ASHER RETROSPECTIVE:

What you are reading here isn’t really a journal, as I have already completed the assigned/necessary nine, it is more of a retrospective on the book. As Asher would put it "my work felt incomplete" simply leaving off at chapter 12 (there are 15 chapters for anyone who doesn’t know.) and not putting in a final word to close things up. So, in this journal or retrospective or whatever one wishes to call it I plan to blabber on about my general ideas etc. of the book.

I found the ending of the book rather dark, and sad. It was a resolution I suppose, Asher was simply going to live the rest of his life in Paris, but it wasn’t a very comforting one. In the pages leading up to the end I dreaded Asher’s father seeing the Crucifixions almost as much as Asher did. I was thinking to myself "No, this can’t happen, things are just about to work out, Asher and his father are about to make their peace, this cannot happen!" As corny as it may sound I honestly found myself wishing that some miracle would occur and somehow this event would not happen. It was as if I forgot it was a book. Anyway, I found the ending a very sad one. To me, Asher seemed up ending much the same way he started in the book, and it was painful because it came so close to being perfect. In the end he is more or less exiled, doomed to his destiny as an artist, and the pain that destiny brings. It is sad because one gets the feel he cannot change this destiny, he cannot even moderately affect it, and even if he could it is too late.

The book in general though, in my opinion at least was a good one, dark but "true" as Asher would want it to be. However I’m not sure the ending makes it "complete" which if Mr. Potok is anything like Asher may be why he felt the urge to complete his work with the sequel to this book. But I liked it, it definitely had it’s own unique feel, which was dark and mysterious, but thoughtful, and interesting as well. It also seemed to get better as it went along, as the first few chapters didn’t impress me all too much. That is about all I have to say, but as this is the last thing I write on this book I must complete it somehow. I guess that in the end, Asher’s statement still holds true that "it’s not a pretty world Mama."