April 2023: Chaim Potok

Our April author is Chaim Potok (February 17, 1929 – July 23, 2002) - an American author, novelist, playwright, editor and rabbi.

His most popular novel is The Chosen.

What do you plan to read this month?

I’ve never read any Potok before. I have requested The Chosen from the library so hopefully it comes in time for me to read it this month.

I'll be reading In the Beginning and if time permits My Name is Asher Lev. I also have a literary criticism book Chaim Potok by Edward Abramson, which I may dip in & out of to get a better idea of his work.

the gates of november One of the few of his I haven't read

I'm currently reading The Gates of November as that is the one that arrived first from the library. It is a non-fiction, but is reading like a work of fiction-smooth. Very interesting. With other commitments I have in April, not sure that I will get to another.

I have The Chosen on my shelf and hope to start after the Easter holidays.

I’m planning to read My Name is Asher Lev; I’ve requested it from the library. It will be my first book by Chaim Potok.

I completed The Gates of November. This was a non-fiction read, but read like a novel. It was the story of the Slepak family from the days of Bolshevism to the son's eventual emigration to Israel. Potok collected information from the family through taped interviews and photographs. This Jewish family suffered terribly under Brezhnev, Kosygin, and Tikhonov regimes. From Potok's epilogue, ""Can we learn something from these chronicles about iron righteousness and rigid doctrine, about the stony heart, the sealed mind, the capricious use of law, and the tragedies that often result when theories are not adjusted to realities?" 272 pages 5 stars

finally getting around to that one, hope I like it as well

My copy of The Chosen came in at the library so I have started it. I’m on page 41. It’s going slowly for me. Not much of an opinion yet.

I was able to get My Name Is Asher Lev from the library and started reading last night. So far, so good—first chapter is very compelling.

My Name is Asher Lev is a fine novel, my first by Chaim Potok. I’m heading to the library this afternoon to find The Chosen. There’s a sequel to Asher Lev called The Gift of Asher Lev, that I also want to read, but that may spill over into next month.

I have finished The Chosen and I almost bailed because of the overlong baseball game at the beginning. I'm grateful I didn't, this was a wonderful exploration of father-son relationships.

edited for touchstone

I finally finished The Chosen on Friday after putting it down for awhile to read other books. I had a hard time with The Chosen pretty much from the first long chapter with the baseball game. This book is a great example of telling instead of showing. There are a lot of long expository passages some of which get into tedious details of Talmud.

The book is also uneven in terms of timing. For example, at the beginning from the baseball game onwards for most of the book we get a day by day rundown of the main character's life starting from when he is 15 years of age. Then 3/4 of the way through the book we fast forward through the next few years and end when the character is 22 years of age. It was uneven pacing. Early on we get a boring day by day of a character's life while being hospitalized for a week where their day to day activities and interactions do not change much. Then when the same character's life does change when he goes off to college little attention is given to that.

I appreciated the story of the friendship between the two boys and the different relationships they each had with their fathers. I also learned some things about Jewish history and Judaism that I didn't know. I like a lot of the themes in the book--psychology, forging your own path that's different from family tradition etc. So I do appreciate what Potok was trying to do but I don't think it had the most effective writing style.

As someone who is interested in psychology, I really enjoyed reading about Danny's study of psychology and his struggles with that. I am interested in seeing what happens with Danny, Reuven, and Reuven's father. I might read the sequel The Promise but it probably won't be soon.

I'm not upset that I read The Chosen but it was kind of a boring slog to get through at times. I might watch the movie version of the Chosen from the 1980s if I can find it.

>13 MissWatson: I am glad you enjoyed the book. Do you think you will read the sequel?

>14 Tara1Reads: I did not read The Chosen after all (other books making louder calls), and this makes me feel better! I think if I read more Potok, I’ll read the sequel to Asher Lev.

I read both the Chosen and The Promise in Jr hi. Growing up Jewish certainly gave me the background I needed to put new information (esp the Hasidic and Orthodox traditions) in context. So at the time they meant something to me. I too enjoyed the stories of the two boys, and the way the fathers handled it.. I didn't remember minding the lack of female main character, but tried to read Davitas Harp whose main charcter is female and ended up not likint it I am not sure what Id say about them as an adult but suspect the telling and not showing would bother me. Glad you read it and learned something from it

I'm behind in my reading this month, so will be starting My Name is Asher Lev in a day or two. And then will immediately move on to Elizabeth von Arnim.

