Asher as he grows and discovers answers to these and other questions that will shape the man he becomes by the end of the book. And for me the journey was spellbinding. The psychological ins and outs, ups and downs, questions sometimes with answers, sometimes not. The characters we meet, the ideas that are discussed. Absolutely hypnotic from beginning to end and very hard to put down.
I said I am reading my pile of Chiam Potok titles in order of publication date but I have skipped the next three for now in order to get immediately to The Gift Of Asher Lev. It is another reread after very many years, and I cannot wait to see What Happened Next in Asher's life!
Feb 25, 820pm ~~ This book was my introduction to Chaim Potok so many years ago that I don't even remember exactly when I first read it. But it made a tremendous impression on me back then: Potok became a favorite author, one I kept my eyes open for at all the used book sales I used to visit.
This year I am rereading my Potok library (and added a few new-to-me titles to it). I am reading in order of publication: I started with The Chosen and The Promise. My Name Is Asher Lev is the author's third novel, originally published in 1972.
This is another intense, intimate novel that might leave the reader a bit drained by the final page. Once again Potok creates a character who is vibrantly alive and makes the reader live in that character's world, experience all the events swirling through Asher's sometimes tortured psyche.
We see through Asher's eyes what it is like to have a talent that is beyond anything the people around you could ever imagine; a talent that scares people, but a talent that insists on being used. Asher was an artist before he ever knew the meaning of the word, but his ability made life hard for him. How can he learn to make his gift work for him without losing himself in the process?
Because artists don't wear the earlocks and clothing of Haisidic Jews. Do they? That talent is not a gift, it is something evil that comes from the Other Side. Isn't it?
We follow Asher as he grows and discovers answers to these and other questions that will shape the man he becomes by the end of the book. And for me the journey was spellbinding. The psychological ins and outs, ups and downs, questions sometimes with answers, sometimes not. The characters we meet, the ideas that are discussed. Absolutely hypnotic from beginning to end and very hard to put down.
I said I am reading my pile of Chiam Potok titles in order of publication date but I have skipped the next three for now in order to get immediately to The Gift Of Asher Lev. It is another reread after very many years, and I cannot wait to see What Happened Next in Asher's life!
April 25, 2023
How do I write a review of this extraordinary book? This is the question I pondered over last night upon finishing ‘My Name is Asher Lev’. A book and an author that I had never heard of up until 10 days ago has now become my best read of 2023 and has entered into my all time favourites list. I felt as though I was both reading and viewing the world through Asher’s eyes, and Potok’s prose was filled with a certain rhythm and poetry that made the experience even more unique and memorable.
I kept re writing this review but realised it was pointless to try and convey how I felt, but It has only happened to me a couple of times before, when you read a book and you feel it somehow touches your soul. That is how I felt reading about Asher Lev - a moment in time that I just needed to read undisturbed and fully appreciate the magic of Potok’s masterpiece.
Thank you to both Diane and Wyndy, I would have never have stumbled across this book, if it weren’t for your stellar reviews and when I finished I once again realised how much I have developed and grown as a reader since joining Goodreads, it’s made such a positive difference to me on a personal level, so I wanted to thank each and every one of my GR friends.
July 23, 2014
Let me preface this review by stating that I have little basis for identifying with many characters in the book: I am not Jewish, was not raised in a religious community, did not see my community nearly exterminated during the worst conflict in the 20th century, and couldn't draw a properly proportioned stick figure to save my life. In spite of all of these obstacles I found this book both challenging and emotionally compelling.
This book raises many questions: what does it mean to be an artist? What does it mean to be a Jew? Can the two be reconciled? Can someone meet the responsibilities of being an artist and a Jew without betraying the other? To what do we owe ourselves and what do we owe our family and community? These are not easily answered because they are so unique to every person. They are dependent upon a person's proclivities, experiences, and environment.
This book told the story of one particular Hasidic Jew, Asher Lev, his struggle with these questions, and the impact of them on those around him, especially his parents.
