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57th out of 327 books
—
133 voters
The Book of Lights
by
Chaim Potok
Gershon Loran, a quiet rabinical student, is troubled by the dark reality around him. He sees hope in the study of Kabbalah, the Jewish book of mysticism and visions, truth and light. But to Gershon's friend, Arthur, light means something else, the Atom bomb, his father helped create. Both men seek different a refuge in a foreign place, hoping for the same thing....
Paperback, 0 pages
Published
September 10th 1997
by Ballantine Books
(first published 1981)
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I re-read Potok’s Book of Lights. I picked it up because Sunday I am preaching on light and I thought it would help me. The Kabballa is a major charcter, and is only one illusion of light. It is a difficult book. Much of the story centers around Arthur Leiden’s struggle because his father is one of the Jews who made the A-bomb. Much takes place in Korea. I couldn’t help but think about Charlie's distress at having worked at Oak Ridge during that time. One paragraph kept calling me back in which...more
I began reading Potok as a teen, beginning The Chosen. It was like a fascinating peek into a world I had never known existed. I read this book earlier and didn't like it as much. But, I picked it up again as an adult and knowing more about Los Alamos and the history of the bombs and the people who grow up with their parents connected to the making of them provided me with a different level of connection.
I feel this book is one of his very best, different from The Chosen, and his Asher Lev's, and...more
I feel this book is one of his very best, different from The Chosen, and his Asher Lev's, and...more
Over the years I have read several novels by Chaim Potok. I don't think I would have enjoyed this one 20 years ago - it is slow in some places and I imagine many readers would find it too slow. I found it beautifully written, exquisitely painful at times, exquisitely joyful at others. Interweaving themes based on Judaism, the study of Kabbalah, Korean War, WW II, family, Japan, the atomic bomb, penance and retribution and restitution, and family, Potok follows the lives and relationships of 2 se...more
In all my Jewish exploration this is my first Chaim Potok book. A housemate lent it to me and I am excited about the juxtoposition of Kabbala and Nuclear doomsday and its not even sci-fi! Thanks Cold War.
The book was clear and straight forward but dragged. The guilt of the Nuclear bombing of Japan was salient but at times seemed melodramatic and the use of light as a symbol of divinity, through Kabbala, and death, through nuclear explosion, seemed forced.
The most valuable elements were the des...more
The book was clear and straight forward but dragged. The guilt of the Nuclear bombing of Japan was salient but at times seemed melodramatic and the use of light as a symbol of divinity, through Kabbala, and death, through nuclear explosion, seemed forced.
The most valuable elements were the des...more
Like many Potok novels, the philosophical debate between the Talmud and Kabbalah underlines the action. However, in this case Gershon, our hero, has decided to follow the path of the Kabbalah "light". What I really loved about this book was the evolution of the protagonist: seeing Gershon transform from a guilty, sad, powerless young man to a leader and source of strength to those around him.
As the book moves into Korea and then Japan, we get to glimpse the Far East in the 1950's. I've never rea...more
As the book moves into Korea and then Japan, we get to glimpse the Far East in the 1950's. I've never rea...more
This is my fourth Potok and he remains a favorite, to be sure. This book didn't disappoint, but unlike the other novels I've read, I probably won't read it again. If I could, I'd actually give it 3.5 stars.
This book deals with war--but (again) unlike the other books I've read and reported on here, it doesn't mix it with religion as a paradox like the Lev books did with art and Davita's Harp did with politics. Instead we get a book about the ethics of Atomic war from the perspective of those who...more
This book deals with war--but (again) unlike the other books I've read and reported on here, it doesn't mix it with religion as a paradox like the Lev books did with art and Davita's Harp did with politics. Instead we get a book about the ethics of Atomic war from the perspective of those who...more
I haven't wept over the ending of a book in a long time. Today I cried as I finished reading The Book of Lights. I ask myself why I haven't read this one before and can't answer myself. I have read and re-read Asher Lev and the Chosen many times; I've read so many Potoks that I am infused by them. Book of Lights is slightly auto-biographical and conveys to me Potok's almost didactical urgency to commit his memories of the Orient to the written word. His terse prose relentlessly pulls me through...more
This is a beautiful book, one of Potok's best as far as I'm concerned, and I love them all. At first the subject seems to be the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This would be a great novel even if it were only a meditation on those events, because it manages to bring in so many viewpoints, thanks to one of the main characters whose father was involved in developing the bomb and whose mother had something to do with a city that was rejected as a target. It also manages to bring in...more
While The Chosen is much more widely known than this book, I found that The Book of Lights has stayed with me more closely through the years and is the one I claim as a guiding force. For me, it is a book that transcends the Jewish perspective and presents a meditative/contemplative experience that people from multiple faiths can identify with. In the years since I've read the book, I've found it interesting to compare it to works from other traditions such as The Cloud of Unknowing, a Christian...more
I've read several books by this author and I have to say that the style was very different but still effective. There are a lot of tonal shifts that reflect Gershon's drifting thoughts. It's a much more experimental style.
