Customer Reviews

The Gift of Asher Lev

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(11)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Before I read this book, having read its superlative predecessor "My Name is Asher Lev", I would have said that the title refers to Asher Lev's incredible artistic talent. After finishing the book, I realized it was referring to something much more precious, more along the lines of the gift Abraham was asked to sacrifice on the altar. As a grown Asher revisits Brooklyn with his family on the occasion of the death of his uncle, he not only has to confront his past, but his present and future as well. Not only his future, in fact, but the future of the entire Jewish sect in which he was raised. The conflict between his art and his religion is brought into a much sharper, more painful inner battle than even displayed in the first book.

This sequel is less straightforward than the first novel. There are more flashbacks, hallucinations (or are they?), riddles, and supernatural occurrences here. Sometimes the book seems to wander a little bit, just like Asher wandered the streets of Paris for awhile. It is not as riveting from beginning to end as the first book was, and the ending is a little more inconclusive, which is why I gave it four stars instead of five. It never confirms whether Asher's suspicions are correct or not. Which means, of course, that I am eagerly awaiting a (hopeful) follow-up to this book and a satisfying conclusion to the Asher Lev saga.

I read this book transfixed, waiting for the resolution of the intense situation, but in the last ten or twenty pages, nothing happened, and suddenly it was over! I scratched my head, and went back to see if I missed something. I ended up reading the last 50 pages, and sure enough, I did miss something! The resolution was right there, in plain sight, but between the lines. And quite a resolution, too. It was like what the Great Rebbe said from his balcony at the beginning of the book, that sometimes the truth is too difficult to approach directly, and must be approached in riddles to prepare the seeker for the answer. A hard act for a writer to pull off, but I've been haunted ever since. Probably not for everybody.

Twenty years have passed for asher lev, last seen dispalying waht sounded like a version of Marc chagalls white crucifixion to a stunned and mortified family. He is, as this novel opens, a very successful artist living in France. When his beloved uncle dies, he ends his exile and returns to Brookly, to the chasidic community he thought h had left behind,to small storefront shuls and men in dark hats and coats,to that place deep inside himself which he could never leave. The travles from Willaimsburgh to Monticello, Ny{the catskills}, and the intorduction of Lev's young son are a lovely narrative touch. The Rebbe,based it would seem on the late Lubavitch rebbe of Blessed memory,is brilliantly,sympathetically drawn. he comes off as a holy,profound man of deep compassion and mystical understanding. Lev has grown, also, and the story of these tow, brilliant men is the key to the novel. A wonderful,beautifully plotted story of an amazing group of people.

In my review of Chaim Potok's My Name is Asher Lev, I admitted that I was reluctant to read the sequel out of fear that it could not be as satisfying. My fear was unfounded. The Gift of Asher Lev is a wonderful novel and those who enjoyed My Name is Asher Lev will be happy to find Asher twenty years later with a wife and two children living, if not happily, at least contentedly in southern France. That is until page 6. Coming off a successful but poorly reviewed art show in Paris, Asher learns that his uncle has died and takes his family with him back to Brooklyn for the first time.

Unlike the first Asher Lev novel, where Asher was shunned by the leaders of his Hasidic Jewish community because of his controversial painting, the tension in The Gift of Asher Lev revolves around the Ladovers wanting him - or part of him - back. Asher's parents get to know his wife and children, and everyone except our hero is happy with this arrangement. Asher, however, has trouble exorcising his old demons: he fears another anonymous death threat, he can't find the inspiration to paint, and he just doesn't feel comfortable in Brooklyn anymore. Asher's father still does not understand him or his art, but anger and frustration have subsided to a sort of resigned sadness.

The Gift of Asher Lev introduces the importance of riddles in Hasidism, which seems as much a suspense-building technique by Potok as a true Jewish tradition. Frustratingly, Potok does not give answers to some of the riddles the characters evoke. But the biggest riddle of all - the heart of the story - is rather clear early on, making the book more readable rather than less suspenseful. Though he puts them off throughout most of the novel, Asher ultimately has some important choices to make. He makes them in the final ten pages of the book, keeping the reader engaged to the very last page.

Now, about that cover: it's awful. It looks like the cover to some sci-fi/romance fusion novel. It's got a picture of a blue-eyed man with his blow-dried hair, resembling Harrison Ford in Return of the Jedi but looking nothing like any of the characters in The Gift of Asher Lev (Asher is still a Hasidic Jew, after all). It's got smaller pictures of a pudgy young boy and an old, white-bearded man who I guess are Asher's son and father. Are they trying to turn readers off? If there's ever a time that the old adage fits, this may be it. If you can get past the cover, you are in for a rewarding read.

