January 2015  Host:  Stephanie

The Golem and the Jinni by Helene Wecker

Summary

This is the story of a jinni, a magical being of fire, and a golem, a Jewish creature made of clay brought to life to do another’s bidding, and is set in turn of the century New York City.  The jinni was freed from a 1,000 year imprisonment in a flask. The golem was created to be a rich merchant’s wife, however, the merchant dies en route to America and the golem arrives at Ellis Island alone. They must separately find their way in circumstances that they are unprepared for while concealing their essential natures (e.g. the golem has to ‘pretend’ to eat food). They eventually meet and their growing friendship is tested by their inherent nature and another who seeks to control death.  The side characters that the golem and the jinni interact with are also richly developed.  Two such characters are Mahmoud Saleh, a Jewish doctor down on his luck, and Fadwa, a Bedouin girl from 1,000 years before the story was set.  The author has done a lot of research creating her settings from 1900 New York City to Syria in the 1800s and life in the desert one thousand years before.  The reader is transported into another realm of existence through her attention to detail and magical realism.  We had mixed reactions to this book, some of us loved it, and some of us did not bother to finish it (the book was very long at over 500 pages).  If you enjoy mythology or descriptive stories about early 1900s New York, then this is a must read.