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Jul. 5th, 2022 10:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
skygiantsI've been wanting to reread Chaim Potok's The Chosen ever since I found out that (according to family lore) my great-aunt Esther (her memory for a grammar-persnickety blessing) helped Potok type & edit early versions of his manuscript, then had a falling-out with him because he didn't thank her in the acknowledgments. (Since she is not mentioned in the acknowledgments, I will never have the documentary evidence to prove this one way or the other, but they did attend the same synagogue during a relevant period.)
I also wanted to reread it because the one thing I remembered about the actual plot, other than 'baseball?', was that it was the first book I ever read in my childhood that presented the idea of the founding of Israel as a potentially controversial topic under active discussion. The version of anti-Zionism that Potok presents in The Chosen and that drives much of the drama of the back half of the book is an intensely Hasidic/Messianic anti-Zionism rather than a leftist/Yiddishist/diasporic/anticolonialist anti-Zionism and he is not at all sympathetic to it, but -- as someone who grew up with Israeli relatives and in very mainstream Conservative/Reform Jewish circles that took Support For Israel very much as the default -- it was still my first introduction to the concept that Jews might occasionally disagree on this particular element of What It Means To Be Jewish as much as we disagree about everything else.
For those who didn't read it in middle school, The Chosen is, of course, a book about Jews disagreeing; the protagonist is Reuven, the son of a progressive Modern Orthodox rabbi who also wants to be a rabbi even though his dad wants him to be a doctor, who meets his soulmate in Danny, the brilliant but unhappy son of a Hasidic leader, who wants to be a psychiatrist even though he's destined to succeed his father as rabbi. I don't use the word 'soulmate' lightly, btw. Reuven and Danny are SO INTENSE about each other -- they meet-dramatic during a baseball game where they are instantly overcome with passionate murderous intent towards each other, and then on their second meeting (in the hospital!) they exchange apologies and become immediately and mutually obsessed. At one point someone also calls them David and Jonathan so I do think Potok had at least an idea of what he was doing here.
If you note the little 'yikes' in this screencap I have shared, btw, that's not me; that's my friend George, the school child who previously owned the copy of The Chosen that I found in a used bookstore and used for this reread. George faithfully annotated the entire book with his impressions -- other favorites include 'meanies!', 'fathers are not good in this book'/'fathers actually good', and 'lol everyones killing it' during a particularly intense session of Talmudic scholarship -- and I regret to report that the grade on the front shows that his teacher did not appreciate his efforts as much as she could have. I'm very sorry, George; you extremely enhanced my reading experience and in my heart you got an A.
I also wanted to reread it because the one thing I remembered about the actual plot, other than 'baseball?', was that it was the first book I ever read in my childhood that presented the idea of the founding of Israel as a potentially controversial topic under active discussion. The version of anti-Zionism that Potok presents in The Chosen and that drives much of the drama of the back half of the book is an intensely Hasidic/Messianic anti-Zionism rather than a leftist/Yiddishist/diasporic/anticolonialist anti-Zionism and he is not at all sympathetic to it, but -- as someone who grew up with Israeli relatives and in very mainstream Conservative/Reform Jewish circles that took Support For Israel very much as the default -- it was still my first introduction to the concept that Jews might occasionally disagree on this particular element of What It Means To Be Jewish as much as we disagree about everything else.
For those who didn't read it in middle school, The Chosen is, of course, a book about Jews disagreeing; the protagonist is Reuven, the son of a progressive Modern Orthodox rabbi who also wants to be a rabbi even though his dad wants him to be a doctor, who meets his soulmate in Danny, the brilliant but unhappy son of a Hasidic leader, who wants to be a psychiatrist even though he's destined to succeed his father as rabbi. I don't use the word 'soulmate' lightly, btw. Reuven and Danny are SO INTENSE about each other -- they meet-dramatic during a baseball game where they are instantly overcome with passionate murderous intent towards each other, and then on their second meeting (in the hospital!) they exchange apologies and become immediately and mutually obsessed. At one point someone also calls them David and Jonathan so I do think Potok had at least an idea of what he was doing here.
