My Name Is Asher Lev

Rating:
Summary: wonderful,lyrical and sweet
Review: Mr. name is asher lev tells the story of a young Chasidic Jew in Brooklyn who is beginning his lifelong oodyssey of artitic longing and adventure. His parents being good pious people are at times mystified and eventually mortified at the result of his art. Mr. Potok is perhaps my favorite novvelist because he writes ,so well, about things that matter:God,life, children and parents,art fun and love.In this book{which though it stands by itself, should be read with its sequal, THE GIFT OF ASHER LEV},Mr. Potok gets will ionto the creative mind. Asher Lev is faced with the torturous decision of art or conscience{well, family}. His decision and the conclusion remind one of Marc Chagalls white crucifixion. Superb writing,excellent story.

Rating:
Summary: To know the world of any artist of any kind. . .
Review: I just finished reading this book. I had to for school, and I was worried when everyone that I'd spoken to that had already read it said that it was boring. I have to admit. . . for the first third of the book I agreed with them. But as the book progressed and became an increasingly complex view of the artistic world, it began to ring a vague bell to my own experiences as a musician/composer and writer. This book is a deep image of the power that "the art" can have over a person, and what extremes he or she will go to for that art. I would recommend this book to anyone.

Rating:
Summary: I've read this several times...
Review: Brillant, passionate, painful. Potok's "My Name is Asher Lev" is one of the best books I've ever read (and read again). You're drawn into Asher's world to feel the power of his gift and the incredible responsibility it brings. Read this one. You'll never regret it.

Rating:
Summary: Heartbreakingly brilliant
Review: Imagine a talent, a gift, if you will, that rages inside an artist's soul with such passion that it must be expressed, to the point of almost controlling the artist, rather than the artist controlling the gift. Imagine the conflict in that artist's soul between his devout religious upbringing and the driving need to remain true to his art no matter what the consequences, even if the results would seem blasphemous. Imagine the artist's family, and indeed his whole environment, full of good-hearted people who cannot begin to understand his gift, who fear that his gift may even be inspired by dark forces.

This struggle is reality for scores of artistic people all over the world, and has been for centuries. Potok's novel illustrates the conflict, and the price that must be paid for true artistry, better than any book I have read recently, maybe ever. Every artist (or artist-pretender, which is what I really am, in the realm of music and songwriting) or every person who knows an artist should read this book. So should everyone else. This book deserves to be a classic.

Rating:
Summary: The struggle of an artist
Review: My Name Is Asher Lev is an amazing book that shows the power of Art and the price of struggle that goes along with it. The book is about a boy named Asher Lev who is born in a heavy religious family and has an amazing gift to paint and communicate his suffering and joys of the world. Asher Lev has to struggle as his religion (his father mostly) won't permit his work but he can't stop painting, he has an undying need to. Like any other Artist he struggles within himself and brings his personal life to public hurting those close to him. At the end of the novel, Asher Lev pays the ultimate price.

Being an actor I could relate to Asher Lev's struggle though I have been lucky to have accepting parents and no religious pressure put upon me. Still any artist has as much conflict and most are destroyed. Asher Lev seems to be very mute and lives in his own world and the conflict consists of the outsiders reaching into his world and tearing him away from his soul. If only people could sit down and talk with the artist and try to understand. Chaim Potok must've had the same struggle growing up and it's obviously shown here.

The book is well written and as far as content an easy read. All the characters and situations are believable and real to life. The ending I thought fell a little flat after a big event but I will have to read "The Gift Of Asher Lev", the second novel to really decide that more thoroughly. I recommend this book to anyone. Great work Chaim Potok, I'll be reading more of his books in the future.

Rating:
Summary: A picture of an un-beautiful world
Review: Asher Lev, like his creator Chaim Potok, is more interested in portraying what is true in the world than in portraying something nice, or beautiful. Of course, this wins him acclaim from strangers and scorn from those who know him.

My name is Asher Lev is a painfully real look at the development of a great artist, one who is also an observant Hasidic Jew, belonging to a prominent family. There are no huge events here, no tragedies or shocking revelations; there is simply the real and sometimes dark portrayal of a development, a battle between two worlds. His talent, perhaps even his need, to draw, to paint, to portray -- conflicts on a deep and serious level with his heritage, and his father's expectations.

