Customer Reviews

The Chosen

5 star:		(205)
4 star:		(72)
3 star:		(32)
2 star:		(12)
1 star:		(20)

 

 

This novel is suited for just about anybody regardless of religion or race. Those who are Jewish will relate a little easier but those of other faiths can apply the various relationships that occur in this book to their own lives.

The story is primarilly about two boys, Reuven and Danny who meet one day in a softball game. Danny is a Hassidic Jew and Reuven is merely Orthodox. Danny's initial impression is one of disdain towards Reuven as he is unable to relate to people who are not on his religious level at first impression. An accident on the ball field brings them together and eventually they begin a friendship. It grows deeper when both their fathers are drawn into each others worlds. It is indeed very interesting how each father raises his son so diffrently.

The backdrops of the hospital, World War II, the surrender of the Nazis, The Zionist Movement, and the eventual statehood of Israel effect the two worlds of Danny and Reuven. There is a period of time when the Zionist movement causes Danny and Reuven to put their friendship on hold. However, in time they return to nurture each other.

This is not a quick read by any means as anyone with a soul with be enamored by the details of this fine novel. Practically each page offers descriptive information about critical steps that Danny and Reuven take in their critical years to discovering themselves. Even both fathers learn something in the end. This is a story which will have you thinking and analyzing many many aspects of the lives of Danny and Reuven and I sincerely hope more teenagers and college students read this book and develop a greater acceptance for peers who may be a little different from themselves.

This is a story of friendship, a friendship that is formed between two Jewish boys (of differenct sects) under the most unusual circumstances. One boy, Danny, destined to be a tzaddik, a rabbi to the Hasidic community, is raised by his rabbi father who communicates to Danny only during study of the Torah. The other boy, Reuven, from a less strict Jewish sect, becomes more than a friend, actually more like a buffer or a liason between Danny and his father. Their friendship grows, is torn apart and then mended, leading to the emotional final chapter, as their true destinies begin to take shape.

Chaim Potok has become one of my favorite authors. This is the third book of his that I have read this year, and, as a Christian, his novels give me great insight into modern day Judaism. His books are not only informative, but brilliant, heartbreaking, and compassionate. Everyone with any kind of religious bent at all, or even the non-religious, should read his work. I'll guarantee that you will be moved.

I am an African American attorney who read this book as part of collecting readings for a summer trip with Operation Understanding to share with Black and Jewish high school students. Operation Understanding takes 8 Black and 8 Jewish students between their Junior and Senior years of high school on a trip across the South and Northeast, stopping at places of significance to both, in an effort to restore the alliance that existed between the groups especially during the Civil Rights Movement. This was the perfect book to gain a deeper understanding of American Jewry for the trip.

The book explores the relationship between two deeply religious boys from profoundly different traditions within that religion who are accidentally -- divinely, really -- brought together. The development of both boys' spirituality starts with lessons from their fathers and deepens with lessons from each other.

The Chosen takes place in World War II America. I was already familiar with many of the classic accounts of Holocaust survivors (Anne Frank, Elie Wiesel, and others.) This book richly filled a gap in that understanding by presenting a fully formed first person account, though ficitious, of the wrenching experience of American Jews who helplessly learned of the horror from here.

The book also offers thorough background information (which will have to be supplemented by further reading) about Jewish history, both cultural and religious. The author patiently explains terms presumably unfamiliar to the general reader and then trusts the reader to turn back if, during the course of reading the novel, the terms are momentarily forgotten. Those reviewers who said that Potok left the reader unaided were simply not paying close attention.

Beyond its fascinating historical and religious perspectives, this book's elegant craftsmanship and universal themes will move anyone, regardless of background. Potok's gift for writing regional American dialogue is similar to that of Twain and Steinbeck. Thematically, especially moving to me was the way in which the fathers' mostly wordless love and support for their sons manifested itself in the friends' often wordless love and support for each other. It is significant in this regard that the fathers never meet in the novel, even as they separately express a conflicted admiration for each other when each speaks to one or both boys. When both boys choose career paths their fathers had not expected, Potok allows the reader to share all four characters' realization that it is fulfilling the expectations of God, the Father that ultimately matters most.

I will share an excerpt of this extraordinary book with the young people on our trip. And when we reach New York, my hometown, I'm giving my copy to my Dad.

This book explores the friendship that develops between two Jewish boys in New York City during the Second World War. I loved it for it's beautiful story and how it weaves together the very different lives of the boys, their relationships with their fathers, and the eventual interactions of all four of the characters. Potok includes numerous desriptions of Jewish tradition and customs, which is vital to the story as well as fascinating information. I found myself seeking to learn more about the Jewish faith when I finished this book. The plot is complex in how it balances the characters and their lives, all while teaching the reader about the various sects of Judaism. At the same time, it is told in beautiful language that is very easy to understand and appreciate. The entire book is muted and wonderfully understated, and it feels like you are listening to an old man recount his youth in a soft yet spirited voice. Potok's book "The Promise" follows up the story of "The Chosen" nicely, but the first book in the sequence is by far the best. At times tragic, jubilant, and thoughtful, this is by far one of the best books I have ever read, if not THE best. I feel like I'm a better person for it. Everyone should have a chance to read this book.

