Good, Even Great, Authors

Good, Even Great, Authors

Chaim Potok is a great writer.

Why? I will explain.

Many critics of writing and prose may judge artistic style and utilization of literary devices as their measure of writing "greatness". Some themes and stories are considered so well crafted and structured that they are deemed great.

I guess that works out fine for James Joyce. And it suffices for a few artistically inclined literary followers around the world, especially the English intelligentsia that deem works of literature as great or not.

Chaim is not that well known as a world outstanding author, but he has been acclaimed in enough circles and some of his stories have been turned into movies over the decades. Not bad.

Of course popular media is not the best measure of great authorship.

Chaim Potok is great in my eyes because he writes about characters that play real parts of the world, people fictionalized that bespeak reality, perceptions of how things are and have been.

And extrapolating, he has shown how things could be in the future.

Great fiction does that. Fiction tells us more about truth and reality than mere fantasies and invention.

After reading Chaim Potok's fiction, I know more about Judaism. I know more about people, history, psychology.

Faith. Human struggles and triumphs, tragedies, and life.

Reality.

Chaim Potok shows me more of who we are as humans.

His characters are real enough and important enough to explain our issues: we are a people that search for meaning and morals, for a modicum of goodness despite trials and travails.

The hatred and violence directed at Jews. The atomic bomb. The South Korean conflict. Mental illness.

Belief and adherence to faith in God. Artistic expressions. What does it mean to have faith in an unseen divine concept or organization? What does it mean to be human?

How do we deal with conflicts, large and small? Individual and collective.

We seek after and read, ponder, and search. Discover and reveal.

Find truth.

Manhattan. Europe. Brooklyn. Cape Cod. South Korea. Japan. Israel.

The baseball diamond.

The Chabad Lubavitch movement.

Destruction. Genocide. Conflict. Madness. Pain. Sorrow. Struggle.

Reconciliation. Redemption. Oneness. Beauty. Love.

Potok has it all, and he has felt and written it all.

May his words and worlds be cherished. 

Thanks, Chaim. To you and your parents, your families, your people.

Theirs have become ours.

You have made us your family. 

That, ultimately, is great.