The setting is very important to this novel. It takes place from Asher's youth in the early 1950's through his early adulthood in the late 1960's. The holocaust is still a living memory for the Jewish community and Stalin was busy being Stalin towards Russian and Eastern European Jews. It was a time of great uncertainty for Jewish culture, yet another dark chapter in their history that threatened their continued cultural existence. Asher's father worked for a Rebbe (think of them as sort of mini-Popes for particular Hasidic Sects; next to God in their righteousness), traveling the country and later Europe establishing Yeshivas (Jewish educational institutions) to preserve and grow the studying of the Torah by Jews. Asher's grandfather worked for the Rebbe's father before being killed by a Russian peasant during Easter week back in Russia. Sufficed to say there was an expectation that Asher would continue this relationship, studying the Torah and working for the greater benefit of Jews worldwide by assisting the Rebbe.
But Asher is different, he is driven by a need to create art. He is very religiously observant: keeps kosher, prays three times a day, observes the Sabbath, etc. He wants to be a good Jew and honor his parents, make them proud of him, but he is driven to create art which his father thinks is foolish.
This book is about tension. The tension between Asher's artistic aspirations and his father's desire that he study the Torah and more serious matters. The tension between his Jewish heritage and the "goyish and pagan" world of art. The tension between his family's legacy (going back many generations and an integral part of how Asher views his placein the world) and the path he chooses for himself. The tension between what people want Asher to be and what he is.
Potok tells this story beautifully from Asher's limited perspective. When Asher was a child the narrative is simple, as seen from a child's perspective. As Asher grows, so too does the introspective nature of the narrative. Asher becomes more perceptive and aware of his world and his self. As his study of art grows he begins to the see the world in terms of lines, contours, planes, and colors. The artist's eye grows and becomes an integral part of his perception of the world. He recognizes and is forced to comes to grip with the tensions and conflicts in his life. More importantly, though, he also becomes more sympathetic to the struggles his mother and father endured. As he travels Europe he sees all the good his frequently absent father brought to many Jewish communities. As he reflects on his past he realizes the anguish and hardship his Mother endured trying to bridge the gap between himself and his father. He embraces both of their humanities in the creation of his greatest and most dangerous works of art.
As a reader I became more and more emotionally invested with Asher. I saw his triumphs, his struggles, the choices he had to make and the choices that were forced upon him. He was told by a great artist who became his teacher that eventually his art would hurt people and the only way to atone for that was to become an even greater artist. But when faced with this reality at one of his art shows he feels dread, apprehension, doubt. He reacts as any human would when his essence directs him down a path that could alienate him from his family, his community, and his identity. Like life the resolution of this book is messy and tragic.
This was a fantastic, if slow paced and introspective, book. I found it to be emotionally resonating and sympathetic. The characters were beautifully crafted and empathetic, the descriptions through an artist's eyes were evocative, and it ended as it should have without pulling any emotional punches.
Further notes:
-This book is populated by a wonderful variety of secondary characters that influence Asher: a Russian Jew who spent several years in Siberia before fleeing to the west, Asher's aged art mentor, Asher's Uncle who supports his art work while Asher lived with him, even the few times we see the Rebbe and his influence was interesting. So while the title of this book may be I am Asher Lev, it is also about all the other influences that made him the Asher Lev we see at the end of the book.
-While Marc Chagall exists in this world, it is pretty clear he also served as a template for Asher Lev: they were both Jewish artists that were some what anomalous among within their community. If you are unfamiliar with Chagall I highly recommend a Google image search, he had some very excellent and thought provoking pieces such as The White Crucifixion:
-While all of the above seems quite heavy and depressing there were plenty of moments of levity, such as when Asher has to paint his first nude, a task sprung on him by his blunt and crotchety (and awesome) art mentor.
-There were many interesting passages about the nature of art and what it means to be an artist. Truth, beauty, and self-honesty were very fascinating themes throughout the middle and later parts of the book.
-What I liked about this book was that there were no bad guys. His Father was very devoted to his family and lived through some very terrible times for his people. He believed that all Jews had a responsibility to help each other and bear the light of the Torah for the next generation. He had a very compassionate view on humanity, seeing the death of even one (Jew or non-Jew) as a great loss as there death deprived the world of future generations. But at the same he lives with the memory that his father was killed by a drunk Russian peasant during Easter week. This resulted in his aversion to Christian iconography (especially the Jesus on the crucifix) on top of the historic pogroms perpetuated against his people carried out under those symbols. He is not a bad man, just a man who cannot understand his son and his son's dedication to a practice he sees as distinctly un-Jewish.