I had to read the Chosen for my 8th Grade English class in1998. It is without a doubt the best book I have ever written. I readit in under 2 days, and since then have read almost all his books dealing with adolescent Jews. This book shows what it means to be Jewish, that Judaism is as much about personal relationships with God as it is with others, with the community. It shows that friendship conquers all, even schisms in religion. It was a big insight into the sometimes mysterious worlds of Hasidism and Orthodoxy, and is useful in showing differences (I was not aware of any until I read this book). I am a secular jew and identified strongly with both characters.

For the students who say it was boring and that only Jews could understand it, I think they should have done some research before starting it. For instance, you shouldn't read this book until you know what the Torah is, at least. A glossary at the back would have helped comprehension, but would have taken away from the story as well. By not proviving definitions every five pages, Chaim Potok let the story envelop readers, so that they felt that they knew everything Danny and Reuven knew. If the students didn't understand something, they should have looked it up, like the students in my class should have. I cannot believe that anyone can say this was boring, as I think it is one of the best looks into stricter American Judaism. Such books are necessary for the reform Jews of today who regard Orthodox Jews and Hasidism as fanatics and extremists. His books "The Promise", "My name is Asher Lev", and "The Gift of Asher Lev" are good for this purpose as well.

The character of Reb Saunders is one of the most original ones I have ever encountered. He makes me understand my late grandfather, a "Born-again Jew" better.

This book has impacted my life and I will always be grateful to Chaim Potok for writing it. He is a genius, and I hope he lives to write many more masterpieces of litterature.

I read "The Chosen" in one sitting...something I haven't done in a long, long time. The book is a coming of age story about two Jewish teenagers, Reuven and Danny, who become best friends as a result of an accident during an interscholastic softball game. Danny is raised as a Hasidic Jew, while Reuven is raised as an Orthodox - a less strict sect of Judaism. Danny's father expects him to become a Rabbi but he wants to be a psychologist, and Reuven's father, who is much more liberal than Danny's father, would like him to be a mathematician, and he want to be a rabbi. The book explores the relationship between the two boys and their fathers. It is a story of contrasts, but at the same time is depicts how alike they all really are.

While the story is interesting and educational, I found the character's development stifled by Potok's inability to delve into their lives outside of a religious context. The story takes them through high school and college but we never get to know anything more about them then their relationships with their fathers, and the impact of their religious differences. But I guess that's the point of the book. I can't fault Potok for these limitations because he is an excellent writer and tells a great story. However, I wanted a bit more meat to the story. There are many wonderful themes in "The Chosen" and I highly recommend it to anyone in the mood for a clean-cut, "G" rated read.

I only heard of this book recently, here into my third decade of life, and that's a shame really. When certain books hit you during certain stages of life the impact can be profound. This one missed me by a few stages. "A Separate Peace" hit me during the early teens (a perfect time also to tackle "The Chosen"), Catch-22 upon entering college, recently "Underworld." The point I'm laboriously arriving at is that "The Chosen" is indeed a great book, but I wish I would have read it at fourteen. Its message would have been more poignant and internalized then (not that it was entirely lost on a grown up child of today though).

The real strength of Potok's book lies in three areas. First, the insight the reader gets into the American Jewish sub-culture of Hasidim and Orthodox at a critical point in history for Jews (1940's) is truly elevated. Second, the strong characterization between four very different individuals reveals a beautiful relationship development between father and son, friend and friend, and growing young men encountering the world. Third, it reaches out for the soul and stays true to things that matter; a search for spirituality, a tolerance for beliefs, a search for a place in this world (for individuals and cultures), and a search for knowledge.

The writing overall was simplistic and the reader is handed many things on a silver platter that could have been presented more subtle, more artistically. Another thing, Sigmund Freud lurks in a mystical "portent of doom" shroud when the character Danny starts to study him. It is never really explained why the other characters in the book have such a fear of Freud. What the reader sees is that Danny is studying Freud and the rest of the characters know for certain bad things will befall to his tainted mind.

Despite these inconsequential distractions, the story, search for meaning, and character interplay more than make up for it. I think I would have given this a 4.5 stars if allowed, but I'm leaning towards 5, baby, cuz more stars are better than less. Give this book to a teen and help them learn tolerance. It's fundamentally important--now more than ever.

This is one of those books I should already have read but hadn't. There are so many of those! I am so glad I finally picked this up. It's short and straight-forward, as books used to be, yet complex and beyond meaningful, as books at their best are.