The book provided insight into how the wars affected young Americans at home and then in the service. Gershon's friend is guilt-ridden by his family's involvement in developing the atomic bomb. He is consumed by his guilt, driven to obsession with Japan and the Japanese people...more
The book provided insight into how the wars affected young Americans at home and then in the service. Gershon's friend is guilt-ridden by his family's involvement in developing the atomic bomb. He is consumed by his guilt, driven to obsession with Japan and the Japanese people...more
Imagine what life would be like if your parent helped to invent the atomic bomb.
Anything Potok writes is sure to be breathtaking, but it took a good 300 pages for me to get into this one. Gershon is so emotionally unavailable that I had a hard time liking him. He wanders thru life with no passion or purpose. He simply goes thru the motions of living.
I liked the way Gershon encounters new people once he gets to Korea. While Gabriel Rosen, a fellow Jew, appalls him, his Mormon assistant gives him...more
Anything Potok writes is sure to be breathtaking, but it took a good 300 pages for me to get into this one. Gershon is so emotionally unavailable that I had a hard time liking him. He wanders thru life with no passion or purpose. He simply goes thru the motions of living.
I liked the way Gershon encounters new people once he gets to Korea. While Gabriel Rosen, a fellow Jew, appalls him, his Mormon assistant gives him...more
My grandfather fought in the Pacific theater in WWII, and we never cease to have respectful disagreements on a regular basis about the ethics and justifications of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki... hence, my interest in this book. Potok teases our collective bipolarity concerning this historic weight out of the dialogue between the two main characters (Gershon and Arthur). The philosophical heaviness of the bomb and how the characters wrestled earthly and cosmic emotional fallout is why I...more
Jul 28, 2009
Nathanial
added it
Highly stylized, with elaborate use of symbols and allegory. Takes a distant third-person narrator through decades of the protagonist's life, in two or three very well-developed settings (slums, seminary, army). The author's challenge is to demonstrate how minor characters will affect the plot twists--and affect it not by their direct actions, but by their words and examples as impressed upon the main character's feelings and thoughts (which is an especial challenge because this particular prota...more
I finished this book yesterday, which was a fitting time to conclude it. It's been a slow read, taking me almost all summer, but that has more to do with me and less to do with the book itself, which is beautiful. I am glad in the end, as I finished it the day before the anniversary of the American bombing of Hiroshima, an event that plays a prominent role in this book, which is in many ways about two young men confronting that event in the legacy of their country and their families. It's a stun...more
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Not a book that you want to rush through, I found. My first thought was that The Book of Lights is markedly different from My Name is Asher Lev, yet some of the same themes dominate the book. What does it mean to be a Jew? What are one's responsibilities to one's family? Should one go through the motions or should one find one's passion? How can a person be both faithful to his family's traditions and faithful to making his way in the world? Important questions, all.
Gershon Loran, a quiet rabinical student, is troubled by the dark reality around him. He sees hope in the study of Kabbalah, the Jewish bok of mysticism and visions, truth and light. But to Gershon's friend, Arthur, light means something else, the Atom bomb, his father helped create. Both men seek different a refuge in a foreign place, hoping for the same thing....
I'm kind of surprised I finished this one, but the characters are pretty vivid despite very awkward dialogue (does anyone really talk like that?), and there are some interesting bits about the chaplaincy and what it might be like for a Jewish chaplain in Korea. So, kind of boring, and I wouldn't recommend it, but I still found it worth reading.
It's absolutely my favorite Potok (and no one else's as far as I can tell). A rabbi, in the Korean conflict, studying Kabbalah. It's mystic, and defiant. He's digging into mysteries and at the same time, resigned to the things around him. I can't explain it, but reading it was a revelation to me.
