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Title: In the Beginning by Chaim Potok ISBN: 0-449-00113-X Publisher: Fawcett Books Pub. Date: 10 September, 1997 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $13.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.86 (7 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Insight of Genius
Comment: This book gave me new insight into the lives of Talmud Scholars, their deep and detailed exploration of the oldest, yet most vital book of human history. Behind the setting of David Lurie's genius, I found myself wondering why gentile Christians did not ask for Talmud scholars as "bible study" teachers. Their training in asking and answering the mystery questions is a 100 times better developed in their first years, than our ministers find in seminaries! As I see it, David's quest for answers in the light of present day knowledge was only the beginning to answering the ignorance or incompetence of my gentile Christian teachers. Could not put this book down!! I recommend it to all.
Rating: 5
Summary: His best work, if only people knew. . .
Comment: Among Potok's fantastic novels, this one stands above the rest in it's moving intellectual and emotional sincerity and honesty. In a way it is unfortunate that this book was not his debute novel instead of The Chosen, since the greatness of this book seems to get lost behind his more well known titles like My Name Is Asher Lev.
Perhaps it is fitting that I should love so much his most obscure title considering this book's power is in the understanding Potok has of the quiet genius no one seems to understand, yet who struggles so desparately to try to understand the world and his place in it. His brilliance brings him suffering. At the climactic confrontation between David and his father, I sobbed. You just do not know unless you live it. How many quiet geniuses are there to identify--and fall in love--with this book?
And perhaps it is this identification and the fact that his novel's are so autobiographical (Potok did indeed "live it") that I felt such a profound loss at Potok's death on July 23, 2002. For as long as I am able to read, for as long as there are printed pages I will love him through his books. Thank you, Dr. Potok, so much for Ilana Davita, for Asher Lev, for Danny and Reuven, but thank you especially for David Lurie. He has shown me a beginning. . .
Rating: 5
Summary: A very good book- from the BEGINNING to the end.
Comment: This is a very good book, like most of Potok's other works, it is centered around a Jewish adolescent,(orthodox, of course) coming of age and learning how to interact with his parents.
This book was, in some ways, a departure from Potok's earlier works about Hasidism. This takes place before THE CHOSEN, and MY NAME IS ASHER LEV, and has barely any mention of the "pious ones", save for the character's father voicing his distaste for them.
This is the story of every typical jewish kid in NYC in the between-war-years, (with the exception of the constant illness this caracter is afflicted with) and for that, it is very successful.
Reading this, for me, was invaluable in doing genealogy research on my family. This helped me get in the "mindset of the time". My family, like the family of the main character, had come over, had children, and then watched their relatives get killed in Europe, and this gave me a very good sense of what it was like, from the American viewpoint.
It showed how the Americanized Jews dealt with the problems in Palestine, how Jews and gentiles interacted, all the while with Henry Ford and Father Couglin taking up arms against them [the Jews]. It also showed how they responded to the early Nazism in 1930s Germany, and then what happened when they learned the awful truth.
Like most of Potok's main characters, this one is involved in Torah and Talmudic study, so non-jews and secular ones, BEWARE: YOU MIGHT HAVE TO LOOK SOMETHING UP! (oh, the horror!)
But, despite whatever minor issues one might have with this book, it succeeds in the end, and it is a very compelling story.
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Title: The Book of Lights by Chaim Potok ISBN: 0449245691 Publisher: Fawcett Books Pub. Date: 12 September, 1982 List Price(USD): $7.99 |
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Title: Davita's Harp by Chaim Potok ISBN: 0449911837 Publisher: Ballantine Books Pub. Date: 27 August, 1996 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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Title: The Promise by Chaim Potok ISBN: 0449209105 Publisher: Fawcett Books Pub. Date: 12 November, 1985 List Price(USD): $7.99 |
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Title: I Am the Clay by Chaim Potok ISBN: 0449221385 Publisher: Fawcett Books Pub. Date: 04 December, 1993 List Price(USD): $6.99 |
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Title: Old Men at Midnight by Chaim Potok ISBN: 0345439988 Publisher: Ballantine Books Pub. Date: 30 July, 2002 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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