Gift of Asher Lev: A Novel

I read "My Name is Asher Lev" and am glad I did because obviously it leads into this second part which is equally captivating and is a wonderful description of artistic, spiritual and cultural tensions within both an individual and a rather closed community. It is so inspirational as well as being a joy to read and I can honestly say that I couldn't put it down for very long. Deeply spiritual, inspirational and thought provoking. Amazon's service was excellent as usual.

Loved this book, thought provoking and well written.

Not quite as good as My Name is Asher Lev (which I thought was superb and I cried at the end). I went through periods of wishing the book would never end, to guessing the ending (incorrectly) and wanting to see if I was correct.I came up with two possible endings. Both were wrong, but either one was better than the actual one!

Great book. I knew nothing about Hasidic Jews and learnt a lot. Very well written with immense detail. A family torn by religion and artistic genius.

I purchased this book as a gift for a friend. She loved it. I had previously read it and felt it was beautifully written and gave an insight into the more strict forms of Judaism.

My name is Asher Lev is all about a son finding his own way.The Gift of Asher Lev is about a man giving his son back to the establishment.Has Asher Lev not learned that it is not for a father to determine his son's future?Not an answerable question as Chaim Potok is dead.What an irritating book.Women are ignored as usual in Jewish literature.I find after reading Chaim Potok, I have become more antisemitic than I ever was.

This book is excellent and a joy to read.

It's never too late to read a good book. They just sometimes take a long time to find.This is the first book I have read by Chaim Potok and I cannot remember by what browsing method the novel appeared, nor why it took my interest. Maybe it was the link with the writer’s inspiration from reading Evelyn Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited, the novel which induced him to become a writer. Whatever the reason, Chaim Potok’s certainly lived up to my anticipation.The narrator, a struggling orthodox, Hasidic Jew, Asher Lev of the title, experiences great conflict in his community because of his desire to become a painter. This struggle is a reflection of the author’s own life, only in his case, it was writing and not painting which caused the conflict. However, both are ‘Arts’ and this novel is about creativity and different ways of seeing the world, in which the two forms, writing and painting, can also seem as equally applicable.I learned a lot about Jewish society, religion and family life. I liked the writing about domestic aspects of everyday life combined with Jewish religious observance. Much of the story was straightforward - easy to identify and empathise with the narrator, and many of the other characters. It is not a difficult read, although I did have to look up some terms – mainly religious vocabulary.It touches on Jewish History at several points – particularly, of course, the Holocaust. Not in great detail, but principally regarding Asher’s wife, as a very young child - the orphaned Devorah - who was taken into hiding in Nazi-occupied Europe.I will definitely have a look at some other books written by Chaim Potok. I might try the History which seems to be both less in some ways and more in others than a straightforward, academic work – judging by some criticism in the literary reviews of the time. Interesting!

excellent

J'aime beaucoup Chaim Potok et cette suite des aventures d'Asher Lev est très intéressante. Comme souvent, l'écrivain nous peint l'ambiguïté de ce milieu et la difficulté d'en sortir même lorsqu'on a décidé de suivre son destin.

I was happily surprised to find that there was a sequel to Chaim Potok's first book about Asher Lev, and I immediately purchased it. I was equally happy to find that it picked up at a great place in Asher's life, so that I felt I actually hadn't lost any sense of the story line. I found this book to be as satisfying and thought-provoking as the first book, and I felt immersed in the lives of the Lev families. Potok's descriptive language creates wonderful mental images of the times and the places in these books. I loved reading about the unique lives of the Ladover Hasidic Jews and their incredible view of God and life in general. I found the contrast between the descriptions of New York and France to be compelling and excellent in creating Asher's own mentality at the time.I found the ending to be satisfying in that you, the reader, knew Asher Lev well enough by the time you were done reading that you KNEW precisely what was ahead and where he fit into the grand scheme of it all. I found it bittersweet, which made me love the character even more.I highly recommend BOTH books . . . really makes the reader think and feel.

Beautifully written. If you like Potok you’ll enjoy this book

I love his writing. I’m fascinated by Hasidism - the character’s personal conflict with his religion is profound. Tricky. Enveloping