Criticism > Contemporary Literary Criticism > Potok, Chaim (Vol. 112) - Cynthia Grenier (review date 29 April 1985)

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Cynthia Grenier (review date 29 April 1985)

SOURCE: "In Search of a Spiritual Pacifier," in The Wall Street Journal, April 29, 1985, p. 22.

[In the following review, Grenier praises the "genuine seriousness and moral complexity" of Davita's Harp, but finds shortcomings in Potok's "stiff dialogue and stilted characters."]

Chaim Potok owes much of his popularity as a writer to his handling of Judaic scenes in contemporary American life (The Chosen, The Promise, etc.).

This time, in Davita's Harp, Mr. Potok heads into new, highly topical territory—woman's role in the Jewish faith—set in the context of American communism in the 1930s. In what may have been a rash venture, he has chosen as his narrative voice that of his pre-pubescent heroine, who recounts her life from birth to menstruation.

Davita is the daughter of two deeply committed Communist Party members—he's the radical son of an old New...

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1. Introduction
2. Principal Works
3. Criticism
   1. Granville Hicks (review date 29 April 1967)
   2. Edmund Fuller (review date 15 May 1967)
   3. Sandra Schmidt (review date 20 July 1967)
   4. Times Literary Supplement (review date 31 August 1967)
   5. Richard Freedman (review date 14 September 1969)
   6. Dorothy Rabinowitz (review date May 1970)
   7. Washington Post Book World (review date 3 December 1978)
   8. J. D. Reed (review date 19 October 1981)
   9. John H. Timmerman (essay date 16 May 1984)
   10. Time (review date 25 March 1985)
   11. Paul Cowan (review date 31 March 1985)
   12. Cynthia Grenier (review date 29 April 1985)
   13. Susan Reed (review date 6 May 1985)
   14. Edward A. Abramson (essay date 1986)
   15. S. Lillian Kremer (essay date 1989)
   16. Andy Solomon (review date 6 May 1990)
   17. Nikki Stiller (review date 13 May 1990)
   18. Brian Morton (review date 2 November 1990)
   19. Irving Abrahamson (review date 17 May 1992)
   20. Bryan Cheyette (review date 27 November 1992)
   21. Felicity Barringer (review date 1 December 1996)
   22. David M. Shribman (review date 12 December 1996)
4. Further Reading
5. Copyright