Narrator Point of View First Person Central Narrator Asher Lev is the star of the show in every way—the novel is named after him, written about the events of his early life, and narrated by him.
We need look no further than the very first paragraph of the book to find evidence of it: My name is Asher Lev, the Asher Lev, about whom you have read in the papers and magazines, about whom you talk so much at your dinner affairs and cocktail parties, the notorious and legendary Lev of the Brooklyn Crucifixion.
In fact, the whole process of writing this book is supposed to be about telling the truth and whacking through the jungle of myths and rumors spread about him since he painted the controversial paintings that rocked the Hasidic world: The fact is that gossip, rumors, mythmaking, and news stories are not appropriate vehicles for the communication of nuances of truth, those subtle tonalities that are often the truly crucial elements in a causal chain.
What's Up With the Ending? Setting What's Up With the Epigraph? Tired of ads? Join today and never see them again. Get started.
He decides to settle in Paris for a while. For the first time in years, he begins painting his mythic ancestor and scenes from his Brooklyn neighborhood. He works on two paintings, both of them portraying the Brooklyn apartment window in a way that evokes the crucifixion.
In the second painting, he portrays his mother bound to the cruciform shape, her head divided into three segments looking upward and at the figures of himself and his father. His parents welcome him warmly, and because Asher promises there are no nudes in his paintings, they plan to attend the exhibition.
He visits Jacob Kahn for the last time. In the days before the exhibition, Asher agonizes over the crucifixion paintings, knowing how much these images will hurt his parents. At the exhibit, Aryeh and Rivkeh are shocked and horrified by the crucifixions; they immediately leave in silence.
Asher tries to explain to his mother that his use of the form of the crucifix was an aesthetic choice without blasphemous intent. She listens, but she cannot understand, nor can she explain it to Aryeh. The Rebbe meets with Asher and tells him that, although he understands what Asher has done, this community cannot accept it—Asher has crossed a line. The Rebbe asks Asher to leave the Brooklyn Ladover community. As his cab drives down the street, he looks back and sees them watching him through the living room window.
My Name is Asher Lev. Plot Summary. All Themes The Divine vs. Rackover The pimply-faced boy Uncle Yitzchok. All Symbols Window Crucifixion. LitCharts Teacher Editions. Teach your students to analyze literature like LitCharts does. Detailed explanations, analysis, and citation info for every important quote on LitCharts.
Aryeh begins taking Asher to work with him during the day. Aryeh works at the Ladover headquarters, a Gothic building containing a publishing press and conference rooms. The Rebbe and his wife also live there, in a second-floor apartment. His father works in a small third-floor office. He often sits reading newspapers or talking on the phone. Asher often hears him speaking about Russia. Aryeh sometimes speaks in English, Yiddish, Hebrew, or French. At the end of a workday, he looks weary and complains that he needs people, not telephones.
In post-Holocaust Europe, especially in Communist-controlled areas, many Jewish communities faced continued persecution and internal disarray. Late one afternoon, Aryeh takes a phone call.
The man on the telephone told him that people in Russia are harming Jews. That night, Aryeh tries to get Rivkeh to eat supper with them, but she refuses. Later, Asher is awakened by the sound of his father softly chanting Psalms in front of the living room window.
What he learns weighs on him. In both his work and his family life, Aryeh has a sense of powerlessness and an inability to fix the crises at hand. The next day, there are more tense phone calls in Russian.
Aryeh paces around his office, restless. At supper that night, Asher tells Rivkeh about the drawing. But it was a good drawing. Asher wants to create truthful work—not necessarily work that others will find pleasing.
Even if it is unfinished. Rivkeh is still in an emotionally fragile state. Someone puts him to bed. When he wakes up later, his father is standing there. In this realization, he and Aryeh have much in common. He owns a successful jewelry and watch-repair store in Brooklyn and has several children. Aryeh asks Asher to leave the room. In his bedroom, Asher draws pictures of his kindly uncle. For the first time, Asher feels the ambivalence associated with being recognized for his art and also having to give up his creations.
As spring progresses, Asher sometimes spends whole days sitting in the living room with his mother and watching the sunlight change as it moves across the room. He uses the ashes from her old cigarettes to get the contours just right.
Asher is beginning to develop his awareness of light and also to display precocious instincts regarding color and line, trying different media in order to get the effect he wants. This self-led experimentation and careful attention to detail suggest that Asher is artistically driven by a desire to capture things as they truly are. He asks Asher who taught him to use cigarette ash. Asher explains that he came up with the idea himself.
He apologizes for making Aryeh angry with him. Aryeh just tells Asher to say his bedtime prayer and bids him goodnight. But he also has compassion for his father and wants to bring about good through his art.
One Sunday morning, Asher accompanies his father to the grocery store. He meets a nervous-looking man with a strange cap and a raspy voice, Reb Yudel Krinsky. He has just come from Russia, Aryeh explains. Aryeh asks Yudel Krinsky how he is feeling. Here I stand in matzos over my head. Asher meets someone who, unlike him, has endured severe persecution for being Jewish.
Here, Yudel compares the dizzying contrast between the privations of Russia where matzos —the unleavened bread eaten during Passover—was a great scarcity with the plenty and freedom found in the U.
After they leave the store, Aryeh explains to Asher that he helped Yudel come to America from Russia. His strange hat is called a kaskett.
0コメント