This book raises many questions: what does it mean to be an artist? What does it mean to be a Jew? Can the two be reconciled? Can someone meet the responsibilities of being an artist and a Jew without betraying the other? To what do we owe ourselves and what do we owe our family and community? These are not easily answered because they are so unique to every person. They are dependent upon a person's proclivities, experiences, and environment.
This book told the story of one particular Hasidic Jew, Asher Lev, his struggle with these questions, and the impact of them on those around him, especially his parents.
The setting is very important to this novel. It takes place from Asher's youth in the early 1950's through his early adulthood in the late 1960's. The holocaust is still a living memory for the Jewish community and Stalin was busy being Stalin towards Russian and Eastern European Jews. It was a time of great uncertainty for Jewish culture, yet another dark chapter in their history that threatened their continued cultural existence. Asher's father worked for a Rebbe (think of them as sort of mini-Popes for particular Hasidic Sects; next to God in their righteousness), traveling the country and later Europe establishing Yeshivas (Jewish educational institutions) to preserve and grow the studying of the Torah by Jews. Asher's grandfather worked for the Rebbe's father before being killed by a Russian peasant during Easter week back in Russia. Sufficed to say there was an expectation that Asher would continue this relationship, studying the Torah and working for the greater benefit of Jews worldwide by assisting the Rebbe.
But Asher is different, he is driven by a need to create art. He is very religiously observant: keeps kosher, prays three times a day, observes the Sabbath, etc. He wants to be a good Jew and honor his parents, make them proud of him, but he is driven to create art which his father thinks is foolish.
This book is about tension. The tension between Asher's artistic aspirations and his father's desire that he study the Torah and more serious matters. The tension between his Jewish heritage and the "goyish and pagan" world of art. The tension between his family's legacy (going back many generations and an integral part of how Asher views his placein the world) and the path he chooses for himself. The tension between what people want Asher to be and what he is.
Potok tells this story beautifully from Asher's limited perspective. When Asher was a child the narrative is simple, as seen from a child's perspective. As Asher grows, so too does the introspective nature of the narrative. Asher becomes more perceptive and aware of his world and his self. As his study of art grows he begins to the see the world in terms of lines, contours, planes, and colors. The artist's eye grows and becomes an integral part of his perception of the world. He recognizes and is forced to comes to grip with the tensions and conflicts in his life. More importantly, though, he also becomes more sympathetic to the struggles his mother and father endured. As he travels Europe he sees all the good his frequently absent father brought to many Jewish communities. As he reflects on his past he realizes the anguish and hardship his Mother endured trying to bridge the gap between himself and his father. He embraces both of their humanities in the creation of his greatest and most dangerous works of art.
As a reader I became more and more emotionally invested with Asher. I saw his triumphs, his struggles, the choices he had to make and the choices that were forced upon him. He was told by a great artist who became his teacher that eventually his art would hurt people and the only way to atone for that was to become an even greater artist. But when faced with this reality at one of his art shows he feels dread, apprehension, doubt. He reacts as any human would when his essence directs him down a path that could alienate him from his family, his community, and his identity. Like life the resolution of this book is messy and tragic.
This was a fantastic, if slow paced and introspective, book. I found it to be emotionally resonating and sympathetic. The characters were beautifully crafted and empathetic, the descriptions through an artist's eyes were evocative, and it ended as it should have without pulling any emotional punches.
Further notes:
-This book is populated by a wonderful variety of secondary characters that influence Asher: a Russian Jew who spent several years in Siberia before fleeing to the west, Asher's aged art mentor, Asher's Uncle who supports his art work while Asher lived with him, even the few times we see the Rebbe and his influence was interesting. So while the title of this book may be I am Asher Lev, it is also about all the other influences that made him the Asher Lev we see at the end of the book.
-While Marc Chagall exists in this world, it is pretty clear he also served as a template for Asher Lev: they were both Jewish artists that were some what anomalous among within their community. If you are unfamiliar with Chagall I highly recommend a Google image search, he had some very excellent and thought provoking pieces such as The White Crucifixion:
-While all of the above seems quite heavy and depressing there were plenty of moments of levity, such as when Asher has to paint his first nude, a task sprung on him by his blunt and crotchety (and awesome) art mentor.
