SOURCE: "Art Is an Affliction," in The New York Times Book Review, May 13, 1990, p. 29.

In the following review, Stiller finds shortcomings in The Gift of Asher Lev, particularly the novel's "sanitized" characters who lack development.

Jewish artists have long felt a conflict between Jewish tradition and the individual talent. Susskind von Trimberg, the medieval Jewish troubadour, thought of going back to the ghetto if his gentile patron went bankrupt. Heinrich Heine, a heretic if ever there was one, wished to die facing Jerusalem. Marc Chagall, best known of Jewish painters, borrowed much of his imagery from Christian peasants.

Chaim Potok has concentrated in his novels on the pull between secular self-fulfillment and communal Jewish values. In The Chosen, for example, a teenager destined to replace his father as the head of a Hasidic dynasty finds himself impelled to study psychology instead of Torah. In My Name Is Asher...