>14 Tara1Reads: Not sure about that yet, but if I run into a copy I may.

I'm a little late finishing up my Potok reading. This month I read My Name is Asher Lev (1972).

Asher Lev, in his twenties and a famous painter, looks back on his early life. His desire to be a painter from age 10 conflicts with his Hasidic family and community. After a dramatic clash of cultures, Asher comes to realize that he cannot live a true life in both.

As with many of his novels, Potok based part of the story line on his own struggle with art (painting and writing) and his traditional Orthodox background. Even though it seemed repetitive, the book did keep me reading. I found the portrayals of observant Judaism to be informative and objective, even when they seemed overly strict.

Potok's narrative writing, especially descriptive passages, are wonderful, but his dialogue leaves a lot to be desired. Not only is it painfully terse, many times at least one person in the conversation doesn't answer, and we are left with silence and often conjecture on what the participants are thinking.

The only other work I have read by Potok is The Chosen, which I read several years ago. Potok's books don't have many memorable female characters. In this book Asher's mother is the only memorable female; she goes from illness to college to a Ph.D., but seems to get little recognition (from her family OR the author) for her achievements, and is mostly portrayed as suffering.

Overall I enjoyed the book and the portrayal of a world very different from my own. The plot kept me reading and the discussion of reconciling art and the artist within the confines of religious tradition were understandable and believable.

To enhance my understanding of Chaim Potok, I read a work of literary criticism: Chaim Potok by Edward Abramson (1986). Published in 1986, Potok was still alive (and still writing) when this analysis was written. In fact, Abramson was in communication with Potok to clarify points of understanding in his writings and interviews.

The book includes an overview of Potok's life (up to 1986), analysis of the 7 works published up until then (ending with Davita's Harp), and a final summary chapter. I read the intro, the chapters on The Chosen and My Name is Asher Lev, skimmed the chapters on his other works which I had not read, and read the final summary chapter.

Here are some highlights from what I read:

Raised in a traditional Orthodox (but not Hasidic) home, Potok was interested in both painting and photography in his youth. After being discouraged to continue with art, he decided to become a writer after reading Brideshead Revisited as a teenager. He has been quoted as saying that Hemingway had a major influence on his writing style. Potok would go on to become a rabbi in the modern Conservative branch of Judaism. He credited his time as a chaplain during the Korean war as giving him incentive to explore his own background through fiction.

Abramson identifies the following themes as running through Potok's work:
• religion in conflict with society
• individual needs in conflict with institutional beliefs
• tradition versus the modern
• fathers and sons
• Potok's books are in the end optimistic, even if there are no easy solutions
• Abramson points out that although many of Potok's major characters finally reject religious fundamentalism, they embrace a spiritual approach to life which may (or may not) include institutional religion.

Abramson acknowledges that as a writer, Potok emphasizes his themes and plots, while his characterizations and dialogue tend to suffer.

Finally, Abramson states that Potok rejected labels. Abramson quotes Potok:

I do not care for pigeonholes like 'American Jewish writer'...unless one is prepared to call Cheever, say, an 'American Protestant writer' ...I am an American writer writing about a small and particular American world. Novelists, for the most part, deal with small and particular American worlds.....(quoting James Joyce): 'In the particular is contained the universal.'"

I found this a thorough review of Potok's work up to 1986; Abramson is not uncritical of Potok, but in the end finds much that can be learned in diving deep into his works.

thanks for including that review, and it sounds like Potok was ok with it . I so feel for any author who is labeled like that. His example is apt.

"Potok's books are in the end optimistic, even if there are no easy solutions" this is why I liked them so much. I grew up in a conservative Jewish household, with parents who came from orthodox. I felt that push and pull of tradition and individul needs and social. It was good to read books that mirrored my experience and helped me deal with them somewhat

>21 cindydavid4: Another point that Abramson makes is that Potok, being a rabbi, is not only knowledgeable about all the branches of Judaism, but also presents the different traditions with objectivity. He can provide rational arguments from all points of view.

I felt in both of the books I read that the struggles that the main characters face are legitimate without making ultra Orthodox or Hasid traditions "wrong"; it's just not the right fit for the characters.

