The Chosen

[knightedrogue]

So I finished reading Chaim Potok's The Chosen last night and was so terribly disappointed that I still feel the need to vent a bit. Everyone I talked to LOVES this book, so I read it. And I was good up until I finished it. Then I sat with it a bit, reread a few sections. And then I decided I didn't like the ending at all. It feels like ... pop lit

Comments

[suehypno]

If it'll make you feel any better, I'm not sure I've even HEARD of it before...

[knightedrogue]

Apparently it's taught in a lot of AP Lit classes, though we didn't read it. Potok is an Orthodox Jew, and this story in particular was interesting: two American Jewish boys, one of whom is a Hasidic Jew, become friends, both brilliant students, and they live in the last part of WWII and beyond, into the Israel nationalist movement. It covers everything from Zionism to Orthodoxy to Hasidicism to the Holocaust. Fascinating. But it ends poorly. I think.

[holdouttrout]

I haven't read it. Should I?

[knightedrogue]

I think you'll feel like I do: it's a great book until it ends, and then it's kind of like you wasted the past three days reading something. But I don't know. You know me. I miss things in literature sometimes. :) I think you should read it and tell me if you agree. There's lots of fun stuff about Hasidicism and WWII history in it, if it helps. This was a book that our Farscape professor recommended. So ... there's that, too.

[holdouttrout]

I'll put it on my list. :-)