[bksvol-discuss] Barbara -- The Promise
- From: Barbara <barbarab65@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: Book Share <bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 7 Dec 2008 18:39:09 -0800 (PST)
I just submitted The Promise. First, I submitted it using the Fast Submission
Option and the administrator was unable to process it because the file had an
error -6 associated with it. The book is prevalidated. Could anyone, please,
figure out what is wrong with the file so that it can be added to the
collection. It is one of the best novels I have read all year:
Long Synopsis:
Long Synopsis: Just as Chaim Potok in The Chosen had examined the depths of the
commitment that loving fathers made to their sons, this author in The Promise
evokes the promise that young adults make to themselves and to their own lives.
The reader identifies with the characters in The Promise as they face their
obstacles through strength, intelligence, and daring. Specifically, previously,
in The Chosen, the two boys, Reuven Malters and Danny Saunders who grew up in
Brooklyn New York as Orthodox and Hasidic Jews, respectively, in The Promise
are portrayed as young adults who struggle for their places in the adult
society. At this stage of their lives, these young men figure out how their
beliefs that they received from their fathers mesh with their current
realities. Reuven and Danny, in their struggle for integrity and individuation
make life choices that affect their destinies.
Specifically, Reuven, the gentle Orthodox Jewish, scholar's son, is now
studying to be a rabbi. Reuven is fiercely confronted and challenged in his
vocation by a great but unbending teacher – the sarcastic, terrifying Rav
Kalman, who defends unmitigated Orthodoxy with the same ruthlessness with which
he fought for survival in the Nazi death camps. Reuven argues his heretical
points before Rav Kalman and the other examiners who could prevent Reuven from
becoming ordained as a rabbi. Likewise, Danny, the son of a prominent Hasidic
leader, at the close of The Chosen, forsook his destiny by not following his
father to become the next spiritual Hasidic leader, in The Promise, risks his
brilliant beginning of his career as a clinical psychologist. Danny gambols his
strange intuition against the established "orthodox" treatment to save Michael,
a troubled young adolescent from having to be permanently institutionalized
because of anti-social behavior. Danny
asserts his autonomy by having Michael undergo the radical, potentially
dangerous therapy of silence which Danny had invented based upon his experience
of growing up with little emotional communication with his father. In the end,
Danny and Reuven emerge as authentic, young adults with beliefs and subsequent
actions that are both similar and dissimilar from their fathers.
The ISBN is not in the book so I got it from the online ISBN Directory. The
ISBN is 0449001164
Thanks, for your help.
Barbara
Other related posts:
