My Name Is Asher Lev
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| Author | Chaim Potok |
|---|---|
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre(s) | Psychological novel |
| Publisher | Alfred A. Knopf |
| Released | March 12, 1972 |
| Media type | Print (Hardcover, Paperback) |
| Pages | 369 pp |
| ISBN | ISBN 0-394-46137-1 (hardcover edition) |
| Followed by | The Gift of Asher Lev |
My Name Is Asher Lev (1972) is a novel by Chaim Potok about a Jewish boy, Asher Lev, who is an artist and prodigy growing up in Brooklyn.
Lev struggles with his Hasidic Jewish community to use and keep his great gift of drawing, as many see his artistic skills as a waste of time, or worse —as sitra achra (a "gift from the Other Side"). His father is an international worker and political advisor for his rabbi, called "the Rebbe" (the Yiddish form of the word), in an earnest campaign to unite and bring hope to disparate Jewish communities around the world, and especially help Jews in Russia under the dictatorship of Stalin. As a result of the vastly different paths he and his father take, Asher is forced to confront the implications of his gifts as an artist.
Potok continued Asher Lev's story in a later novel, The Gift of Asher Lev.
Contents |
[edit] Plot summary
This is the story of Asher Lev, a boy born with a prodigious artistic ability into a Hasidic Jewish family in 1940s Brooklyn. During Asher's childhood, his artistic gift brings him into conflict with the members of his devoutly religious sect, who value things primarily as they relate to their faith and who consider art to be at best a waste of time and at worst a sacrilege. It brings him into particularly strong conflict with his father, a man who has devoted his life to serving their leader, the Rebbe, travelling around the world bringing the teachings and practice of their religion to other Jews, and who is by nature incapable of understanding or appreciating art. In the middle is Asher's mother, who in Asher's early childhood was severely traumatized by the death of her brother, killed while travelling for the Rebbe; she suffers anxiety for her husband's safety during his almost constant travelling. Asher's father declares the gift to be from the realm of the demonic, especially when he finds his son neglecting his studies and copying paintings of nude women and crucifixions of Jesus, and he tries to suppress Asher's drawing and painting. Yet the gift will not be denied. Finally the Rebbe intercedes and allows Asher to study under one of the greatest living artists, Jacob Kahn, a non-observant Jew who is an admirer of the Rebbe. Asher grows up to be a formidable artist as an apprentice of Jacob Kahn, and even his father cannot help but be proud of his son's success. However, the gift finally calls upon Asher to paint his masterpiece--a work which uses the symbolism of the crucifixion to express his mother's torment. This imagery so offends his parents and his community that he is sent into exile in Paris.
[edit] Characters in My Name is Asher Lev
Asher Lev - narrator; Ladover Hasidic Jew; grows from a four year old boy to a graduate of college; a prodigious artist (painter).
Aryeh Lev - Asher's father; works for the Rebbe traveling to Vienna and Russia to build yeshivas and save Jews from Stalin's persecution.
Rivkeh Lev - Asher's mother; spends half of the novel attending college, majoring in Russian; goes to Europe with Aryeh, to help him, for the second half of the novel.
Jacob Kahn - Master of art, unobservant Jew, to whom Asher is an apprentice and learns to become a great artist.
Anna Schaeffer - Gallery owner usually described as a "greedy, old woman" by Jacob Kahn, although they are good friends. She hosts all of Asher's shows and is responsible for his fame.
Reb Yudel Krinsky - A Russian Jew rescued from Siberia by Asher's father, he plays a pivotal role in Asher's understanding of his fathers work in helping others all over the world.
Rebbe - The Rebbe is probably the most important character in the book, in the sense that it is he who orders Aryeh to travel all over, and it is he who first understand that Asher's gift needed to be developed under the tutelage of a great artist.
Yaakov - Rivkeh's brother, he is never spoken of in detail. His death in a car accident in Detroit while on a mission for the Rebbe, threw Rivkeh into her depressive state since they were close during their childhood.
[edit] Literary significance & criticism
This book explores Potok's central themes of conflicting traditions (in this case the tradition of Judaism and the tradition of art), father versus son, contentedness with one's life versus peace in the family (the Jewish value of "shlom bayit"), and the traditional Jewish world versus secular America. Considered one of Potok's best works, it has a sequel, The Gift of Asher Lev. The first "Brooklyn Crucifixion", a work by Asher which plays a central role in the novel's conclusion, is an actual painting by Potok, who was an accomplished artist as well as a novelist and rabbi; the second Crucifixion, which is described in the book as being superior to the first, does not have a real-life counterpart.
The book is a thinly disguised depiction of the Lubavitch community. "Brooklyn Parkway", with its heavy traffic and island promenades, is a reference to Eastern Parkway. However, contrary to popular opinion, the character of Yudel Krinsky is not meant to refer to Chaim Yehuda Krinsky, one of the assistants to Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson.
[edit] Trivia
Potok once stated that of all his fictional characters, Asher Lev was the one with whom he identified the most.[1]
Various artists and art works are mentioned including Picasso's Guernica and Marcel Duchamp and his Dada art.
This book is required reading for numerous school districts across the United States.
[edit] Footnotes
- ^ Chaim Potok, in response to a question from Jerry Gladson. Cited on http://www.lasierra.edu/%7Eballen/potok/Potok.faqs.html#Davita.