>20 kac522: Thanks for sharing this, it's informative.

yes, nowadays it seems we only here the bad and extreme when like everything else there are many facets to the beliefs and traditions. you are right he is very objective, which is rare unfortunately

I decided to strike while the iron was hot and go ahead and read The Promise which is the sequel to The Chosen before I lost all motivation or interest to read it. I am so glad I read it. It was so much better than The Chosen. One could read The Promise first without having read The Chosen because the major events from the first book are summarized in a couple of sentences here and there in The Promise. Although I do think having read The Chosen first added some extra depth and connection to the characters that enriched my reading experience of The Promise.

Some of the aspects from The Chosen that I did not like are still present in The Promise. The book opens with a long drawn out scene at a carnival much like the first book opened with a long scene about a baseball game. But these scenes do end up being important for everything to come later. So in a way it's necessary for what Potok is trying to build up to in the book. And the same with the repetitive scenes about studying Talmud; those are present in both books but I can see more of a reason for them in the second book.

The Promise has better pacing and everything is explored to a greater depth. The book is almost 400 pages whereas The Chosen was less than 300 pages. So there is more time in The Promise to adequately go through all the events and give them their proper attention. The psychology theme from the first book gets a lot more exploration in The Promise and there is a lot of time spent on mental health and its treatment.

Potok takes the theme of gambling literally for money from the opening carnival scene and makes it more figurative as in taking a gamble / taking a chance on a person and weaves that theme into all of the characters' interactions with each other. The themes listed in >20 kac522: are all present in The Promise. And as for this part "Abramson points out that although many of Potok's major characters finally reject religious fundamentalism, they embrace a spiritual approach to life which may (or may not) include institutional religion." there is a character in The Promise who does exactly that.

I enjoyed seeing the historical backdrop of each book and how historical events changed the characters' Jewish neighborhood in New York and the clashes that members of the same (but different) religion have. For example, in the first book the events take place in the 1940s as WWII is actively happening. The second book is set in the 1950s and the characters have seen an influx into their New York neighborhood of European Jews who survived the Holocaust. There is a lot of conflict and tension between what the American Jews consider to be Old World fundamentalist European Jewish beliefs and practices. The 1950s is one of my favorite historical time periods but these changes in U.S. communitites as a result of the Jewish Holocaust survivors coming over is something I never thought about. The two books serve as a before and after glimpse into a New York Jewish community.

For those that have mentioned the lack of women characters in Potok's books, there are more women characters in The Promise. The women come more to the forefront in this second book. We get to see women being more independent, getting an education, thinking and acting for themselves including making decisions that defy the religious norms.

I really like the characters of Reuven, Danny, and Reuven's father, David, and was so happy to spend more time with them and feel more connected to them. This is a rare instance where I would not even mind having a third book to the series so I could see where the characters end up going with the rest of their lives. I have so many quotes from The Promise written down in my book journal.

>20 kac522: Abramson acknowledges that as a writer, Potok emphasizes his themes and plots, while his characterizations and dialogue tend to suffer. I both agree and disagree with this statement. There is not much plot in The Chosen but there is a lot more going on in The Promise. Potok was good at emphasizing themes in both books. I was fine with his characterizations; I felt I knew and understood the characters and their motivations. The dialogue is a bit stilted in both books.

After reading The Promise, I watched the movie version of The Chosen. It's a good movie but has a lot of changes from the book. I was doing some Googling to see if there was a movie ever made of The Promise and stumbled across this interesting article from the director of The Chosen movie who said he originally did not want to make the film, then he changed his mind, made the movie, and it changed his life.

ETA: Quotes from The Promise:

The concentration camps destroyed a lot more than European Jewry. They destroyed man's faith in himself. I cannot blame Rav Kalman for being suspicious of man and believing only in God. Why should anyone believe in man? There are going to be decades of chaos until we learn to believe again in man.

And I thought I might try to learn something from the way Rav Kalman and the Hasidim had managed to survive and rebuild their world. What gave them the strength to mold smoke and ashes into a new world? I could use some of that strength for the things I wanted to do with my own life.

And this quote relates to the article I linked above written by the director of the Chosen movie:

The Master of the Universe has so created the world that everything that can be good can also be evil. It is mankind that makes a thing good or evil, Reuven, depending upon how we use the wonders we have been given. A telephone can also be a nuisance. But if it is used wisely, it is a mighty thing.

>25 Tara1Reads: Great review...maybe I'll get to The Promise one day.

>26 kac522: Thank you! I hope you enjoy it if you do get to it.