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A review by matthewcpeck
The Golem and the Jinni by Helene Wecker
3.0
Helene Wecker's clever debut novel is an epic tale of the immigrant neighborhoods of Lower Manhattan at the end of the 19th-century, told mainly through the dual narratives of the Semitic legends of its title: a female Golem created as a custom-made wife for a husband/master that dies unexpectedly on the boat from Poland; a Jinni (genie) trapped in human form and unwittingly freed from a copper flask by a Syrian-american tinsmith. Strangers among strangers in a strange land, the protagonists are forced to eke out human-style existences, eventually meeting up and maintaining an unusual relationship, and discovering that their pasts are intertwined in an ominous way.
Like any worthwhile fantasy or science fiction, 'The Golem And Jinni' employs a wild concept to examine pressing concerns. The emigration aspects of the plot are of ongoing relevance, as are the conversations about religion and religious tolerance. And Wecker uses the Golem character to explore the mysteries of humanity and free will, in material of the sort usually found in futuristic stories about androids and cloning.
It's Wecker's prose, though, that keeps the book from being great. The novel has earned comparisons to Neil Gaiman and Susanna Clarke, but Wecker doesn't have the spark, the offhand use of an otherworldly sensual detail, that lends an eerily convincing quality to those Britons' work. Wecker's writing is unpretentious and placid, but it's not terribly imaginative. I wish she'd have used a thesaurus once in a while. And she also uses italics (ugh).
But I couldn't help but be absorbed in the off-kilter quasi-romance of the title characters, and all of the stories-within-stories that Wecker dreamed up - it's an addicting, endlessly inventive story, even if the climactic magic-battle feels a little obligatory. Aesthetic reservations aside, I'd recommend it.
Like any worthwhile fantasy or science fiction, 'The Golem And Jinni' employs a wild concept to examine pressing concerns. The emigration aspects of the plot are of ongoing relevance, as are the conversations about religion and religious tolerance. And Wecker uses the Golem character to explore the mysteries of humanity and free will, in material of the sort usually found in futuristic stories about androids and cloning.
It's Wecker's prose, though, that keeps the book from being great. The novel has earned comparisons to Neil Gaiman and Susanna Clarke, but Wecker doesn't have the spark, the offhand use of an otherworldly sensual detail, that lends an eerily convincing quality to those Britons' work. Wecker's writing is unpretentious and placid, but it's not terribly imaginative. I wish she'd have used a thesaurus once in a while. And she also uses italics (ugh).
But I couldn't help but be absorbed in the off-kilter quasi-romance of the title characters, and all of the stories-within-stories that Wecker dreamed up - it's an addicting, endlessly inventive story, even if the climactic magic-battle feels a little obligatory. Aesthetic reservations aside, I'd recommend it.