Some thoughts on "My Name is Asher Lev" before I return the book to the library
On June 22, Dave Long begins a discussion of Chaim Potok's "My Name is Asher Lev" on his blog.
I have to return the book to the library, but there is one key passage I want to transcribe so I have it available when the discussion begins:
"I looked at my right hand, the hand with which I painted. There was power in that hand. Power to create and destroy. Power to bring pleasure and pain. Power to amuse and horrify. There was in that hand the demonice and the divine at one and the same time. The demonic and the divine were two aspects of the same force. Creation was demonic and divine. Creativity was demonic and divine. Art was demonic and divine. The solitary vision that put new eyes into gouged-out sockets was demonic and divine. I was demonic and divine. Asher Lev, son of Aryeh and Rivkeh Lev, was the child of the Master of the Universe and the Other Side. Asher Lev paints good pictures and hurts the people he loves. Then be a great painter, Asher Lev; that will be the only justification for all the pain you will cause."
I'm especially interested in these phrases: "The demonic and the divine were two aspects of the same force. Creation was demonic and divine. Creativity was demonic and divine. Art was demonic and divine."
I am deeply troubled by the ring of Gnosticism in those lines. Jungians would say that God himself is demonic and divine....like that yin and yang symbol showing light and darkness, masculinity and feminity.
As Christians we're told that in God there is no darkness at all. We're told that our wholly good, holy God, created the world and pronounced it good.
If you had a gift of art that mingled darkneses in it, would you renounce it? Would you renounce all counterfeit gifts, and powers, and talents?
I'd recommend that anyone who doesn't know anything about Gnosticism take a visit to Leanne Payne's excellent site and read some of the articles about Carl Jung.
As Christian writers, we have a different responsibility. Which does not mean starving the imagination, but making sure that our imagination is washed clean, redeemed in the Blood of Christ.
I read an interesting article in Vanity Fair by Christopher Hitchens on James Joyce's novel Ulysses. Hitchens prides himself as being an iconoclast and on some things he's brilliant, but he hates the Church. And, according to his article, Joyce hated it too and used all his brilliance and creativity to rail against it.
I could never get past the first few paragraphs of Ulysses and maybe I'm a "less educated" person because I didn't force myself to read the whole thing.
Thoughts anyone?
posted by Unknown @ 12:46 PM
2 comments
2 Comments:
I read Asher Lev as well, Deborah, in preparation for Dave Long's discussion. While I enjoyed the book, I agree with you 100%. I loved your point that God created the world and called it good. God, the Creator, did not create something that is both good and evil. Now of course we can argue that the demonic was invited into creation afterward, by God's creation, and that may be where Dave's discussion is going to go.
Actually, I'm really interested to see where that conversation goes. Why does Dave think this book is an absolute prerequisite for any writer of faith? Perhaps because it demonstrates how our inner struggles - about our faith and everything else - always show through in our art. I know that's true, and it's a good point, and this book does demonstrate that.
I think I've mentioned this before, but at the Festival Of Faith And Writing in April, I heard several Christian writers of secular fiction speak about their writing. One thing I heard repeated is their belief that as Christians, we have a responsibility to present a Christian worldview in our books. Even if God isn't a central character in the books, to ignore His existence in the worlds we create means we haven't created a real world. I want my worlds to be redeemed by the Blood of Christ, as you say!
okay, know that i believe God is all good before i say this.
how can we, humans, have a gift that is anything other than sullied? i don't think, from that perspective, our limited capacity and our blackened hands, that we can possess a pure gift and weild it as such all the time. that is the ideal. that is how we are "supposed" to behave as christians. but who does? no one, we can't. but for the grace of God, we none of us can be all light and truth.
He is all light and truth though, and lives within us, how much of a paradox is that? i just started asher lev, wasn't sure if i was going to press through but then his mother started screaming and i got hooked. i get grief. even bad grief. i've seen what it can do to people.
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