A review by sunshinemc
My Name Is Asher Lev by Chaim Potok

4.0

This is the first of my favorite re-reads where I've thought, "Huh, that was definitely so meaningful to me because of the time of life when I first read it." But I still love this story because it illustrates the tension of creating art while trying to be truthful, even if it is painful. And I love the education that Asher goes through, from a boy scribbling pictures to a man sketching the David. While the writing is very subdued and simple in a lot of ways and Asher himself is rather bland, how Asher's view of the world is described is a wonderful glimpse into (and behind) the eyes of an artist - how he sees light in a room, how he sees lines in the rain, how he obsesses over recreating the colors of a street. I think most artists can relate to this story, even if not Jewish, even if not geniuses who caused their parents to constantly gape in bewilderment (THAT gets a little overdone in the first half of the book, but it's forgivable).