This is not another "rebel without a cause" book. Asher does his best not to rebel -- and when he does, if he does, it is compelling, complex, and painful to him most of all.

Potok writes calmly and seriously with no sense of high drama. His ability to keep the events realistic and still let them speak with their own peculiar power is an excellent, is slightly unsettling, talent. His ability to simply paint complex characters is brilliant. This book is quietly disturbing, calmly passionate. Definitely worth reading.

A page from the novel:

"Inside my room, I lay on my bed with my eyes closed and thought about the man from Russia. I saw his face clearly: the nervous eyes, the beaked nose, the pinched features. That face had lived eleven yars in a land of ice and darkness. I could not imagine what it was like to live in ice and darkness. I put my hands over my eyes. There was his face, very clearly; not truly his face, but the way I felt about his face. I drew his face inside my head. I went to my desk and on a piece of blank white paper drew how I felt about his face. I drew the kaskett. I did not use any colors. The face stared up at me from the paper. I went back to the bed and lay on it with my eyes closed. Now there was ice and darkness inside me. I could feel the cold darkness moving slowly inside me. I could feel our darkness. It seemed to me then that we were brothers, he and I, that we both knew lands of ice and darkness. His had been in the past; mine was in the present. His had been outside himself; mine was within me. Yes, we were brothers, he and I, and I felt closer to him at that moment than to any other human being in all the world."

If you'd like to discuss this book with me, e-mail me at [e-mail]. but be nice.

Rating:
Summary: WOW
Review: How can i explain the beauty and amazement of this book to you? Maybe this will help.... I am not a Hasidic Jew. I am not an artist. I have never felt a passion for any form of art, the way Asher does. And yet, despite all that, i felt as if i WAS Asher. I felt his pain, his sorrow, his anguish. I felt his happiness and joy. I felt his confusion and darkness. I saw his mothers face at the last exhibit. I heard the words and phrases uttered by his father. I was inside him, and i felt his need to paint, his need for his gift to be unleashed.

Reading this book has had such an affect on me. It was powerful....very, extremely powerful. So i suggest you read it. Whomever you might be...it doesnt matter.

Rating:
Summary: One of my favorite books
Review: This is a fabulous book. Asher is an extremely gifted artist growing up in an hasidic community that does not understand nor value his gift. Written in first person, the reader gets a small glimpse of what it might be like to have such a gift and the curses associated with it. Potok brings to the surface so many questions about God, Orthodox Judiasm and Christianity. THe book forces the reader to look at the way you have defined God from a very different perspective. I love a book that makes you think, helps you understand someone else and yourself just a little better. My Name is Asher Lev definately accomplishes that. My book club recently read this book and it is great for discussion. Via the internet, I learned that Asher Lev is the character that Chaim Potok most identifies with and even were able to see a painting that Potok did representing the 2nd crucifixion. I highy recommend this powerful book. Its even better than The Chosen.

Rating:
Summary: Great, yet Irritating
Review: I am a non-observant Jew, so I found this book, which delves into the world of the Ladover Hasidim very interesting. As an artist, it was amazing to me the lengths some would go to silence another and the strength of will Asher Lew has to perservere and make of himself what he wants. My only criticism would be the use of all the phrases such as: "I'm very tired now. I think I'll go to sleep now. Yes. Goodnight." There were so many variations of that line, which didn't serve the plot or the characters at all. It just made them all seem like blindfolded clinically depressed people (which of course they were). Overall, highly recommended, although I preferred The Chosen.

Rating:
Summary: My favorite book
Review: MY NAME IS ASHER LEV is the most life-changing book I have ever read. I read it my first semester in a Christian college, and I had to lock myself in my room for 3 days after I finished it because it had so affected my life, I couldn't deal with anything else.

This book deals with art, fear, gifts from God, human condemnation, family relations and constraints, and reconciliation of creative gifts to God. It affected me deeply because I am a devoted Christian and have had to deal with the effects of religious (not necessarily Godly) opinions about creative gifts, and have had to weigh my gifts in the context of my religion.

Chaim Potok's writing is beautiful and evocative, and his story is intricate and important. MY NAME IS ASHER LEV deals delicately with issues of personal creativity vs. religion, and ends stunningly. If you have read Potok, this book should be the next on your list. If you haven't read Potok, this book is a wonderful one to begin with.