Chaim Potok passed away from brain cancer
Just started reading “The Chosen” yesterday. First time ever.
I’ll finish it tonight. Bummer.
Hmmm. Lessee if this one turns out ot be more than an AP map…
Bummer. I liked his work.
Bummer indeed, screech-owl. But I’ll thank you NOT to tackle my own body of work for awhile, I have things I’d like to accomplish yet…Timmy
Yeah, my mom sent me an e-mail. Sad. But you won’t believe the connection!
I’m one of the vets from the AOL pushpin board. I joined the community at the height of PerkyDan’s reign of terror. I was telling my mom how great it was to be online, and about the terrific people I was “meeting” through the SDMB. “They’re all really intelligent and open-minded…except for this one fanatical minister who makes an argument out of everything and posts his entire sermon every week. He’s just one of those religious leaders who doesn’t have a grasp of reality…if you’d read a book called “The Chosen”, you’d know what I mean!”
Well, she took my offhand reference as a strong recommendation, and got the book out from the library. She liked it enough to get her own copy, and also read the sequel. But she still refers to it as “that book you MADE me read”! Oh, I didn’t make her read it! But it’s that kind of book: once you get into it, you’re compelled to finish!
And I didn’t know, until I read the obit, that “Chaim” was not his real name. I knew what the word meant, and thought, “How prescient his parents must have been!” Still an appropriate name.
He’s dead? Wow. I actually had the opportunity to meet him and get his autograph in 4th grade (my teacher was a friend of his). I didn’t know anything about him except that he wrote “The Tree of Here” a pretty good children’s book. One day in high school I heard a couple of my Jewish friends talking about a book, The Chosen. When I heard the author’s name I mentioned that I had his autograph. No one believed me until I brought in my copy of “The Tree of Here” complete with his authograph. I was Messiah for a day that day.
I never read The Chosen, I plan to one day.