If you note the little 'yikes' in this screencap I have shared, btw, that's not me; that's my friend George, the school child who previously owned the copy of The Chosen that I found in a used bookstore and used for this reread. George faithfully annotated the entire book with his impressions -- other favorites include 'meanies!', 'fathers are not good in this book'/'fathers actually good', and 'lol everyones killing it' during a particularly intense session of Talmudic scholarship -- and I regret to report that the grade on the front shows that his teacher did not appreciate his efforts as much as she could have. I'm very sorry, George; you extremely enhanced my reading experience and in my heart you got an A.
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Date: 2022-07-06 03:49 am (UTC)Meta-thematically, all my mother remembers about it is not liking it. ("I expected it to be a more substantive book and it just . . . wasn't? There are a lot of non-substantive books that have been written which are very useful for the world, so . . . It's not The Last of the Just.")
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Date: 2022-07-10 05:59 pm (UTC)Anyway, I don't know how substantive I would call it necessarily -- the scope is very focused, and a bit limited in its focus -- but I do think it's an interesting portrait of both its particular characters and its specific sort of moment in, specifically, American Jewish history.
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Date: 2022-07-10 06:19 pm (UTC)I liked it very much in college when I read it, and I would not recommend reading it now.
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Date: 2022-07-06 08:49 am (UTC)(her memory for a grammar-persnickety blessing)
This is how I would like to be referred to posthumously, knock wood. (And it does seem depressingly likely that Potok assumed that typing was just What Women Did for One.)
George faithfully annotated the entire book with his impressions -- other favorites include 'meanies!', 'fathers are not good in this book'/'fathers actually good', and 'lol everyones killing it' during a particularly intense session of Talmudic scholarship
George's vocabulary may be limited but his reading comprehension sounds pretty darn good and I hope his next teacher appreciated him better! Right on.
Have you read The Promise, which is the sequel to The Chosen? I'm a weirdo who prefers the sequel, which is itself a very weird book; less tightly focused on Danny and Reuven alone (but still narrated by Reuven, whom I love), with two actual prominent female characters among others. It's also (spoilery to some extent) the only novel I've ever read where the sentence "I emended the text" represents a major dramatic turning point.
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Date: 2022-07-10 06:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-07-06 11:52 am (UTC)Also, I share your puzzlement that George's teacher didn't give him an A. His impressions sound like gold actually! Were there just not enough of them or what?
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Date: 2022-07-10 06:04 pm (UTC)It absolutely can't be that, there were so many annotations throughout the book! From the note in front I think his teacher didn't think they showed sufficient Depth but I profoundly disagree. >:((
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Date: 2022-07-10 07:56 pm (UTC)Also WHAT does the teacher want for depth? Entire paragraphs in the margins? Sometimes "yikes" covers it!
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Date: 2022-07-06 12:08 pm (UTC)(Did I ever show you the angry annotations on my copy of Emma Goldstein’s memoir? I think you would like them.)
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Date: 2022-07-10 06:06 pm (UTC)(NO, I would love to see them! I still very much need to read that memoir, also.)
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Date: 2022-07-06 08:47 pm (UTC)GEORGE IS ADORABLE
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Date: 2022-07-08 05:14 am (UTC)Also love the "yikes," awwww :D
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Date: 2022-07-10 06:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-07-21 10:27 pm (UTC)I'm very glad this one struck you positively; I was obsessed with it in high school, and have been shooting it wary "do you hold up to rereads" glances for months now. Have you read My Name is Asher Lev? I was deeply moved by it, also in high school, and I think that I'll simply never accept other Conflicted Jew YA because they aren't My Name is Asher Lev. It's also got my Crowning Moment of Ekphrasis in any work.
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Date: 2022-07-22 10:31 pm (UTC)