maisamuchon

“Do not try to understand. Become a great artist. That is the only way to justify what you are doing to everyone’s life.” From what I’ve heard about Chaim Potok’s novels and from what I know from the only other one of his that I’ve had the privilege of reading (The Chosen), they are all centered on the lives of Jewish boys in New York and their fathers; and My Name is Asher Lev is no different. This, however, does not stop it from being a damn good book. Potok explores the seeming impossibility of being both a person of faith and an artist a the same time—a dilemma to which Potok, an ordained rabbi and a novelist, can undoubtedly relate. Although the situations the protagonist, Asher Lev, faces are distinctly Jewish, the basic struggle to reconcile one’s religious convictions with one’s natural passion in life is widely inclusive. I was glad that the book self-consciously acknowledged that Asher’s final paintings invited “Freudian evaluations regarding [his] relationship with [his] parents.” Indeed, the entire novel seems to beg psychoanalytical investigation: Asher is haunted by recurring nightmares of a mythic ancestor, dreams which become more or less intrusive depending on how confident and comfortable he is in his role as an artist and in his relationship with his people; his relationship with Jacob Kahn is flecked with homoeroticism; and Asher’s protective infatuation with his mother and coolly competitive relationship with his father could all too easily be tagged as an Oedipal complex. But just as the lurid psychoanalyzing news stories in the novel were overshadowed by “the technical analyses of the paintings [which] were well done and very favorable,” so My Name is Asher Lev triumphs on the grounds that it’s just a really great, beautifully written story. Potok’s descriptions of the act of drawing and painting are lovely, and Asher’s effort to justify the pain he causes to those he loves by “becoming a great painter” is meaningful and relevant.

2022-11-14 18:33