Of all the Chaim Potok books I've read, (the last being about 8 years ago) this one has stayed with me the most, perhaps because it perplexed me at the time. Probably most people will prefer the first Asher Lev book, with its clearer narrative and dramatic plot. It covers the painful conflict between a traumatized community's survival and personal creativity so well it seems unnecessary to bring it up again. But to me it was merely the prequel for this second book.
Asher struggles to keep his son from being taken from him by the same Chasidic community that had banished him for his artistic intensity. I had the strange experience of being drawn into the books central conflict, only to reach the end realizing that a conclusion had been reached that I was entirely unaware of!
So I reread most of the book-- I had to go back very far to pick up the threads I missed-- and noticed an early scene in which the great Rebbe, standing from the balcony overlooking the Ladover community he leads, speaking about the key issue of who his successor shall be-- he has no children to follow him. He speaks in nonsense, something about Ones and Threes, and then explains that when a truth is difficult to bear, it is better to be pesented in riddles than more straightforwardly. So it was with this book, and for me it was one hell of a trick.
On the surface, nothing really happens. Asher mopes around Brooklyn and Paris broodingly, draws sketches of passing moments, talks to ghosts of Picasso and his own mentor, Jacob Kahn, and chooses the fate of himself and his son so subtly that it appears to be nothing at all. But it was frightening and wonderful when I finally got what he did: he gave his community the gift of Asher Lev. In the first book, 'the Gift' always referred to how his people saw his artistic talent, as a gift from God. But by the end of the second book, we see the gift he gives back to the community he has such intense love and bitterness for is something completely different.
Let me just add that I am a middle aged Jewish artist, about to go back to MY family from a 13 year exile abroad, and this book speaks very closely to my situation. ...

I take my spiritual life seriously -- and so does Asher Lev. I am certainly not any kind of artistic genious, but Lev and I really fell into sinc.

In fact, I have read this story so many times that I have been through three paperback copies. And it has never disappointed me.

Potok took me so deeply into Lev's character that I was him. I felt his pain and his struggle. I understood his feeling of being torn apart by two worlds that should and could have fit together.

This book also provides the deepest insights into Hasidism that I, a lapsed Episcopalian, have ever read. I have a deep respect for that tradition because of Potok and Asher Lev.

Sacrifice is always a central storyline and in "The Gift of Asher Lev" not only is a sacrifice required but the sacrifice is wrapped in mystery and enigma.

Delightful read!

Chalk it up to yet another book where the ending let me down.

_My Name is Asher Lev_, the first of the two books, is one of my favourite books of all time. _The Gift..._ seemed for a while like it would be a close rival, a truly great sequel.

But then, the ending came. And I honestly did not believe it. I did not believe that Asher did what he did. It's really difficult to review this book, because I don't want to give away the ending. But I simply found Asher's final actions to be untrue to the person we'd watched him become. It was as if, after all he had achieved, he gave up-and he gave up when he didn't have to. There are really no more battles at the end of the book. Things have really settled down. So I was taken aback by the end; I didn't lose my faith in Asher so much as I lost my faith in the authenticity of his character. I didn't feel bad, I just felt disappointed. The book not only didn't end the way "I wanted it to" (which is fine), the ending just didn't seem right or true (which is not fine).

The second book also lacks the freshness, the youth, the artistry of the first one. It seems more concerned with normal conversation and mundane things rather than with the imagery in the first book. People, even unlikable people, in the first book were described with a liveliness and a familiarity that doesn't exist in the second book. Perhaps Potok intended to write as Asher was becoming-less artistically inclined, more mature, less fanciful. But that doesn't make for a great book.

Where the first book was a moving reading experience, the second book regarding the life of Asher Lev is merely a good story.

The sequel to My Name is Asher Lev is that rare achievement - better than the first. I re-read the book about once a year and each time long for the third, to know the path down which Asher Lev and his son Avrumel travel. This family and community is so affecting, I find it hard to accept they do not exist. Potok's writing is truly beautiful and each time I read his work I find more to digest.

Twenty years on from where we left Asher Lev we now find him married with two children and living in France. He, and is work, are suffering in the wake of some strongly critical reviews of his latest Paris show. Then he receives news of his uncles death, and he and his family return to Brooklyn.

The story follows Asher's turmoil as he confronts a number of problems on his return from exile: his relationship with his fellow believers, difficulties with his cousins over his uncles will, and more significantly his period of artist's block and the potential prospects for his beloved son, the five year old Avrumel. His turmoil over the last is all the more intense as only he seems able to appreciate the situation, namely that their religious leader the Rebbe is getting old and having no son of his own will need to select a successor, the obvious choice is Asher's Father, but as Asher is obviously unacceptable as his father's successor the role would fall to Avrumel. Here a parallel is drawn with Abraham and Isaac, is Asher prepared to sacrifice his son, he must confront the issue: his art or his son.

This is a beautiful and at times mystic story, Asher often drifts into a dream like state having visions of past, present and possibly future events. The characters are superbly drawn, Avrumel is a delightful young lad; Asher's father seems much more human now; and with Asher we really get inside the mind of an artist. The Rebbe too is a remarkable man, full of wisdom, never laying down the law but giving guidance through reasoning and suggestion.

I wish I hadn't read this book. It was well-written, but so sad. Haunting. Years later, I still think about it, and feel so bad for Asher. The book was a great read, but I still wish I'd stopped while he still had a chance.