Boekverslag Chaim Potok

Geschreven door:	Job Veltman [meer]
Datum ingestuurd:	24 oktober 2002
Taal:
Woorden:	1561
Opvragingen:	6816 (0 deze maand)
Waardering:	Currently 3.79/5 1 2 3 4 5 3.8/5 (24 stemmen)

Titel:	The chosen
Auteur:	Potok, Chaim
Jaar van uitgave:	1966
Aantal pagina's:	271
Moeilijkheidsgraad:	bovenbouw havo/vwo

Auteur:	Potok, Chaim
Geslacht:	man
Nationaliteit:	Engels
Geboren:	17 februari 1929
Overleden:	23 juli 2002
Populaire titels:	1966The chosen (13) 1972My name is Asher Lev (4) 1985Davita's harp (3) 1969The Promise (1) 1975In the beginning (1) 1981The book of lights (1) 1990The gift of Asher Lev (1) 2001Old men at midnight / Oude mannen om middernacht (1) ... meer

1. The chosen
2. The chosen
3. The chosen
4. The chosen
5. The chosen
6. The chosen
7. The chosen
8. The chosen
9. The chosen
... meer

Download dit verslag in PDF-formaat

English: analysis paper 1
Subject:The Chosen by Chaim Potok

§1 The author
Chaim Potok was born as an American Jew on February the 17th of the year 1929 in New York, USA. There he lived in the Jewish part of NY, called Williamsburg. Williamsburg is and was located in Brooklyn, which occupies a large part of NY. After his primary education he decided to study philosophy at the University of Pennsylvania. Finishing that he started writing about the different aspects Jews have on their religion. Famous and, to my opinion, most interesting books of him are ‘The Promise’ and ‘My name is Asher Lev’ followed by ‘The gift of Asher Lev’. The Chosen also is a very famous book of him. Potok was a chaplain for the US army in the Korean War from 1955 to 1957.
Chaim Potok died at the age of 73 years old in his beloved city of New York earlier this year.

§2 The book
Publisher: Penguin Books, 1970, UK
First Published: Simon & Schuster, 1966, USA
280 pages.

§3 Storyline
The story begins when Danny Saunders and Reuven Malter are at the age of 15. They both played in a baseball team; Reuven in the team of the Yeshiva1). He meets with Danny playing in the Hasidic2) team. Danny, unofficially the team’s leader, turns the match into a religious war between the Hasidic and the ‘gojiem’: those who reject the Hasidic teachings. At some point Reuven is pitcher, and throws the ball at Danny who is striking. Danny hits the ball incredibly fast, Reuven defiantly doesn’t duck and the ball hits his glasses, causes breaking them. Reuven was brought into a hospital because of the pieces of glass in his eye. When Danny comes to visit him the next day, Reuven refuses, still angry about the game. However, the next time he didn’t reject again meeting Danny. This is the beginning of a very interesting friendship.
In the next years they are trying to understand the others religious convictions. Reuven is liberally raised by his father, seeing the Jewish religion from a western point of view. Danny, as the son of the Rabbi3) of the Hasidic NY sect, has been raised by the whole Hasidic community to become the next Rabbi after his father. Their different opinions are a result of their so different circumstances of life. The leads to a series of discussions about all sort of things, exploring the others mind and feelings. One of the main discussion points is that there was absolutely no normal social contact between Danny and his father. Rabbi Saunders never speaks to his son, except when they are together studing Talmud4). Reuven does not understand any of this matter, because he has a very open relation with his father, asking and getting explained everything he wants to know. At the end of this paragraph I will get back to this matter.
After the Second World War ended in Europe, and the allies discover what has been done to the European Jews by Hitler, Mr. Malter (Reuven’s father) took a leading place in forming a Jewish country in Palestine. This Zionism is strictly rejected by the Hasidic teachings, so Rabbi Saunders can’t to anything but to excommunicate Reuven Malter; he forbids any contact between him and his son, Danny. This causes such a silence in both their lives, that the boys are suffering heavily, physically and mentally. Mr. Malter suffers from two heart attacks in this period, but Danny is not allowed to hearten Reuven. This made this period very hard for both. After the establishment of the state of Israel, Rabbi Saunders does not prolong the excommunication because the evil had been done and could not be turned again.
Now Danny and Reuven could speak freely again, things were getting better fast. Danny, as a very intelligent boy, needed more for his hungry mind than Talmud and books of Hasidic authors. That ended in Danny going secretly into the library to read forbidden literature of philosophists like Freud and Goethe. Like this he was confronted with a lot of ways to look at life. He now came at a point, that he decided he would go to a university and study analytical philosophy. This was very, very conflicting with the will of his father and the Hasidic movement. He was chosen to become a Rabbi. The evening Danny was going to tell his father, Reuven came along.
Officially, Rabbi Saunders asked Reuven to come over to study Talmud together with him and Danny. Reuven refused a couple of times before, but his father made him clear the Rabbi’s intentions were very different from that; the Rabbi wanted to end the silence between himself and Danny, but using it for the last time: all previous communications between Saunders senior and junior was going from Rabbi Saunders to Reuven and from Reuven to Danny.