-There were many interesting passages about the nature of art and what it means to be an artist. Truth, beauty, and self-honesty were very fascinating themes throughout the middle and later parts of the book.
-What I liked about this book was that there were no bad guys. His Father was very devoted to his family and lived through some very terrible times for his people. He believed that all Jews had a responsibility to help each other and bear the light of the Torah for the next generation. He had a very compassionate view on humanity, seeing the death of even one (Jew or non-Jew) as a great loss as there death deprived the world of future generations. But at the same he lives with the memory that his father was killed by a drunk Russian peasant during Easter week. This resulted in his aversion to Christian iconography (especially the Jesus on the crucifix) on top of the historic pogroms perpetuated against his people carried out under those symbols. He is not a bad man, just a man who cannot understand his son and his son's dedication to a practice he sees as distinctly un-Jewish.
June 29, 2019
Without question one of the finest pieces of literature I've ever read. Incredibly powerful. It is the story of a young prodigy artist who had, in my opinion, the great misfortune to be born into a very ultra orthodox Jewish family (but actually, I feel that way about any religions). He is driven, almost helplessly, to draw and paint against his fathers wishes who considers his efforts to come from the "other side". Definitely one of those books written so well that you hate to see it finally come to an end.
November 21, 2020
"My name is Asher Lev" est un bildungsroman bien réussi dont le protagoniste est un jeune newyorkais né dans une famille hassidique du groupe loubavitch. L'hassidisme est un mouvement judaïque intégriste et Kabbalistique fondée du dix-huitième siècle en Pologne. Les membres vivent en communautés séparées des chrétiens. Ils suivent le code vestimentaire judaïque moyenâgeux. Les hommes portent des papillotes et les femmes mariées portent des perruques. Vus de l'extérieure le but des Hasidim semble être de résister la modernité à tout prix.
Je recommande fortement "My name is Asher Lev" à tous ceux qui veulent comprendre la culture américaine du vingtième siècle. L'importance des Hasidim dépassaient de loin leur très faible nombre. Par le fait d'exister, les Hasidim dérangeaient beaucoup la majorité des juifs américains hautement assimilés cars ils semaient la doute chez eux. Les Hasidim forçaient les autres juifs à se demander s'ils pratiquaient le judaïsme de la bonne manière. En même temps par leur ferveur ils dérangeaient énormément les chrétiens aux É.-U. qui devenaient de plus en plus tiède dans leurs pratiques. Lors de sa parution en 1972 on pensait que "My name is Asher Lev" s'adressaient à l'Amérique en entier.
Potok commence par analyser les inconvénients d'être hassidique. D'abord les Hasidim sont ridiculisés dans les rues parce qu'ils ont l'air bizarre. Asher Lev est fortement gêné par les regards qu'il attire lors de ses visites au Metropolitan Museum. Un problème plus sérieux est qu'Asher possède un don pour la peinture et tandis que sa religion lui interdit de représenter des êtres humaines.
Le père d'Asher est furieux quand Asher néglige ses études pour consacrer toute son énergie à la peinture. Heureusement le père est parti la plupart du temps en Europe où il organise des nouveaux Yeshiva (écoles juives). Laissé seul, Asher développe son talent et devient un artiste célèbre.
Le père d'Asher sort immédiatement de sa première exposition à cause de deux tableaux avec des femmes nues. La deuxième exposition provoque une rupture définitive. Cette fois Asher représente son grand-père assassiné à Paques par un chrétien comme Christ crucifié. Son père est hors de lui et le Rabbin expulse Asher de la communauté. À la fin du roman, Asher comprend qu'il devra faire son chemin tout seul.
Potok est déchiré par son protagoniste. Il défend son droit de suivre son étoile. Aussi il insiste que les intentions d'Asher étaient bonnes. Néanmoins, les écarts d'Asher sont extrêmement graves. "My name is Asher Lev" n'offre pas de solutions faciles. Il a perdu beaucoup de son actualité mais il est toujours un roman très puissant.
Je recommande fortement "My name is Asher Lev" à tous ceux qui veulent comprendre la culture américaine du vingtième siècle. L'importance des Hasidim dépassaient de loin leur très faible nombre. Par le fait d'exister, les Hasidim dérangeaient beaucoup la majorité des juifs américains hautement assimilés cars ils semaient la doute chez eux. Les Hasidim forçaient les autres juifs à se demander s'ils pratiquaient le judaïsme de la bonne manière. En même temps par leur ferveur ils dérangeaient énormément les chrétiens aux É.-U. qui devenaient de plus en plus tiède dans leurs pratiques. Lors de sa parution en 1972 on pensait que "My name is Asher Lev" s'adressaient à l'Amérique en entier.
