Nicole's review

[close]

blog this review

Copy/paste the text below into your blog. <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11507.My_Name_Is_Asher_Lev?utm_medium=api&amp;utm_source=blog_review" style="float: left; padding-right: 20px"><img alt="My Name Is Asher Lev" border="0" src="http://s3.amazonaws.com/photo.goodreads.com/books/1216910027m/11507.jpg" /></a> <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11507.My_Name_Is_Asher_Lev?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review">My Name Is Asher Lev</a> by <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7385.Chaim_Potok">Chaim Potok</a><br/><br/> <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/8280794?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review"><h3>My review</h3></a> This book follows the development of the artistic sensibility of a Ladover Hasidic man, Asher Lev, starting from early childhood. His tendency to find and express truth through art leads him into a perilous position, as far as his family and community members are concerned. Ladover community members and artistic figures alike warn him early on that his artistic pursuit will lead him to the dark side, the "sitra achra." His father even comes to believe that his art is a dark, animalistic impulse, since he cannot control his urge to paint and draw. <br/> <br/>Each moment of his development as an artist marks a greater divergence from his religiously devoted father, who has made it is life work to liberate Russian Jews and found new Ladover yeshivas. His mother is caught between the two men, and he captures her position by portraying her as a martyr in his "Brooklyn Crucifixion." The apotheosis of his departure from the boundaries of the religious community. "BC" is put on display in the early 1960s, when he is in his early 20s. After that piece is launched into the public eye, in the dramatic final pages of the book, the tension between his identity as a Hasid and as an artist becomes too great for the Ladover community. The Hasids expel him; but yet the artistic community, which has no problem with the underlying duality, takes him seriously as a "master" only at this point. <br/> <br/>Does Chaim Potok give a sufficient rationale to defend the actions of each side-- the artistic community, thirsty for new prodigies, and the Ladover community, devoted to a means of understanding the world that they equate with the basic survival and a rich tradition? Sure, it's balanced, but the point is there is only a limited space for a deviant within the tightly controlled religious sect. The art world embraces that deviance by lacking a binding moral code. <br/><br/><a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/list/566001?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review">View all my reviews.</a>