My Name Is Asher Lev

The book, much like the last book I read, was written in first person narrative which I think helps the book, in my mind, be more effective. For me when I read a book I always enjoy when the author is talking to the reader and it helps me to relate a little more to what he is going through.

Asher Lev is a young man who is active in the Jewish community and enjoys painting very much. Much of what he believes contradicts with his paintings, though. Asher paints a lot of crucifixions and nudes. Throughout the whole book there is this struggle between him and his parents about whether what he is painting is right or wrong for him to paint. This struggle distances himself from his father because his father never finds respect for his work.

As I read I thought more importantly than the conflict between him and his parents, was the conflict with his inner self, debating whether what he was doing was right for him to do or not. In the Jewish religion Jesus is seen just as another person from the era, not the Messiah so when he paints the crucifixions he is painting Jesus as the Messiah, not something a good Jewish boy should be painting. The only difference for him is he does not see Jesus, the Messiah, in his paintings, he sees a person going through unbearable pain for people that He loves.

The end of the story brings these conflicts together so well when Asher paints a piece for an art show. He tells his mother that he has painted the piece for her. Once again he paints another crucifixion. When his mother gets to the piece she is not overjoyed with what her son has done for her but humiliated. Asher was not trying to go against anybody, but that was the only way he knew to show his mother that he appreciated the love that she showed him, and he realized the pain that she might have gone through at times to show it to him.

Potok did a great job constructing the tension in this book and keeping the reader thinking whether what Asher was doing was right for him to do or not. He also showed that people can miss the meaning of something that is so sweet because of their refusal of acceptance to a different way of art.