Potok commence par analyser les inconvénients d'être hassidique. D'abord les Hasidim sont ridiculisés dans les rues parce qu'ils ont l'air bizarre. Asher Lev est fortement gêné par les regards qu'il attire lors de ses visites au Metropolitan Museum. Un problème plus sérieux est qu'Asher possède un don pour la peinture et tandis que sa religion lui interdit de représenter des êtres humaines.
Le père d'Asher est furieux quand Asher néglige ses études pour consacrer toute son énergie à la peinture. Heureusement le père est parti la plupart du temps en Europe où il organise des nouveaux Yeshiva (écoles juives). Laissé seul, Asher développe son talent et devient un artiste célèbre.
Le père d'Asher sort immédiatement de sa première exposition à cause de deux tableaux avec des femmes nues. La deuxième exposition provoque une rupture définitive. Cette fois Asher représente son grand-père assassiné à Paques par un chrétien comme Christ crucifié. Son père est hors de lui et le Rabbin expulse Asher de la communauté. À la fin du roman, Asher comprend qu'il devra faire son chemin tout seul.
Potok est déchiré par son protagoniste. Il défend son droit de suivre son étoile. Aussi il insiste que les intentions d'Asher étaient bonnes. Néanmoins, les écarts d'Asher sont extrêmement graves. "My name is Asher Lev" n'offre pas de solutions faciles. Il a perdu beaucoup de son actualité mais il est toujours un roman très puissant.
June 15, 2009
Books like this are wasted on the young. I’m so glad I was a lazy middle school student and didn’t read it because I would have missed most of the meaning and then passed over it now.
Though it started slow for me, sputtering out of the gate with 3 stars, it soon picked up speed and crossed the finish line with 5 stars - not because the story was racing, but because my mind was. You will see religiously devout parents through the eyes of a child; you will see the Hasidic Jewish world through the eyes of an artist, you will see Christianity through the eyes of Jew. And in the end you may see a little less black and white in your own world.
What I enjoyed most was riding shotgun with a boy who begins as a prodigy and ends as an artist. You see his mom and dad, the conflicting worlds of art and his religion, and masterpieces like the David and the Pieta through his eyes and you hear his thoughts as he processes all this information to create great art himself. It’s fantastic. You won’t need a seatbelt but you will need your brain. Enjoy the ride.
Though it started slow for me, sputtering out of the gate with 3 stars, it soon picked up speed and crossed the finish line with 5 stars - not because the story was racing, but because my mind was. You will see religiously devout parents through the eyes of a child; you will see the Hasidic Jewish world through the eyes of an artist, you will see Christianity through the eyes of Jew. And in the end you may see a little less black and white in your own world.
What I enjoyed most was riding shotgun with a boy who begins as a prodigy and ends as an artist. You see his mom and dad, the conflicting worlds of art and his religion, and masterpieces like the David and the Pieta through his eyes and you hear his thoughts as he processes all this information to create great art himself. It’s fantastic. You won’t need a seatbelt but you will need your brain. Enjoy the ride.
February 22, 2023
This book is buzzing around in my head. Balance between light and dark. What does it mean to leave a great work incomplete? The journeying of the mythic ancestor. Art. Master of the Universe. Dread. Good work.
It feels too fresh for me to write any clear thoughts about why it was so powerful.
All I can say is to read this book for yourself. But be careful if you do; it is not a book to be read lightly.
It feels too fresh for me to write any clear thoughts about why it was so powerful.
All I can say is to read this book for yourself. But be careful if you do; it is not a book to be read lightly.
April 9, 2023
4.5 stars.
