Book Note: My Name is Asher Lev

I’ve been thinking quite a bit, since my conversation with my uncle Mont about my dad , about how we are influenced by our predecessors. As I listened to his stories about his parents, I was shocked at how many similarities between my two grandparents—one who I barely knew, one who died over a decade before I was born—and myself. Obviously, I didn’t pick up these similarities by seeing my grandparents do them. Take my love of the mountains, for example. My grandpa Curt loved being in the mountains so much that he was drawn to rigorous hikes even though he knew his heart wasn’t necessarily up for them. That is a powerful pull, and I feel it, too; sometimes I even dream about the mountains. Yet I never went on a hike with him. I never even went on a hike with my own dad. Are passions inheritable? Do they get passed down through genes like brown eyes or extra-long second toes?

More than passions and pursuits, though, what struck me most is the one huge difficulty in my grandparents’ life is the exact same in mine. They didn’t ever resolve this difficulty before my grandpa died, but it continued to affect my dad. It’s probably the major reason he never talked about his childhood. As I’ve thought about that striking similarity, I can’t help wondering: generations later, is my task to resolve what they couldn’t? Or, maybe it is that their issues continue to make themselves known in me because, even though the people are gone, the effects are felt throughout time. I know I am responsible for my own bad choices, but it is a curious thing, seeing how I am reliving some of their wrong choices. Is it up to me to atone for the mistakes they made in their lives by trying to not make them, or to fix them, in my own?

These were the thoughts already running around in my head when I started reading My Name is Asher Lev. Arguably, this is a book about art, about how a person becomes an artist and how disparate influences transform into paintings. It’s also a book about how, between the artist’s head and the actual piece of art he creates, there is a step the viewer cannot understand, the thoughts that had to process before the art could be made. It is in that process that meaning becomes subjective—the difference between the artist’s intention and the viewer’s interpretation—because we cannot ever be inside the artist’s head as he experiences the process.

But it is also a book that is exactly about what I was pondering—the communication between generations. Asher is influenced by his "mythic ancestor," the great-great grandfather who creates their family’s mythology. He—or his influence—stars in all the family stories. And he haunts Asher’s dreams, his own personal booming, disapproving archetype. Yet as Asher grows in his artistic development, he begins to interpret the family stories in a different way, and as he does this, the mythic ancestor transforms into a sort of muse. And just like we can’t ever be in an artist’s head as he creates his paintings, we cannot ever be in the mythic ancestor’s head—we can’t know if the way we interpret his actions is the way he was truly motivated.

For example, all his life Asher’s known the stories about his mythic ancestor, who worked hard for a gentile, making him plenty of money even though the gentile was prone to killing serfs in random drunken rages, how he traveled around Russia to bring people to God. But as he ponders the stories, he starts to wonder—maybe that wasn’t the only reason. Maybe "he was journeying [as] an unknowing act of atonement." Asher wonders if his ancestor might have "unwittingly transmitted the need for such an act to his children," passing down his guilt through generations along with his red hair. And it is only after he is able to see the mythic ancestor in a new light, to question how much of an effect his great-great grandfather has had on his life, that he is able to start making the paintings that are the turning point of his career and, truly, of his life.

Those paintings—his Jewish mother on a crucifix—are also an attempt to communicate between generations. "I made our living-room window into a crucifixion," he wants to tell his mother, "and I put you on it to show the world my feelings about your waiting, your fears, your anguish." But since he cannot say those words, only paint them in a language his mother doesn’t understand, she cannot hear them, and once again there is that gap between the original spark and the artistic outcome, just as there is a gap between the two generations who cannot understand each other.

Asher and I have wondered the same thing: "had something inarticulate been handed down from generation to generation that came to life in each individual at a time most appropriate to him?" Asher senses that this is a truth, and I do, too. I think about my paternal grandparents who are, in a way, my mythic ancestors; I wonder which parts of me are also parts of them, coming to life when I need them? How much of their lives am I making up for? And then the real question: how might I use whatever scant knowledge I have of them to be able to atone for their mistakes? Here is my inarticulate thing, because I can’t really even find the right word; "atone" isn’t fully what I mean. How can I use their knowledge about their failures to help me not have the same failures in my life? Is that even possible?

To me, this is one of the strangest things about reading. Perhaps it’s just, simply, that you notice more the ideas you are already considering. But over and over, this continues to happen, that I find in a book the same themes I am trying to interpret in my own life, and the book adds to my knowledge. I don’t know that I have an answer, yet, to how my life is influenced by my grandparents’—by all of my ancestors, really. But I continue to think, along with Asher, that it is. Without a doubt.

Comments

[Wendy]

This book was so fascinating to me. I love the different aspects you wrote about here. There was a great deal in the book to really relate to, wasn't there? Have you seen the original painting Chaim Potok actually did? He said this book was the most autobiographical of his books, though not a true autobiography. I found this book sending me on-line to look up all kinds of information. It was wonderful!

[Lucy]

I loved this book. You have such an analytical way of looking at literature and applying it to your situation. Interesting thoughts.

[Kim]

I haven't read the book, and what I want to comment on is the unfinished business of past relationships. I read Unfinished Business and Intimate Partners, two books by Maggie Scarf. Those books were like a revalation to me, helping me understand how the patterns of relationships in my family, even several generations ago, influenced my relationships today. I no longer have Unfinished Business, and I noted Amazon has a newer version of Intimate Partners. If your library has one of them, especially Intimate Partners, you might want to take a look.

[Air force one]

How valuable for me, believe that it will attract lot of people's love.