Read Time: 3 Minutes
I am not a religious person by any stretch of the imagination, so it’s always interesting to me when I listen to a story where the central characters are. In The Evil Inclination, Daniel Victor explores the meshing of two quite different religions of Judaism and Catholicism as told through the story of two young college-aged students falling in love in New York, and the trials and tribulations that follow.
Lev Levitski and his family are a devout Orthodox Jewish family. Lev tries to live his life by the Torah and the Talmud. His faith is put to the test when he spies Angela Pizatto in his economics class. She’s a stereotypical Italian American Catholic from New York, so the polar opposite of everything he tries to be. She’s loud, brash, and actually rather hard to like at first.
She comes across as a rather dreadful human being during their first date, so it all looks doomed, but of course being the main characters, you know it has to get better. What follows is a whirlwind romance coupled with a crisis of faith as they both dive headlong into the relationship. Angela as a character settles down quickly from the person we first met into someone who is genuinely interested in learning more about Lev and his traditions.
This was in part a romance and at the same time a lesson or brief introduction, to what it means to be someone of the Jewish faith. From Talmudic quotes to the intricate customs and traditions of Judaism they must follow that I’d never heard of before such as a prohibition on turning on lights during the sabbath to not dating outside of your religion.
While the latter is not exactly prohibited, the struggles Lev has as he hides the relationship from everyone he knows as they wouldn’t understand was a bit of an eyeopener. He feels as if it’s a betrayal of everything he holds to be true while also accepting his love for Angela is also true.
Lev and Angela crisscross New York using the multitude of subway lines as they seek to keep their relationship secret. From gritty out-of-the-way diners to a tiny rundown apartment, they pursue their relationship. The writing is excellent, and I could picture these parts of the city most people never see without ever having visited.
Narration by Laura Patinkin was excellent and well-paced. She has a voice that’s easy to listen to, and the production was clean and error free.
This was an eye-opening and thoroughly enjoyable story of two people in love and an exploration of “the evil inclination” from Jewish theology. As I understand it from this book, the evil inclination refers to the human inclination toward things like selfishness, base desires, and moral failing. Not inherently “evil” in a purely negative sense but as part of the tension between self-interest and spiritual or ethical living.
Victor digs into this concept with Lev as his emotions and mind war with what he was brought up to believe and the life he finds himself presented with. So overall, a heartfelt exploration of faith, identity and love that I think will give me things to ponder on for a while.