858
My Name is Asher Lev
By Chaim Potok
Artistically, you can’t trade this ending for anything in the world. When Asher Lev — a young Chasidic Jew with a preternatural gift for painting — finally presents his masterpiece, “Brooklyn Crucifixion,” the collective alienation felt by his devoutly religious family and community forces him to leave home for good. But emotionally, I always can’t help but wish that the dividing line here — between tradition and liberated individuality — had been possible to make disappear. The ultimate rejection of Lev by his own people cements Potok’s portrayal of this conflict; and, while he does it beautifully and timelessly, I dream of an ending in which personal love and creative freedom win out over the pressure of steadfast orthodoxy.
-Sam Spokony
3 comments
I think that for me, it would be The Time Traveler's Wife. In case someone hasn't read it, I won't say what I would change…but I suspect most who've read it know what I would change.
I would change that one too, aliceisforever.
And I totally agree with "IT". I was GLUED to that book (except that night a friend decided to raise a balloon right outside my bedroom window) and when I came to the end, I was poised for something equally dramatic and spellbinding and I got — a spider???? Pah-lu-heeze.
On Friday Night Knitting Club–It was a total letdown when the protagonist kicked the bucket. Didn't even bother to read the others in the series.
Comments are closed.