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A review by billyjepma
My Name Is Asher Lev by Chaim Potok
5.0
"My Name is Asher Lev" is a book that, when read, resembles something akin to canoeing in an unfamiliar environment. You take your time, admire the gorgeous scenery, the imagery, the simplistic beauty of a world foreign to you slowly becoming tangible. You paddle against the current, feel the strain in your muscles, but you press on because you are unwilling to let go of this new world you've entered into.
It's this wonderment that continues to drive you when the current suddenly grows fierce, and you can no longer steer or control your humble canoe against the growing intensity of the water. You might be thrown off-course, left in even stranger surroundings, tired, emotionally drained, and desperate for a break, but you cannot put down your paddle. Not yet. And then you get that break, that vital reprieve to catch your breath, but it is brief, for the rapids - and the intense emotions that come with them - are waiting just ahead, eager to pick up where you left off.
Chaim Potok has written a book that is so good it hurt to read. It's methodically paced, brutally honest, and thundering in its restraint. It lures you in with beautiful, simple, and meticulous writing; endears you to characters so raw and real you almost forget they're fictional; and then assaults you with emotions that you were neither expecting nor prepared for. It's a story of religion, of family, of art, of anger, of childhood, and of the wild, insurmountable passions that drive us. It's phenomenal and affecting in just about every way. Please read it.
It's this wonderment that continues to drive you when the current suddenly grows fierce, and you can no longer steer or control your humble canoe against the growing intensity of the water. You might be thrown off-course, left in even stranger surroundings, tired, emotionally drained, and desperate for a break, but you cannot put down your paddle. Not yet. And then you get that break, that vital reprieve to catch your breath, but it is brief, for the rapids - and the intense emotions that come with them - are waiting just ahead, eager to pick up where you left off.
Chaim Potok has written a book that is so good it hurt to read. It's methodically paced, brutally honest, and thundering in its restraint. It lures you in with beautiful, simple, and meticulous writing; endears you to characters so raw and real you almost forget they're fictional; and then assaults you with emotions that you were neither expecting nor prepared for. It's a story of religion, of family, of art, of anger, of childhood, and of the wild, insurmountable passions that drive us. It's phenomenal and affecting in just about every way. Please read it.