Why is it no one seems able to write a convincing novel about the life work of a painter?…

Chaim Potok, I'm afraid, is one more name to add to the list of failures. His dull, ponderous, humorless account of the rise of Asher Lev, Jewish artist extraordinary ["My Name Is Asher Lev"], cannot convince anyone who has held a brush loaded with oil paint and tried to make some meaningful strokes on a canvas, that this is what it's like.

The childhood and youth of the burning genius are recounted in some detail but Asher never really comes to life, and when we read the descriptions of his pictures, his final success seems unlikely. The break with his parents comes with the exhibition of a painting of his mother crucified on the living-room window, her head in three: one segment regards the artist, her son, to her...