Set primarily in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn, New York during the mid-1940’s through the mid-‘60’s, this novel is a dense, powerful, and emotional rollercoaster ride through the incompatible worlds of Hasidic Judaism and master artists that I won’t soon forget. Asher Lev is born to parents who are ultra-Orthodox Hasidic Jews with a long aristocratic lineage in the fictional Ladover movement. Asher is their only child, and he is born with “a unique and disquieting” gift, a gift for drawing and painting that has the potential to tear apart his family and his tight-knit religious community. Asher eventually must choose between artistic truth and loyalty to his family and faith, and it is a heartrending journey to witness. Mr. Potok writes this story with grace and intelligence from many of his own personal experiences, and I recommend it to everyone.
“Asher Lev, Hasid. Asher Lev, painter. I looked at my right hand, the hand with which I painted. There was power in that hand. Power to create and destroy. Power to bring pleasure and pain. Power to amuse and horrify. There was in that hand the demonic and the divine at one and the same time.”
Set primarily in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn, New York during the mid-1940’s through the mid-‘60’s, this novel is a dense, powerful, and emotional rollercoaster ride through the incompatible worlds of Hasidic Judaism and master artists that I won’t soon forget. Asher Lev is born to parents who are ultra-Orthodox Hasidic Jews with a long aristocratic lineage in the fictional Ladover movement. Asher is their only child, and he is born with “a unique and disquieting” gift, a gift for drawing and painting that has the potential to tear apart his family and his tight-knit religious community. Asher eventually must choose between artistic truth and loyalty to his family and faith, and it is a heartrending journey to witness. Mr. Potok writes this story with grace and intelligence from many of his own personal experiences, and I recommend it to everyone.
“Asher Lev, Hasid. Asher Lev, painter. I looked at my right hand, the hand with which I painted. There was power in that hand. Power to create and destroy. Power to bring pleasure and pain. Power to amuse and horrify. There was in that hand the demonic and the divine at one and the same time.”
January 31, 2010
This book reached me on many levels and gave me a lot to think about. Here are a few of them:
1. As parents, we push our children to do well in school, some of us want our kids to excel in sports, others want their kids to be leaders and to have a lot of friends and to be popular. Here we have a prodigy son who at a young age is a Mozart of art, and yet because of his parent's religious background and beliefs, he is made to believe his gift is bad and useless and that he should conform to their narrow and religious beliefs and forget about the gift. And yet a loving mother and a wise leader give him just enough space that he is able to become a master at a young age. It is painful that the parents are never able to understand the world of art and their son's gift. There seemed to be two statements to me here: Don't be this kind of myopic and selfish parent and make sure you understand your child's talents and needs. Quit trying so hard to mold him into a mini version of yourself. Luckily, Asher's mother was more understanding a loving than his father.
2. It seems like there was a lot to say about the whole mission of this particular branch of the Jewish Religion. In today's world as we hear about the extremists of each of the branches of various religions, there's not much to like. Extreme Muslims, Jews, Mormons, Catholics, Buddhists and others are remarkably similar in their lack of tolerance for behavior outside of their prescribed narrow box. The book does an excellent job of showing how religious beliefs are forced into the children. Asher is one of the few who is able to fight that pressure at a very young age.
3. Throughout the book, the art of art is described very well and in great detail. Anyone interested at all in the world of art will enjoy the evolution of the child prodigy into a budding successful artist and the influence of his outstanding and likable teacher.
4. I was disappointed that Asher didn't have any friends except for older mentors. No girlfriends or buddies. I don't believe that this is the case with most hugely talented artists, but perhaps in part, it is because of his Jewish religion and his strict way of life.
These are merely some of the main topics that I could think of quickly. The book is full of many metaphors and excellent psychology. The relationship Asher has with each of the adults in the book is very realistically described. It almost seems that it must be autobiographical.
1. As parents, we push our children to do well in school, some of us want our kids to excel in sports, others want their kids to be leaders and to have a lot of friends and to be popular. Here we have a prodigy son who at a young age is a Mozart of art, and yet because of his parent's religious background and beliefs, he is made to believe his gift is bad and useless and that he should conform to their narrow and religious beliefs and forget about the gift. And yet a loving mother and a wise leader give him just enough space that he is able to become a master at a young age. It is painful that the parents are never able to understand the world of art and their son's gift. There seemed to be two statements to me here: Don't be this kind of myopic and selfish parent and make sure you understand your child's talents and needs. Quit trying so hard to mold him into a mini version of yourself. Luckily, Asher's mother was more understanding a loving than his father.
