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Oct. 15th, 2013 08:30 amPAGING PEOPLE INTERESTED IN JEWISH FANTASY AND/OR LADY ROBOTS: I just read Helene Wecker's The Golem and the Jinni, a novel about Jewish and Syrian immigrant communities in turn-of-the-century New York that happen to be hosting awkward mythological beings.
The Golem was created to be the wife of a creeper on his way to America; on ship, aforementioned creeper dies right after waking her up, and the Golem finds that instead of being perfectly tuned to her master's thoughts and wishes, she can hear what EVERYONE wants. WHICH IS TERRIFYING.
Having no idea what to do with herself, she bumps into a friendly rabbi who promptly panics and brings her home while he tries to figure out what to do with her. Eventually she gets a job in a Bowery bakery, always constantly on desperate guard against being too weird and too efficient, too obviously anticipating people's needs, or accidentally going into KILLING GOLEM RAGE.
Meanwhile, Arbeely, a metalworker in Little Syria, is given a flask to repair; when he knocks one of the symbols, a bound jinni promptly appears and has to be explained to that this is not the Syrian desert and also, he has apparently been in the flask for a thousand years and nobody has any idea how to undo the binding and give him his powers back. SORRY.
For lack of any better ideas, the jinni allows Arbeely to put it about that the jinni is his new apprentice ("he's Bedouin! THAT'S WHY HE'S WEIRD"), while spending all his nights wandering around the city sulking about his loss of freedom and powers and new social constraints. Then he comes home to tell Arbeely, like, "last night I climbed in the window of a big house by Central Park!" to which poor long-suffering Arbeely inevitably responds "WTF ARE YOU DOING PLEASE DO NOT INSULT ANY RICH PEOPLE DON'T WE HAVE ENOUGH PROBLEMS"
Eventually of course the Golem and the Jinni meet, and start hanging out, because as weird as they find each other, at least it's a break from hanging out with humans ALL THE TIME, like, wow, humans and their social norms, super weird and stressful! And then plot happens and stuff eventually gets dramatic. But the real heart of the book is the human communities themselves, and the way they function -- which is a very warm and sympathetic portrait, while at the same time showing how almost possible but deeply uncomfortable it is for the Golem and the Jinni to function within them.
While I sympathize with the Jinni on some aspects of human life (social obligation to go to weddings you're not interested in! ugh! why!) I don't care about him as much, though I am deeply fond of every single one of the human characters in Little Syria. But the Golem! How she struggles with sentience, with self-determination -- it would be so much easier to have a master, not to have the responsibility of her own choices -- and with the way that her conditioning to respond to the needs of others can become a trap for her, and how afraid she is of her own strength and potential for anger, and how being female changes and limits her choices in a way that's not the same for the Jinni, who is equally trapped, albeit in a different way. And, like, golems go wild and kill lots of people! Everyone knows that's what always happens to golems! So what can she do? I LOVE HER SO MUCH.
The book has its flaws, and I still don't know how I feel about the end, but my love for the Golem is overwhelming so here's where I stop.
The Golem was created to be the wife of a creeper on his way to America; on ship, aforementioned creeper dies right after waking her up, and the Golem finds that instead of being perfectly tuned to her master's thoughts and wishes, she can hear what EVERYONE wants. WHICH IS TERRIFYING.
Having no idea what to do with herself, she bumps into a friendly rabbi who promptly panics and brings her home while he tries to figure out what to do with her. Eventually she gets a job in a Bowery bakery, always constantly on desperate guard against being too weird and too efficient, too obviously anticipating people's needs, or accidentally going into KILLING GOLEM RAGE.
Meanwhile, Arbeely, a metalworker in Little Syria, is given a flask to repair; when he knocks one of the symbols, a bound jinni promptly appears and has to be explained to that this is not the Syrian desert and also, he has apparently been in the flask for a thousand years and nobody has any idea how to undo the binding and give him his powers back. SORRY.
For lack of any better ideas, the jinni allows Arbeely to put it about that the jinni is his new apprentice ("he's Bedouin! THAT'S WHY HE'S WEIRD"), while spending all his nights wandering around the city sulking about his loss of freedom and powers and new social constraints. Then he comes home to tell Arbeely, like, "last night I climbed in the window of a big house by Central Park!" to which poor long-suffering Arbeely inevitably responds "WTF ARE YOU DOING PLEASE DO NOT INSULT ANY RICH PEOPLE DON'T WE HAVE ENOUGH PROBLEMS"
Eventually of course the Golem and the Jinni meet, and start hanging out, because as weird as they find each other, at least it's a break from hanging out with humans ALL THE TIME, like, wow, humans and their social norms, super weird and stressful! And then plot happens and stuff eventually gets dramatic. But the real heart of the book is the human communities themselves, and the way they function -- which is a very warm and sympathetic portrait, while at the same time showing how almost possible but deeply uncomfortable it is for the Golem and the Jinni to function within them.
While I sympathize with the Jinni on some aspects of human life (social obligation to go to weddings you're not interested in! ugh! why!) I don't care about him as much, though I am deeply fond of every single one of the human characters in Little Syria. But the Golem! How she struggles with sentience, with self-determination -- it would be so much easier to have a master, not to have the responsibility of her own choices -- and with the way that her conditioning to respond to the needs of others can become a trap for her, and how afraid she is of her own strength and potential for anger, and how being female changes and limits her choices in a way that's not the same for the Jinni, who is equally trapped, albeit in a different way. And, like, golems go wild and kill lots of people! Everyone knows that's what always happens to golems! So what can she do? I LOVE HER SO MUCH.
The book has its flaws, and I still don't know how I feel about the end, but my love for the Golem is overwhelming so here's where I stop.
