The Book of Lights

Rating:
Summary: My name is Gershon Loran
Review:

When I bought this book I asked the young lady who sold it to me if she could pronounce Rabbi Potok's first name. She could, and did, and told me that it was a good book. She was right.

(Chaim starts out like chutzpah and rhymes with lime.)

Potok also wrote "The Chosen," "The Promise," "In the Beginning," and "My Name is Asher Levm" among others. He was trained and ordained as a rabbi and served as a chaplain with the U.S. Army in Korea.

"The Book of Lights" is a novel about an introverted, indecisive Jewish orphan boy who is raised by an aunt and uncle and educated in New York's parochial schools. He is a mediocre scholar, physically unprepossessing, and has an inferiority complex; the kind of hero it is easy to identify with. His name is Gershon Loran.

Somehow, Gershon manages to accidentally stumble into seminary. (He thinks his friend is going, but the friend backs out at the last minute.) There he rooms with a boy whose father was a co-inventor of the atom bomb, and takes a course in Jewish mysticism from a professor not noted for his kindliness. Just what Gershon needed; he has no place to go but up, and he does.

The roommates both wind up as chaplains in post-war Korea, and together they make a pilgrimage to Hiroshima, via Hongkong, Macao and Kyoto. Finally the guilt-ridden roommate is killed in an airplane crash.

Potok's writing style is choppy and allusive, a little reminiscent of Ernest Hemingway. Often he gives only one side of the dialogue, leaving the other side to the reader's imagination. There is no suspense in "The Book of Lights," and very little action. The story is about self-discovery and the hero's religious feelings. It sounds deadly, and probably it will be for many readers. Personally, I liked it and it held me to the end. It is true that it is slow moving and a great many of the Jewish references are unfamiliar and confusing, but Potok's characters live and breathe and elicit concern. And if one ends up on the last line of the last page wondering what the point of the whole thing was, well...

Joseph Pierre,
author of THE ROAD TO DAMASCUS: Our Journey Through Eternity

Rating:
Summary: Potok's brilliant evocation of darkness and light
Review: Chaim Potok is one terrific storyteller. He tells big stories,of peoples,microcosemed in the stories of familes,mostly boys and men{though in Davita's harp, he steps outside,with interesting results}Th Book of lights is essentially the story of two friends, Gershon and Arthur.Gershon,alone attempts to understand the darkness swallowing the earth by studying kabbalah, the book of Jewish Mysticism. His friend is haunted by dreams of light, the brightest light men have yet discovered. Gershon becomes a chaplain in Korea,and contineus his journey. Arthur is haunted by the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and especially Nagasaki.The title of the book is of course bouble edged, the book of lights and the balst of atomic weapons. There is little sermonising here. mr. Potok, as aleways, has kept to his storytelling genius. The debates among the rabbis at the Jewish Theological Seminary about the role of Kabbalh are very inereesting, and Loran's mystical encounter on a Brooklyn rooftop are moments of sheer poetry. This is a big book, rich, filled with ideas. In many ways, it is Mr Potoks most ambitious work of fiction. And very, very rewarding.

Rating:
Summary: Beautifully written, captivating story
Review: Dr. Potok's books are all beautiful and moving. This one is my favorite. I have read and re-read The Book of Lights too many times to count, and with each reading it moves me more. It is a rich tapestry of characters, woven with darkness and light. I highly recommend it to avid readers who seek out deeply developed stories and characters.

Rating:
Summary: Fascinating clash of cultures
Review: I read the Book of Lights in Korea where I was stationed (2nd Inf Div), and perhaps for that reason it really came alive for me. The Chaplaincy is a unique institution, in that military clergy provide ministry for all soldiers, not simply for those of one's particular faith group. Then add the Asian element, the post Korean war trauma, along with the personal struggles with faith, and the result is confronting conflicting cultures and ideas, and an internal struggle to find one's identity. A must for readers of Chaim Potok's novels.

Rating:
Summary: Fascinating clash of cultures
Review: I read the Book of Lights in Korea where I was stationed (2nd Inf Div), and perhaps for that reason it really came alive for me. The Chaplaincy is a unique institution, in that military clergy provide ministry for all soldiers, not simply for those of one's particular faith group. Then add the Asian element, the post Korean war trauma, along with the personal struggles with faith, and the result is confronting conflicting cultures and ideas, and an internal struggle to find one's identity. A must for readers of Chaim Potok's novels.

Rating:
Summary: Painful luminescence
Review: The Book of Lights is one of those books that either captivates you, or bores you to death. I used to think that Chaim Potok must have written this book just for me, because I was the only person who read it. Or so it seemed. Gershon Loran reminded me of myself in seminary, a lackluster student with a spark for odd and heretical or mystical literature. Bored by normative religion, he seeks answers for the pain and suffering in his life in Kabbalagh, or Jewish mysticism. The reader sees the transformation of his soul into what his mentor, Dr. Keter, calls the next generation of Jewish mysticism: the Light of past wisdom and insight refracted through an American lense. Gershon is a mystic, and yet he doesn't seem to fully realize his potential, because it doesn't seem odd to him when G_d himself descends into his room, or he contemplates storming the throneroom of the Almighty.

Rating:
Summary: Painful luminescence
Review: The Book of Lights is one of those books that either captivates you, or bores you to death. I used to think that Chaim Potok must have written this book just for me, because I was the only person who read it. Or so it seemed. Gershon Loran reminded me of myself in seminary, a lackluster student with a spark for odd and heretical or mystical literature. Bored by normative religion, he seeks answers for the pain and suffering in his life in Kabbalagh, or Jewish mysticism. The reader sees the transformation of his soul into what his mentor, Dr. Keter, calls the next generation of Jewish mysticism: the Light of past wisdom and insight refracted through an American lense. Gershon is a mystic, and yet he doesn't seem to fully realize his potential, because it doesn't seem odd to him when G_d himself descends into his room, or he contemplates storming the throneroom of the Almighty.

Rating:
Summary: Unlike the others, but still very good
Review: The content was different than Potok's other books that I have read, but no less enjoyable. He writes with such a deep emotion, and I love his characters. I liked Gershon's Kabbalistic studies and how they coincided with the images of light throughout the book. I think this book was spurred by many of Potok's own experiences as a war chaplain in Korea.

I am glad I was able to read it... anything by Potok is beautiful!