Questo è un libro sostanzioso, ricco di temi interessanti affrontati con delicatezza. I temi principali sono il rapporto genitori/figli, il crescere in una famiglia religiosa e opprimente, la ricerca della propria identità che non riesce ad emergere perché soffocata dall'ambiente circostante; si parla della lotta interiore nata dal voler perseguire una passione e i sensi di colpa dovuti al ferire le persone che si amano; si parla di arte, di quanto possa essere incontrollabile una passione con la conseguente estromissione dalla comunità in cui si è cresciuti.Asher Lev è un ragazzino nato negli Stati Uniti da una famiglia ebrea ortodossa, frequenta una scuola yeshivah e ha un padre famoso e rispettato da tutti. Sin da piccolo ha una passione sfrenata per la pittura; passione che viene considerata da suo padre una sciocchezza da bambini. Sin dall'infanzia, Asher non viene considerato come un essere umano a sé stante con una propria individualità, dei desideri e delle esigenze, ma è trascurato dai genitori che hanno sempre qualcosa di più importante da fare. La madre non è severa come il padre, anzi, ma alcune cose non riesce ad accettarle nemmeno lei. Entrambi sono devoti praticanti, Asher viene cresciuto con regole rigide che vanno rispettate e l'arte è considerata opera del demonio.Asher, quindi, cresce in questo ambiente opprimente in cui non può esprimersi, in cui viene sempre messo da parte, in cui nessuno si prende il tempo di ascoltarlo o di capirlo. Inoltre, nella comunità ebraica in cui cresce nessuno fa niente senza l'approvazione del Rebbe, tutti seguono i precetti religiosi e ciò che non fa parte della loro religione è considerato il Male.Il libro tratta soprattutto dell'emergere della personalità di Asher attraverso la pittura. Riesce a far fuoriuscire i propri sentimenti e i suoi stati d'animo soltanto tramite i suoi quadri perché non ha il coraggio di affrontare i genitori. Quelle rare volte che ha tentato di spiegare l'importanza dell'arte nella sua vita, loro non sono riusciti a capire (il padre, inoltre, spesso non stava nemmeno ad ascoltarlo). Diventa famoso, è apprezzato da chiunque tranne che dai suoi genitori che continuano a non capire questo suo desiderio di dipingere. Per Asher, però, l'arte è l'unico modo per esprimersi, per dire ciò che non ha il coraggio di dire a parole; per lui non è una passione o un mestiere, è un modo di essere.È un libro che procede lentamente, uno stile quasi freddo e distaccato, discorsi molto brevi e concisi; ciò si contrappone al linguaggio caldo e appassionato che si trova nelle descrizioni di quadri e artisti, e del tormento che Asher riesce a mettere su tela. È come se l'autore, con il linguaggio, seguisse gli stati d'animo di Asher. Ho deciso di leggere questo libro perché fa parte della mia sfida curarsi con i libri. Secondo le autrici di Curarsi con i libri: Rimedi letterari per ogni malanno, leggere questo libro dovrebbe aiutare le persone che non amano il confronto e gli scontri; dovrebbe aiutarli a darsi una svegliata per non vivere come Asher. Dunque, è vero, io sono una persona tranquilla e pacifica che non ama gli scontri e spesso, piuttosto che litigare, lascio perdere. Ovviamente dipende anche con chi ho a che fare, non mi comporto con tutti allo stesso modo; se, inoltre, di fronte ho una persona ottusa, non ne vale proprio la pena d'impegnarsi in uno scontro/confronto. Però è vero, spesso preferisco fuggire piuttosto che affrontare una situazione o delle persone poco piacevoli. La differenza con Asher è che non sono alla ricerca dell'accettazione da parte degli altri. Asher aveva bisogno di essere capito e accettato, io no, quindi continuo a vivere tranquilla e serena e non me ne frega niente se gli altri non mi capiscono o non approvano il mio comportamento. Capisco però perché Asher non ha mai voluto scontrarsi con i suoi genitori: li amava e non voleva ferirli; preferiva vivere male piuttosto che dare ulteriori dispiaceri. Cosa ha risolto con il suo comportamento? Niente. Tanto vale fregarsene dell'approvazione degli altri. Asher viveva con i sensi di colpa per una passione che non riusciva a controllare. Capisco che l'approvazione e l'amore dei genitori è importante per una crescita serena e mentalmente sana, ma non sempre arrivano. Bisogna difendersi diventando, purtroppo, degli egoisti. Bisogna imparare a tirare fuori la propria personalità anche senza l'approvazione degli altri.English:This book talks about Asher Lev born in the United States in an orthodox Jewish family around 1950. They live in a closed Jewish community and Asher attends a Jewish school. Already as a child he loves to draw; it's more than a passion, it's something he can't control. His father doesn't understand this because for him drawing is non-sense and he hopes that growing up Asher will stop painting. Since his childhood, Asher isn't considered by his parents as a human being of its own with emotions, passions and feelings; they have never time for him and they never listen to him because they are too busy with their lives. Asher's mother is not like his father, but she too doesn't understand a lot about his son; she accepts in part that painting is important for him, but she doesn't accept that he draws everything. Both are devout practitioners, Asher was raised with strict rules that must be respected and art is considered a work of the devil. They also live in a closed jewish community so Asher was observed and judged by everyone. Asher, therefore, grows in this oppressive environment in which he can't express himself, in which he is always set aside, in which no one takes the time to listen or understand him. He needed the approval of his parents but he isn't able to talk to them, he is afraid to hurt them; he tried to talk to them but it was unsuccessful. He also lives his painting as a guilt: he knows he can't live without painting but he also needs the approval of his parents and of his community. Asher is able to bring out his feelings and emotions, his identity and personality, only through his paintings though he knows his parents won't understand.This is a rich book, full of interesting themes dealt with sensitivity. The main themes are the relationship between parents and children, the growing up in a religious and oppressive family, the search for