It isn't hard reading, by any means, but it reveals a strong, strong lesson played out through the friendship of two young boys, their complex relationship to one another and within their small world, their fathers' relationship to each another (and their worlds and thought processes), and how they are viewed--and view--their school and community. All of this in such a tiny book - while nowadays books are 800 pages of nada (and I'm just in my 30's).

It's not a children's book and, while simple, it's far from simplistic. The "lesson" or "moral" or journey of the two boys is life-altering for them, and really, in its way, was for me too - because of how haunting it is, how direct its story, how the plot is the thing. We're handed the message, easily, on a platter - and that is all that's needed.

The levels of complexity are within these peoples' worlds, not wordplay or fancy writing. It's the/their real world - a world full of those who don't fit in where they "should," those trying to find their own ways, being judged by others, and pressured by their own.

Some of the themes are universal; the world in which these two live isn't. Their world is specific and small, and has to be for this story; yet, for anyone interested in this particular world--the multifacets of Judaism and its sects at some of the highest, most historic or profound, levels--the book is a history lesson. It isn't a boring history lesson but one told through the eyes of two boys finding their ways through their respective cultures and into the world. Do people [does a person] want to be the part of the world laid out for them and what is involved in leaving it? This question applies to everyone.

It's mainly their relationship to each other that reveals the information. Two boys talk and teach one another; people love and resent; one boy is uniquely pressured, the other more free. This is a book about Jewish history, about friendship, about personal choice, and the road to independent thought.

The thing that makes a character a brilliant talmudic scholar is the same character trait that makes him an independent thinker who questions the path set out for him and his duty to fulfill it. His duty and his feelings are at odds; he is a young boy and his struggles are moral, intellectual, historic, and human. His conversations with his friend are profound and eye opening, both for the characters and the reader.

Conversation and human interaction dominate a book that is predominantly a journey of thought. It's lovely. This approach leads us to feel not only for the characters but for their relationships - the boys' to one another and each to his and the other's father, as well as the bonds formed with "minor" characters.

From the first chapter, I was hooked. It begins with an edge-of-your-seat baseball game. I couldn't be less interested in baseball, but there was something going on here, a nail biter, a bring-us-in chapter that brought us into a world so complicated yet, again, written and shown to us so easily. Piecemeal, in a way - from the game to the hospital, other characters in the ward, then to their outside-the-hospital world that is the rest of the book.

It's a must read, truly. It is a must-read for Jews (I am Jewish) but also universal in theme, and an insight into particular elements of Judaism. I'd recommend it to absolutely anyone.

It's taken me a long time to write the review since finishing the book, as I didn't even know where to start. But, The Chosen is with me in the same way as the day I put it down, and as I hope it will always be. I hope not to forget. I hope no one does.

The main thing I want to add to the reviews here is that there really is no custom to raise a child "in silence" as Reb Saunders does with his son in the book. This was a literary device used by Potok for the sake of his story. In real life, Hasidic fathers and sons interact with each other outside of study classes, too.

For those of you who find the use of Yiddish and Hebrew words a bit off-putting, or the details of a strange (to you) culture boring, I want to say, please keep reading. Learning about somebody else's culture is always a brain-stretcher, but in this case, it is well worth it. The seemingly "extraneous" details in the beginnig of the book all come together in the end. And you will be very much enriched by the experience.

I read The Chosen by Chaim Potok in twelfth grade. The book focuses around the lives and unexpected friendship of two boys named Reuven Malther and Danny Saunders. The two of them are Jewish teens growing up in Brooklyn, New York during World War II; however, Danny is the son of a Hasidic Rabbi while Reuven is the son of a powerful minded Zionist man. Those two differences are what brings the boys together and at the same time separates them in unimaginable ways. For example, Danny has different religious rituals than Reuven, which causes conflict for the two families when they learn that their boys are best friends. However, it is ironic because secretly, Danny's father is happy about their friendship because Reuven is a way for him to talk to his son. Throughout the story, Danny struggles with the mind games his father plays on him. The Chosen was written in a pictorial fashion and you can clearly make out each scene in your head along with the character physiques . The book begins at a baseball game (where the boys meet) with a slow start but once you finish chapter one, you won't be able to put the book down. The book will take you on an emotional roller coaster ride when you read how Danny's father treats him, how society is, and how the boy's friendship strengthens and weakens. Throughout the book, Danny and Reuven learn an abundance about their selves from each other while they spend every second of free time they have together. The Chosen teaches extraordinary lessons about the power of friendship, the necessity to be able to communicate with loved ones, and religion. Even if you are not of Jewish faith, the book is written with so much religious description, you will be able to follow along without a problem.
All in all, I think The Chosen is truly an amazing book. I would, without a doubt,give it a rating of 5 stars. After reading this book, you will have learned so much about Judaism in America, the Holocaust, and friendship. I recommend anyone who wants to be enlightened to read this book.