2. It seems like there was a lot to say about the whole mission of this particular branch of the Jewish Religion. In today's world as we hear about the extremists of each of the branches of various religions, there's not much to like. Extreme Muslims, Jews, Mormons, Catholics, Buddhists and others are remarkably similar in their lack of tolerance for behavior outside of their prescribed narrow box. The book does an excellent job of showing how religious beliefs are forced into the children. Asher is one of the few who is able to fight that pressure at a very young age.
3. Throughout the book, the art of art is described very well and in great detail. Anyone interested at all in the world of art will enjoy the evolution of the child prodigy into a budding successful artist and the influence of his outstanding and likable teacher.
4. I was disappointed that Asher didn't have any friends except for older mentors. No girlfriends or buddies. I don't believe that this is the case with most hugely talented artists, but perhaps in part, it is because of his Jewish religion and his strict way of life.
These are merely some of the main topics that I could think of quickly. The book is full of many metaphors and excellent psychology. The relationship Asher has with each of the adults in the book is very realistically described. It almost seems that it must be autobiographical.
November 30, 2020
This book made me cry. I read it during a difficult moment in my life after a friend who recommended it had passed away and it really resonated.
It’s a beautiful book about a boy wanting to be an artist in the face of others discouraging his passion as a waste of time. It’s about family expectations placed on a child to conform. It’s about coming of age and finding yourself disappointing those who love you for wanting to be different. It’s about the mix of loneliness and opportunities that can result from being yourself.
If you have ever felt like a square peg in a round hole, had a passion you kept hidden because it doesn’t fit family expectations, or had experienced moments of rejection, you should read this book. The story can apply to so many communities and individuals who don’t conform to the majority view.
A young boy Asher grows up in a deeply religious community that sees art as either a barely tolerated waste of time at best or an insult to the community at worst. When the young Asher expresses genuine interest and talent in art, he is strongly discouraged. His mother, a profoundly anxious woman, loves her son but suffers deeply from the conflict. His father, a proud man who has devoted his career to his religious community, feels immense self-worth supporting others but does not understand how his son could be so different. When the community calls the father to Europe, the mother and son remain, giving Asher room to breathe, and he begins to visit museums to seek inspiration. His talent grows. When his father returns for a visit, the father finds his drawings and is furious, forbidding Asher from studying art. But once the father leaves, the boy cannot resist and soon gains a famous secular artist as a mentor who demands the boy express himself. When the mother eventually moves to Europe to be with her husband, Asher remains in Brooklyn with his uncle and continues his art apprenticeship.
After years apart, his parents attend Asher's art show, the culmination of his early career, and the issue of acceptance over conformity that has gripped and haunted this family comes to a head. Each family member then grapples with the consequences of their beliefs, and the results are profound.
Check it out.
It’s a beautiful book about a boy wanting to be an artist in the face of others discouraging his passion as a waste of time. It’s about family expectations placed on a child to conform. It’s about coming of age and finding yourself disappointing those who love you for wanting to be different. It’s about the mix of loneliness and opportunities that can result from being yourself.
If you have ever felt like a square peg in a round hole, had a passion you kept hidden because it doesn’t fit family expectations, or had experienced moments of rejection, you should read this book. The story can apply to so many communities and individuals who don’t conform to the majority view.
A young boy Asher grows up in a deeply religious community that sees art as either a barely tolerated waste of time at best or an insult to the community at worst. When the young Asher expresses genuine interest and talent in art, he is strongly discouraged. His mother, a profoundly anxious woman, loves her son but suffers deeply from the conflict. His father, a proud man who has devoted his career to his religious community, feels immense self-worth supporting others but does not understand how his son could be so different. When the community calls the father to Europe, the mother and son remain, giving Asher room to breathe, and he begins to visit museums to seek inspiration. His talent grows. When his father returns for a visit, the father finds his drawings and is furious, forbidding Asher from studying art. But once the father leaves, the boy cannot resist and soon gains a famous secular artist as a mentor who demands the boy express himself. When the mother eventually moves to Europe to be with her husband, Asher remains in Brooklyn with his uncle and continues his art apprenticeship.
After years apart, his parents attend Asher's art show, the culmination of his early career, and the issue of acceptance over conformity that has gripped and haunted this family comes to a head. Each family member then grapples with the consequences of their beliefs, and the results are profound.
Check it out.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 3,242 reviews