identity that fails to emerge because it is suffocated by the surrounding environment; it talks about the inner struggle between a passion and the guilt to hurt the people we love; it talks about art, about an uncontrollable passion and the consequent exclusion from the community in which one grows up.This book is part of my novel-cure-challenge and it should be read by people who are afraid of confrontations: if we don't want to live like Asher, we mustn't be scared by confrontations. Usually I'm not afraid of confrontations but it depends with whom I'm arguing. But it's true, I don't like to argue because I'm a calm and peaceful person and often I prefer to "flee" rather than face uncomfortable situations or unpleasant people. Asher needed to be accepted as he was, me not. I don't care if people understand or accept me, I am as I am with or without the approval of other people. But I also know that Asher is a young guy and he needed this approval to live in peace his passion. So I understand why Asher did never say something to his parents: in addition to be mentally closed and to don't be able to understand, he didn't want to hurt them. Did he solve his problem behaving this way? No, so I really don't care for approval and sometimes it's better to be an egoist. By sure everyone should find its identity and this should be done with or without confrontations though without an approval it's more difficult.
Let me preface this review by stating that I have little basis for identifying with many characters in the book: I am not Jewish, was not raised in a religious community, did not see my community nearly exterminated during the worst conflict in the 20th century, and couldn't draw a properly proportioned stick figure to save my life. In spite of all of these obstacles I found this book both challenging and emotionally compelling.This book raises many questions: what does it mean to be an artist? What does it mean to be a Jew? Can the two be reconciled? Can someone meet the responsibilities of being an artist and a Jew without betraying the other? To what do we owe ourselves and what do we owe our family and community? These are not easily answered because they are so unique to every person. They are dependent upon a person's proclivities, experiences, and environment.This book told the story of one particular Hasidic Jew, Asher Lev, his struggle with these questions, and the impact of them on those around him, especially his parents.The setting is very important to this novel. It takes place from Asher's youth in the early 1950's through his early adulthood in the late 1960's. The holocaust is still a living memory for the Jewish community and Stalin was busy being Stalin towards Russian and Eastern European Jews. It was a time of great uncertainty for Jewish culture, yet another dark chapter in their history that threatened their continued cultural existence. Asher's father worked for a Rebbe (think of them as sort of mini-Popes for particular Hasidic Sects; next to God in their righteousness), traveling the country and later Europe establishing Yeshivas (Jewish educational institutions) to preserve and grow the studying of the Torah by Jews. Asher's grandfather worked for the Rebbe's father before being killed by a Russian peasant during Easter week back in Russia. Sufficed to say there was an expectation that Asher would continue this relationship, studying the Torah and working for the greater benefit of Jews worldwide by assisting the Rebbe.But Asher is different, he is driven by a need to create art. He is very religiously observant: keeps kosher, prays three times a day, observes the Sabbath, etc. He wants to be a good Jew and honor his parents, make them proud of him, but he is driven to create art which his father thinks is foolish.This book is about tension. The tension between Asher's artistic aspirations and his father's desire that he study the Torah and more serious matters. The tension between his Jewish heritage and the "goyish and pagan" world of art. The tension between his family's legacy (going back many generations and an integral part of how Asher views his placein the world) and the path he chooses for himself. The tension between what people want Asher to be and what he is.Potok tells this story beautifully from Asher's limited perspective. When Asher was a child the narrative is simple, as seen from a child's perspective. As Asher grows, so too does the introspective nature of the narrative. Asher becomes more perceptive and aware of his world and his self. As his study of art grows he begins to the see the world in terms of lines, contours, planes, and colors. The artist's eye grows and becomes an integral part of his perception of the world. He recognizes and is forced to comes to grip with the tensions and conflicts in his life. More importantly, though, he also becomes more sympathetic to the struggles his mother and father endured. As he travels Europe he sees all the good his frequently absent father brought to many Jewish communities. As he reflects on his past he realizes the anguish and hardship his Mother endured trying to bridge the gap between himself and his father. He embraces both of their humanities in the creation of his greatest and most dangerous works of art.As a reader I became more and more emotionally invested with Asher. I saw his triumphs, his struggles, the choices he had to make and the choices that were forced upon him. He was told by a great artist who became his teacher that eventually his art would hurt people and the only way to atone for that was to become an even greater artist. But when faced with this reality at one of his art shows he feels dread, apprehension, doubt. He reacts as any human would when his essence directs him down a path that could alienate him from his family, his community, and his identity. Like life the resolution of this book is messy and tragic. (view spoiler)[While the outcome seemed inevitable from some ways off there was a glimmer of hope that perhaps things would work out in the end. That a reconciliation and a growth of mutual respect was possible. It was that glimmer of hope getting snuffed out that made the conclusion that much more traumatic and saddening. (hide spoiler)]
What do You think about My Name Is Asher Lev (2003)?
