Sunday, November 29, 2009

To Be A Jewish Artist

Elaine Lindsay: In Asher Lev you suggested that if the Jew becomes an artist it is incumbent upon him to become a great artist, this being the only way to justify what he's done to everybody else's life. Is this applicable also to the writer?

Chaim Potok: I think that writers pay a terrible price for what they do; they pay it in loneliness, and very often they pay it in the harm that they do to other people by opening up images of reality that people would prefer not to see. I think the only justification for this kind of activity on the part of the writer is that he do it as honestly as he can, and that he try to do it better each time, with greater skill or for a greater purpose.

I don't want to make it sound as though life is all gloom and doom for an artist- there are great moments of joy, a kind of soaring that one rarely feels in normal life. But the artist feels that not very frequently- most of it is hard, gritty work. The only compensation for the hard work, for the pain that he sometimes causes people is the truth that indeed there are people who are grateful for the honest mirrors that they are shown of themselves. That makes the hard work of the artist, a person like Asher Lev, more than worthwhile- if he can create a really beautiful work of aesthetics that can at the same time be a truth.

~page 30 of Conversations with Chaim Potok of the Literary Conversations Series, edited by Daniel Walden

3 comments:

Gavi said...

As much as I like Potok's writing, may main problem with his hashkafat olam was that he left orthodoxy to be able to write about it from a distance...

Chana said...

Gavi,

To the contrary, he left Orthodoxy because he could no longer play the two cores against one another. All of his books reflect the core of Western modernity clashing with the core of Judaism and the protagonist must make a choice. Danny has to figure out a way to reconcile Freud and Judaism, Reuven has to figure out how to reconcile textual criticism and Judaism, whereas Asher must figure out art and Judaism (which is in some ways even more difficult.) Potok lived his life in accordance with his ideals. When the clash became so profound that he could no longer reconcile the two, he left in order to live honestly and truthfully as the Jew he *could* be. I admire and respect him for that...

inkstainedhands said...

I'm not one to judge an author's personal life, but I do respect Chaim Potok for the way he portrayed the struggle between Judaism and art in My Name is Asher Lev. While I was reading the book, I spent a lot of time thinking about the way it connects to my identity as a Jew and a writer.

A lot of the time I DO hold myself back from writing/publishing certain things even though I feel I need to put it out there, just because I know it would hurt someone or reflect poorly on me... and it is SO hard to do that.

I'll have to read this book for myself... It seems very interesting.