Have you ever been reading an author that you hold in high esteem--and you're pretty sure that you've already read his best stuff--and then he blows your mind? THAT was my pleasant experience with this novel.
I've read both Asher Levs, The Chosen, and The Promise. In terms of Potok I was pretty confident that his best work lay behind me. I also felt as if I knew what to expect from his novels. Book of Lights, however, showed me a completely different side of this literary master. In this novel Po...more
I've read both Asher Levs, The Chosen, and The Promise. In terms of Potok I was pretty confident that his best work lay behind me. I also felt as if I knew what to expect from his novels. Book of Lights, however, showed me a completely different side of this literary master. In this novel Po...more
What I wrote rigth after I read it: This book seems dark, perhaps darker than any of his others. It's about physics and kabbalah, so it's science and mystecism adn the world torn apart. He carried me along and made me ache and rejoice and ache again.
It was literally painful to get through this book. If it wasn't always left on my shelf as the only unread book before heading out on a trip, I couldn't have done it. Despite that, I still found the story (after page 3,485) interesting.
A very interesting and also moving book, a very Jewish book, and a very New Yorky book. Good, strong characters, a thirst for education and Judaism, and a story of friendship. Love it.
Chaim Potok may well write the best books I've ever read. He has the capacity of creating a world and filling it with detail but also of probing deeply into the human heart. His characters feel alive. Their thoughts are profound, moving, changing, and growing. Their hearts are huge, empathetic, yet aware of their shortcomings. Religion and politics form firm foundations in their lives but do not disrupt their personal and emotional growth. One comes away with the feeling that any other character...more
I have loved other novels by Chaim Potok, but this novel I am having a difficult time with. It moves very slow and the protagonist is almost characterless. Should I keep trying?
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Leave it to Potok to leave you with more questions then you had before you started the book.
Potok is addictive. This is not my favorite of his work, but I couldn;t still put it down.
Potok is addictive. This is not my favorite of his work, but I couldn;t still put it down.
Potok never ceases to amaze me. When I finish one of his books I'm always left speechless, with a ridiculous grin on my face. This one is certainly one of his more insightful and provocative- there were moments where his rhetoric tended toward broader, perhaps overly-romanticized statements-- but I don't care because I love him, and he can't do any wrong in my eyes. My favorite quote:
[Truth said]: "Why do you shield your eyes behind your hands? Is my darkness too keen, too bright?...There is so...more
[Truth said]: "Why do you shield your eyes behind your hands? Is my darkness too keen, too bright?...There is so...more
I've been reading Potok for 30 years. This one is less well-written than the others, but the interweaving of the Kabbalah with Kyoto has its attractions for me, so I did enjoy it, in a painful way.
A bit slow in parts, but really the only book I've read dealing with the Korean War. As a main character Gershon was a little too apathetic for me. He seemed to drift quite a bit, and even by the end of the book, I didn't quite have a handle on his character.
Reading about Arthur's struggles with his father's involvement with the atomic bomb, and the tensions that created in their family was another interesting look at that era.
Reading about Arthur's struggles with his father's involvement with the atomic bomb, and the tensions that created in their family was another interesting look at that era.
This is a long and frankly boring story that goes far deeper into a pointless plot than I wanted to go. You keep expecting something to happen, and it never does.
| topics | posts | views | last activity | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Does Gershon live with the Asperger Syndrome? | 1 | 5 | Aug 07, 2011 09:36am | |
| Best Potok | 3 | 10 | Oct 15, 2008 08:56am |
American author and rabbi. Herman Harold Potok was born in the Bronx to Jewish immigrants from Poland.
His parents, Benjamin Max (d. 1958) and Mollie (Friedman) Potok (d. 1985), gave him a Hebrew name, Chaim Tzvi. His Orthodox education taught him Talmud as well as secular studies.
He decided to become a writer as a teenager, after reading Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead Revisited.
More about Chaim Potok...
His parents, Benjamin Max (d. 1958) and Mollie (Friedman) Potok (d. 1985), gave him a Hebrew name, Chaim Tzvi. His Orthodox education taught him Talmud as well as secular studies.
He decided to become a writer as a teenager, after reading Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead Revisited.
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“I won't talk to you about my family and you won't talk to me about yours. Family talk is either boring or self-pitying. Or it's Gothic, like a Faulkner novel. Who needs to talk about it? It's enough to live it.”
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Jan 15, 2013 03:11pm