★★★★★ Reuven and Danny are now grown ups

The Promise

Chaim Potok

Chaim Potok's The Promise continues the story of the two brilliant high-school age friends Reuven Malter and Danny Saunders into adulthood. Things that happen to kids as they become adults are happening to Reuven and Danny. They are, for instance, discovering the opposite sex -- the same member of the opposite sex as it happens, so there is a little proto-triangle here. However, since Reuven and Danny are not involved with the lady in question at the same time, she ends up strengthening their friendship. More important, Reuven and Danny are moving on to careers. Their choices are rebellions. Reuven's rebellion is small. I expected he would become a mathematician or some similarly secular scholar, but he has decided to become a rabbi and is now in school for that. Danny's rebellion, in the opposite direction, is much greater. He has broken with the Hasidic community led by his father. Instead of succeeding his father as Rebbe, Danny is in school to become a psychologist -- the sort of psychologist who treats humans with psychological disorders.

Like The Chosen, The Promise is an intense emotional journey into religion told from the point of view of two deeply religious friends. The Promise is not, in my opinion, quite as good a novel as The Chosen, mainly because I did not believe the story. It seemed contrived to me -- I didn't believe that the events of the novel could really happen.

Note, for those questioning my five-star rating: I rate books mostly based on their strengths. My five-star rating doesn't mean a book is perfect -- it means that at its best it is, in my opinion, great art.

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