Someone told me that I would cry through this book. They should have told me that I would cry out of sheer pity for the author's negligence in portrayal. Of an artist mind anyway. Asher is dead. cold. logical. That was enough to make suspicious about the 'truth' in this novel, any attempts to create a realistic struggle between a rebelling Jewish boy and his observant Jewish parents was entirely lost on me. Okay, maybe that is a little strenuous in criticism. Potok has a few saving graces in his
—Kelly
I learned from this book about art, about religion, about mothers, and about artists. Pure art is a form of the most honest expression about the world and its meanings. Religion is a means of bringing balance to a world full of pain and terror. Both art and religion express their own plays of forms for the pain, but they are different realms of meaning that can be difficult to bridge, given that dogmatic understandings of universal duty are a simple way for one to make sense of his actions and purpose. This book is a cry for the liberation of one's gifts, whatever they may be. Asher Lev is not the only hero: The Rebbe, Jacob Kahn, and especially his mother all shine as exemplary souls, each fulfilling their good part in the grand play of life. Being Christian, I was also interested to learn that some Jews believe the Romans killed Jesus because he said he was the Messiah, and they were afraid he'd start a revolution against them. These Jews feel that much Jewish blood has been spilled because of a misunderstanding that the Jews killed Christ, and that Jesus could not have been the Messiah because the world is still full of suffering, and the Messiah was to liberate his people from oppression. This is a new perspective I had not heard before. Excellent Quotes:- "All the Jewish people are one body and one soul, he believed. If one part of the body hurts, the entire body hurts--and the entire body must come to the help of the part that hurts." pg. 132- "The gift was making me ill and causing everyone around me to suffer--and I hated it, despised it, wanted to burn and destroy it, felt toward it a mountainous rage." pg. 148- "A life should be lived for the sake of heaven. One man is not better than another because he is a doctor while the other is a shoemaker. One man is not better than another because he is a lawyer while the other is a painter. A life is measured by how it is lived for the sake of heaven." pg. 192- "When a son goes so far away from a father, there can only be trouble." pg. 196- "Every great artist is a man who has freed himself from his family, his nation, his race. Every man who has shown the world the way to beauty, to true culture, has been a rebel, a 'universal' without patriotism, without home, who has found his people everywhere." pg. 203- "As an artist you are responsible to no one and to nothing, except to yourself and to the truth as you see it . . . An artist is responsible to his art." pg. 218- "I see the world as hard-edged, filled with lines and angles. And I see it as wild and raging and hideous, and only occasionally beautiful. The world fills me with disgust more often than it fills me with joy . . . The world is a terrible place. I do not sculpt and paint to make the world sacred. I sculpt and paint to give permanence to my feelings about how terrible this world truly is. Nothing is real to me except my own feelings; nothing is true except my own feelings as I see them all around me in my sculptures and paintings. I know these feelings are true, because if they were not true they would make art that is as terrible as the world." pg. 226- "Only an animal cannot help what he does." pg. 276- "The giving and the goodness and the journeys of that mythic ancestor might have been acts born in the memories of screams and burning flesh." pg. 323- "Trapped between two realm of meaning, she had straddled both realms, quietly feeding and nourishing them both, and herself as well. I could only dimly perceive such an awesome act of will." pg. 325- "I looked at my right hand, the hand with which I painted. There was power in that hand. Power to create and destroy. Power to bring pleasure and pain. Power to amuse and horrify. There was in that hand the demonic and the divine at one and the same time. The demonic and the divine were two aspects of the same force. Creation was demonic and divine. Creativity was demonic and divine. I was demonic and divine.” pg. 367
—Austin
"A gift," is what Jacob Kahn told Asher Florence, Italy was. I thought this book was a gift too. I really can't say exactly why I liked this book so much but I was completely absorbed in it. First off, I found it interesting to see how a child handles his artistic "gift" when his family and others around him tell him it's foolishness. I found the family dynamic heart-breaking and real. I found the end when Asher had to choose between being true to himself/his art and his religion and what his family would approve of heartbreaking. And although it says on the back of the book that his "extraordinary talent leads him away from his family and his faith," I'm not completely convinced that he was turning his back on his faith. I think he did what he did to be true to his art and to himself with what tools he had. It may have looked like he had to the Jewish community, I think he was stuck in the middle. Just as his mother had been stuck between Asher and his father. The image of the crucifix painting at the end made me weep. I'm not sure why, but it was so extremely powerful. It was sad to see the parents going along and loving their child all the way through his challenge and loving him at the end too, because that's what parents do. I'm glad I read this one.
—Jeana