As his father commences:
‘Daniel has been born with such a brilliant mind, that his hunger for knowledge dominated the goodness, the righteousness in his soul. I wanted him to be a Tzaddik5) for his people, but for him to become that I needed his brilliant mind to understand pain, to understand he should want to take on another people’s sufferings. I decided to raise my son in silence, like my father raised me in silence. For me it was the only way to make sure that he knew that what he would do, he had the soul of a Tzaddik, and would become one. Knowing this, he would lead his hunger for knowledge to stay following the Ten Commandments, but also to look at things worldlier: I wanted him to become a Tzaddik of the world, because the world needs a Tzaddik.’

Reuven decides not to go to college but to go to the rabbinic school and to become a Rabbi. Danny now started talking with his father, shove off his beard and earlocks, and was accepted by all universities he would want to. He chose the University of Columbia. Reuven and Danny were friends for the rest of their lives.

Explanation of some words:
1) Yeshiva a Jewish school
2) Hasidic very orthodox Jewish movement, following the Ten Commandments and believing in the return of the Messiah.
3) Rabbi the leader of a Jewish group
4) Talmud the main Jewish literary writings
5) Tzaddik considered by the Hasidic sect as a man very wise in life experience, and always available for good advice. Mostly thought the highest to be desirable function in the Jewish community.

§4 Characterization
Reuven Malter: In the beginning a intelligent boy without a lot of experience in life. Reuven respected his father a lot, thinking he was a very wise man. First he hated Danny Saunders because of the baseball match, but afterwards they became best friends. He also hated Rabbi Saunders because of the way he hurted Danny with ‘raising him in silence’.
Danny Saunders: Also a very intelligent boy, who needed someone to talk about his problems, finding someone like that in Reuven. He respected his father because of his great wisdom and his endeavors to the Hasidic community, but he could not understand ‘the silence’. He met Mr. Malter seeking interesting literature. Mr. Malter helped him with advising what to read, without knowing each other’s names.
Mr. Malter: Helps his son with a lot of things, and helps him understand the relation between Danny and his father. He thought of Danny like a very intelligent boy, but also a boy needing attention. Therefore he encouraged Reuven to make friends with Danny. He thought of Rabbi Saunders as a very wise man, but he didn’t approve all the Rabbi’s methods.
Rabbi Saunders: Raises his son in silence, and approving Reuven as a friend of Danny to help him discover his meaning of life. He sees Mr. Malter as a man with a good soul, but because of the Hasidic teachings he has to reject whatever Mr. Malter says.

§5 Title explanation
‘The Chosen’: Danny is by birth chosen to follow his father and become a Rabbi, and later on chosen by his father to become a ‘worldly’ Tzaddik. Reuven has been chosen by Rabbi Saunders to be his son’s friend. Together they are the Chosen. I do not consider the title as a very well-over thought matter.

§6 Narrative perspective
The whole story you are looking out of the eyes of Reuven Malter, so it’s 1st person.

§7 Styling figures
The only one I could find was an enormous one: Danny had me predestined to become a Rabbi, but didn’t, and Reuven was to become everything he wanted to be and he just wanted to become a Rabbi.

§8 Theme/genre
This book can best be described as a psychological novel about a friendship. Danny and Reuven become friends after the incident on the baseball field.

§ Personal opinion
I think this book is one of the best ever, at least the best one I have ever read. It was the first book that ever really moved me, and I have spent a lot of thought on it. To the question if this will be a literary classic I can say yes without a doubt. I also like the style this book is written in; no pointless use of very large and complicated words, and the lines are succinctly written. I can sense a lot of feelings are involved from Potok’s own youth, when he himself grew up where the story takes place. It gives the story an extra dimension.