My Name Is Asher Lev [Chaim Potok]
My Name Is Asher Lev by Chaim Potok *****
Asher Lev is a Ladover Hasid, a Jewish boy growing up in the mid-twentieth century. He is quiet, intense, and sensitive. And in him there trembles the beginnings of a great and terrible gift – the gift of art, the gift of painting. Asher Lev the Jew becomes Asher Lev the painter. And that transition is the most defining, fulfilling, and emptying experience of his life.
This is a layered story, filled with the rare genius of one who can write simply, yet with vivid beauty. As easy as it is to read, I could spend months poring over these pages, teasing out their symbolism and inferences and truths. The literary beauty is striking. The back cover of the book describes the novel as “a luminous portrait of the artist, by turns heartbreaking and exultant, a modern classic.” This is a perfect summary of this deeply meaningful book.
Recommended age level: 16+. Involved with Asher’s art are less-than-wholesome art forms, and encounters with the world’s rough language. These instances are brief and vague, save for one of the former. This story is definitely better suited for older readers.
Sub-Pages
- A Proper Pursuit [Lynn Austin]
- A Return to Modesty [Wendy Shalit]
- A Thousand Splendid Suns [Khaled Hosseini]
- After the Leaves Fall [Nicole Baart]
- Anne of the Island [L.M. Montgomery]
- Betsy and Tacy Go Downtown [Maud Hart Lovelace]
- Betsy and the Great World [Maud Hart Lovelace]
- Bird by Bird [Anne Lamott]
- Blink [Ted Dekker]
- Days and Hours [Susan Meissner]
- Doing Things Right in Matters of the Heart [John Ensor]
- Dwelling Places [Vinita Hampton Wright]
- Emily of New Moon [L.M. Montgomery]
- Every Secret Thing [Ann Tatlock]
- Farmer Boy [Laura Ingalls Wilder]
- Feeling for Bones [Bethany Pierce]
- Finding Marie [Susan Page Davis]
- Flies on the Butter [Denise Hildreth]
- Girl Talk [Carolyn Mahaney and Nicole Whitacre]
- Girls Gone Mild [Wendy Shalit]
- God’s Guidance [Elisabeth Elliot]
- Grace at Low Tide [Beth Webb Hart]
- Journey to America [Sonia Levitin]
- Middlemarch [George Eliot]
- Moon Over Tokyo [Siri L. Mitchell]
- Mudhouse Sabbath [Lauren Winner]
- My Hands Came Away Red [Lisa McKay]
- My Name Is Asher Lev [Chaim Potok]
- Off the Record [Elizabeth White]
- On the Move [Bono]
- Passion and Purity [Elisabeth Elliot]
- Persuasion [Jane Austen]
- Polishing God’s Monuments [Jim Andrews]
- Queechy [Susan Warner]
- Reading Lolita in Tehran [Azar Nafisi]
- Split Ends [Kristin Billerbeck]
- Sticks and Stones [Susan Meissner]
- Summer Snow [Nicole Baart]
- The Diary of a Young Girl [Anne Frank]
- The Garden Party and Other Stories [Katherine Mansfield]
- The Gift of Asher Lev [Chaim Potok]
- The Parting [Beverly Lewis]
- The True Woman [Susan Hunt]
- The Truth Seeker [Dee Henderson]
- The Will of Wisteria [Denise Hildreth]
- The Writing Life [Annie Dillard]
- To Kill a Mockingbird [Harper Lee]
- Why and How I Review
- Widows and Orphans [Susan Meissner]
- Winter Birds [Jamie Langston Turner]
- Written on Silk [Linda Lee Chaikin]
Author
Anna, 21. Saved by grace, called to follow Christ. Book-lover, writer, caregiver, wannabe runner.
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