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A review by bbbzeliard
My Name Is Asher Lev by Chaim Potok
5.0
This is, for me, a long novel. There were parts I wanted to hurry through and parts I wanted to savor. My taste for intricate twists was not satisfied in this book, but my taste for beautiful, crushingly sad writing, was. I will likely never read this book again, but I won’t need to because its message and style are unforgettable.
Years ago I started — but didn’t finish — Potok’s first novel, “The Chosen”; I feel a call after reading this book to finish that. I think I’ll answer.
Beautiful and tragic. Even if you know nothing of Jews, the themes of family, purpose, will, gifts, humanity and history are herein so painstakingly revealed as to prick the soul into bleeding, well, whatever it is that souls bleed. If there is an overarching moral to this story, I would personally have to say that it would be that all choices have consequences, but those choices that fly in the face of one’s own accepted culture, tradition, and even religion, are those with the weightiest of consequences. Yet even in rebellion, we find a species of orthodoxy that can be denied, but not destroyed. We shape and are shaped by the part of world we live in and experience, even if our only goal is to give our part of the world a voice that can be heard by all who listen. If we manifest anything other than ourselves, misery is destined to eventually be both our inheritance and legacy.
Years ago I started — but didn’t finish — Potok’s first novel, “The Chosen”; I feel a call after reading this book to finish that. I think I’ll answer.
Beautiful and tragic. Even if you know nothing of Jews, the themes of family, purpose, will, gifts, humanity and history are herein so painstakingly revealed as to prick the soul into bleeding, well, whatever it is that souls bleed. If there is an overarching moral to this story, I would personally have to say that it would be that all choices have consequences, but those choices that fly in the face of one’s own accepted culture, tradition, and even religion, are those with the weightiest of consequences. Yet even in rebellion, we find a species of orthodoxy that can be denied, but not destroyed. We shape and are shaped by the part of world we live in and experience, even if our only goal is to give our part of the world a voice that can be heard by all who listen. If we manifest anything other than ourselves, misery is destined to eventually be both our inheritance and legacy.