Reuven becomes Danny’s sounding board and his portal (if only intellectual) into a more liberal sect of Judaism. Oh, he shines at Talmudic arguments, but his real passion is something forbidden by his father. Danny is to inherit his father’s position as rabbi to the Hasidic community in which he lives, but Danny’s brilliant mind is entranced by psychology, not Talmudic studies. What entails is really as much Danny’s story as it is Reuven’s. Reuven ends up in the hospital, and Danny comes to visit him and the two become fast friends. The novel opens with a fateful baseball game in which Reuven is injured by a wild ball hit by Danny Saunders, the son of an Hasidic rabbi. Reuven and his father live in New York City, where the networks and neighborhoods of Jews are many and varied. It is the story of Reuven Malter, a practicing Jew, whose father is a teacher, writer, and later, political activist. The Chosen is Chaim Potok’s first novel, published in 1967. (I often don’t remember what I just said after I said it, much less something I read fifteen years ago.) I read Davita’s Harp many years ago as an undergraduate student, but I still remember some of the story, which must mean that it made an impression on me. I decided to read The Chosen after reading Janet’s review of Davita’s Harp. Chaim Potok‘s The Chosen certainly doesn’t need me to tout it as a great story, but I’ll put my thoughts here for my own benefit, if for no one else’s. I always have a hard time writing a review of a novel that really doesn’t need my stamp of approval.
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