2020/5 Final Conclusions for Chaim Potok's The Book of Lights

[Jan]

This topic is for final conclusions about The Book of Lights. Spoilers okay, since people on this discussion are presumed to have read the book. This is the place for reviews or links to your review and more.

[Pamela]

This is a compelling story of a young rabbinical student (whose parents have died and who lives with his aunt and uncle) and who joins the U.S. Army as a chaplain. His close friend is the son of a physicist who helped develop the atomic bomb, and both young men struggle with their grief and their ambivalence about the direction of their lives. I admit i had to skip over the seminary/Kabbalah passages. Too heavy and seemed to go on and on. But the emotional lives of the main characters were fascinating, as was the portrayal of Korea in the post-war era, where Potok himself apparently served.

[Jonathan]

It had been a long time since I read a Chaim Potok book. I recently read In The Beginning, which followed along for me the same path as most of his other books. A story about an Orthodox family set in a certain period dealing with life, Antisemitism and the challenges of the times.

The Book of Lights is a much different book set eight years after the the end of WW II. It gives the feeling of a lost generation. One of the protagonists in the story feels great guilt over the dropping of the atomic bomb.

This was Potok 2.0. Extremely cerebral, very slow in movement. The book is broken into three parts and centers around two Seminary room mates who are doing rabbinical studies together. The first part is about their time at the seminary. For me it was very long and tedious reading. The second part dealt with their time in Korea as Army chaplains and the third part deals with their Journey to Hong Kong and Japan. The last two parts the pace of the story picks up. I am not sure if the subject matter was more interesting to me or the introduction of new characters and settings helped. Potok's description of poverty in Hong Kong was very gripping.

My impressions of the book are mixed, first I think you will get more out of the story if you have a knowledge of Kabbalah and/or Torah. I did not. What I did find interesting was the perspective of one who had lived in Los Alamos as a child and then had to deal with the aftermath of having a father who was one of the architects of the Atomic bomb. The Book of Lights is a book about two men trying to find their place in the world and at the same time deal with the demons that haunt them.

[Angela]

I love the book. I wish I had time to read it again.
Thats my summary.

[Jan]

This is my favorite of our poll winners so far!
Of course, we haven't been having polls for all that long, so plenty of room for future favorites.
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...