The Chosen

For some reason one of the little shops in the George Washington Bridge Terminal not only sells books alongside batteries and coffee, but books you’d find in your college bookstore. I don’t just mean The Red Badge of Courage or The Grapes of Wrath; I mean books like Algebra II, or Physics 313, or a whole rack of Cliff Notes. This is very funny to me - I have no idea how these school books got there next to stacks of used video tapes for sale in a store where people buy the paper and coffee, but what the hey.

Anyways, I saw a sign that they’re going out of business (NOOOOOO!!!!! What happened??) and everything is at LEAST 50% off, so I went over to catalog what books I’m gonna buy Tuesday when I roll through there again. And I’m flipping through and I see The Chosen, by Chaim Potok. Now, I live a few blocks away from an outrageously huge and determined Hasidic Jew neighborhood; while in real estate I dealt with them every day. And yes, “dealt with them," as in “managed to get through the day without killing them or me” is the correct choice of words here. Believe me.

My senior year of play college, as an English major preparing to teach, I took a class called Literature for Young Adults. It was a great class; not only discussing the theoretical philosophies of do kids read and what should they read, but our book list was, in fact, books for teenagers. The Chosen. Fallen Angels. Man Without a Face (slice). Going Home. A Day No Pigs Would Die (SUPER slice.) Father Figure. Children of the River. Fade (Cormier!) The Pigman. And some others I can’t remember/don’t care about.

Having grown up in Pigshit Nowhere, VA I had no earthly idea what a Jewish person was; as far as I knew it was the Catholics vs. the Baptists for the world title (and Baptists outnumbered us in my town about 100 to 1. At least.) So I remember reading The Chosen and being slightly fascinated with it but knowing that I had no earthly idea what the fuck 75% of it was even talking about. So when I saw it on the shelf the other day, I knew I had to get it and read it again, since I know SOMEthing about the Jewish faith now. If I know 0.000000000000000000000000000000001% of what there is to know believe me, I’m light years ahead of what I knew when I originally read the book.

SIDE NOTE: Just found the paper I wrote on The Chosen from that class. At least I was a bit self-aware about the whole thing:

Everything I’ve ever learned about Jewish people has come from a Billy Crystal album, coupled with my brother having a Jewish roommate everybody calls “JewMoney” and a few jokes I am reticent to recite here when a grade hangs so closely in the balance.

Tho in reading this paper as compared to ones I wrote for some of the other books, I was definitely way into this book - thanks to the pulling of the two boys towards each other despite their differences as well as the heaviness of the religion throughout, which was probably appealing to me at the time. I’m looking forward to reading it again, I must say.

In the meantime, I will now list my professor’s hand-written notes alongside my paper:

Yes, a glossary would be helpful
Good insight!
How enlightened… (obviously sarcastic)
Good point
Envy is never pretty
Interesting connection
YES!
You have a great future writing blurbs

SIDE NOTE II: As the book came out in 1967, I have no idea how a 1988-era picture of my buddy Watty is on the cover. Life, eh? Kick in the pants.