How we cite our quotes: (Page.Paragraph)
Quote #1
Does Yudel Krinsky remember Siberia every time he sees snow? I stared out the window and felt vaguely entombed. (61.5)
Here Asher imagines Yudel Krinsky's difficult and fraught past in Siberia. Because of the tightly-woven community of which Asher and Yudel are both parts, and because Yudel was essentially rescued by Asher's dad, Asher begins to take on Yudel's past as his own. Sounds like quite the bear to burden. Wait—burden to bear, we mean.
Quote #2
He came to me that night out of the woods, my mythic ancestor, huge, mountainous, dressed in his dark caftan and fur-trimmed cap, pounding his way through the trees on his Russian master's estate, the earth shaking, the mountains quivering, thunder in his voice. (98.4)
For Asher, the mythic ancestor is a constant reminder of the past. He tends to show up when Asher is at a major crossroads in his own life—typically when he feels he isn't honoring the family tradition of scholarly study. The appearance of the mythic ancestor is usually accompanied by feelings of guilt, terror, and self-doubt.
Quote #3
'It's colder inside than outside,' I thought I heard him say. 'And what are you doing with your time, my Asher Lev?' I thought I heard him say. (119.1)
Here the mythic ancestor grills Asher on what he's up to. Once again, the mythic ancestor's presence is designed to remind us of the Lev family's storied past and Asher's present guilt.
Quote #4
When have times ever been normal for Jews? (133.6)
Jewish history is full of turmoil and persecution, and this book will certainly not let that be overlooked. When Asher is told that it's not a good time for the Jews, he wonders this about his people's past.
Quote #5
Asher Lev, sometimes I find your presence a little—upsetting. You carry with you too much of my own past. (260.1)
Jacob Kahn says this to Asher for two very important reasons: 1) Asher's present is a reflection of Jacob Kahn's own past, since Asher is an artistic prodigy coming into his own, and 2) Asher and Jacob Kahn share a history and culture that they feel at virtually every point in time, like a mosquito bite that just never goes away. We're itchy just thinking about it.
Quote #6
Away from my world, alone in an apartment that offered me neither memories nor roots, I began to find old and distant memories of my own, long buried by pain and time and slowly brought to the surface now by the sight of waiting white canvases and by the winter emptiness of the small Parisian street. (322.4)
Given time to reflect in Paris, Asher begins to think about his own past and the past of the Jewish people. Residual feelings of doubt and guilt rise to the surface and inspire him to paint new and innovative masterpieces.
Quote #7
Traditions are born by the power of an initial thrust that hurls acts and ideas across the centuries. Had the death by fire of those individuals been such a thrust? Was my ancestor's act of atonement to extend through all generations of the family line?(324.4)
This meditation on the past is particularly useful when it comes to understanding the ideas of tradition and ancestry in this book. Here we can see Asher confronting the notion of tradition, something with which he has greatly struggled in the past. Maybe he should have watched Fiddler on the Roof for some pointers.
Quote #8
Now I thought of my mother and began to sense something of her years of anguish. Standing between two different ways of giving meaning to the world, and at the same time possessed by her own fears and memories, she had moved now toward me, now toward my father, keeping both worlds of meaning alive, nourishing with her tiny being, and despite her torments, both me and my father. (325.3)
Asher's own past is full of family tensions and tragedy. When he is able to reflect on his own past, he is able to create art that lends meaning to events that have troubled him and his family. Unfortunately, his creations only make things even more troubling in the end.
Quote #9
Do we really all grow old so quickly? There is so little time. (340.4)
This is one of the more fascinating ideas of past and future in the book: namely, that the future bleeds into the past, and that's how time passes. Asher thinks this thought about Yudel Krinsky and is imagining how he, too, will someday be a thing of the past.
Quote #10
I looked at myself in the window. Red hair, dark eyes, red beard, fisherman's cap. We will journey through the centuries. Will you need a cane, Asher Lev? (343.4)
Another meditation on past and future—Asher Lev will someday himself be an artifact in need of a cane. But before he becomes an artifact, he will use his talent and dedication to lend meaning to the present and future. That's basically how art works.