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Dec 30, 2007

Mikhaela rated it:

Jewish girl in dystopian future meets cyborg, and falls in love. Jewish girl in 1600s Prague meets golem, and falls in love.

As much as I enjoyed The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, when it comes to books involving golems in Prague, this book takes the blue ribbon. Kavalier took me a while to get in to, but He, She and It gripped me from the beginning and I could NOT put it down. He, She and It is many things--Jewish feminist fiction, a robot love story, dystopian science fi More...

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Dec 13, 2008

RandalM rated it:

I felt this book had two strikes against it, its title and its first chapter. I decided to overlook the former. The latter almost made me put the book down, with its unoriginal vision of a world controlled by a few corporations. It’s not that I disagree with this possibility. I was simply in the mood for something fresher.

However, once past that chapter, the nature of the tale changed and I was hooked. Shira loses custody of her child and leaves her “multi” (multicorporation) to return More...

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

Jan 31, 2012

Lindsay rated it:

As you can probably surmise from the huge collection of tags I've attached to this book, there is A LOT of stuff going on here!

Even the structure of this book is complex and multifaceted: two stories, told by two narrators, in alternating chapters. The first narrator is Shira Shipman, a young, upper-middle-class Jewish woman who has recently become a wife and mother. Her life is also almost completely controlled by her employer, a huge biotechnology corporation, not only because they More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Jan 17, 2012

Susan rated it:

Medieval Jewish ghetto in Prague meets Clockwork Orange...that's initially how Piercy's 1991 cyberpunk dysutopian sci-fi novel hit me a week or so ago. Its US title is "He, She and It." Two stories parallel throughout: the story of Shira, her mother, grandmother, son and cyborg lover Yod - and that of the Mahalal named Judah Loew who creates and destroys a golem to help his endangered people. The title is somewhat misleading, I think, but that's okay. Fits together in the end.
Rem More...

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Jul 26, 2011

Nicholas rated it:

Every decade or so, the prolific novelist/poet Marge Piercy produces a science fiction novel. The results are generally quite good. He, She, and It (alternate UK title - Body of Glass) is my favorite of the 3 I have read.

Set in a corporation dominated future, the story tells the tale of the inhabitants of a free town in northern New England who have built a self aware cyborg. The plot is good, though not groundbreaking, as it centers on the cyborg's attempts to assimilate itself i More...

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Aug 24, 2010

Carolyn F. rated it:

I guess I'm going through a robot loving stage. Shira ends an unhappy marriage but her husband not only gets custody of their son, he's allowed to live off-planet. This is a post-apocalyptic world by the way. When she sees there's nothing for her to do, she quits her corporate job (corporations have all the power now) and goes home to her domed Jewish enclave where she grew up accepting a job from a family friend. Well the job is to acclimate a cyborg named Yod. Her grandmother has inputted More...

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Jul 05, 2009

Chana rated it:

I don't know where I got this book as sci-fi is not the genre I usually read and with a title of "He, She and It" I didn't expect much of it. I was vastly surprised when I found myself reading about the Maharal of Prague. I was humbled and honored to even gaze at the printed word Maharal. I had heard stories about the Golem but didn't know too much. I was very moved by his story and cried when it came to an end. One of my sons has been to Prague and to the Altneushul. He said there are More...

3 comments like (1 person liked it)

Mar 03, 2011

Amy rated it:

This is one of my friend Erica's favorite books. She recommended it after I had read Woman on the Edge of Time (and loved it). What really struck me was the authentic love story amidst the typical conventions of a sci-fi/distopian novel. There have been other romances in such books but they never seems as deep or genuine; they always seem idealized and all too perfect. A function of her having participated in women's lib in the 70s, Piercy has lots to say about gender roles. It can com acro More...

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May 16, 2009

Res rated it:

Undoubtedly one of my all-time favorites, something not too recently i thought would be impossible to have. (So many great books - how can one possibly pick only a few?)

It's hard to put such an ... experience into words. He, She and It is a masterful weaving together of the best of sci-fi - both in terms of reading pleasure and type of social explorations only the possible with this genre - with [social:] psychology, "innate feminism"* and a moving statement about sentienc More...

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Jan 31, 2009

Diana rated it:

This was a brilliantly written and brilliantly conceived book - I am a fan of Marge Piercy's poetry, but not as big a fan of her novels - never was able to get into her most famous novel Woman on the Edge of Time. This book, however, captured my imagination and emotions. It was given to me to read by a graduate school friend of mine, and I found myself drawn into the story immediately. I love the complex layers of themes that Piercy gives readers here. At the heart of this novel, for me, is More...

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Feb 28, 2010

Michelle rated it:

How to describe this book... hmmmm... (pondering with fingertip to lips!)

Okay, let's just 'out with it'. It's a romance novel between a woman and a robot. Ya, you heard me right. It wasn't as naughty as I had anticipated (which was a pleasant surprise), and the author kept the nasty language to a minimum, so I was happily able to finish reading the whole book. I enjoyed it completely! Okay, so I skipped a couple love scenes and missed entirely every paragraph relating to the 'Gol More...

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Jul 10, 2011

Kim rated it:

I read about this book some time before actually reading it, and came to it with possibly unreasonably high expectations (post-apocalyptic feminist science fiction about cyborgs with an analysis of gender whaaaat?).

So I found it a little hard to get started with, since most of the characters annoyed me from the outset, and the setting was nothing out of the ordinary for a work of post-apocalyptic fiction. Luckily, character development happened, so some characters went from being ann More...

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Jul 02, 2009

Nancy rated it:

Astonishing futuristic version of the story of the Gollum, interspersed with one of the most complete retellings of the happenings in Prague that I've ever come across, with insight into the embattled virtual worlds of times to come, and of course, most of all, a story of unrequited love. Marge Piercy first showed the streams of future possibilities in Women on the Edge of Time; in this book, she revisits the utopian village, where people live close to nature, and yet skillful with extremely hig More...

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Feb 11, 2009

Claire marked it as to-read

I tried to read this long ago.. maybe 12-13 years ago. And couldn't get into it. Now though, reading the reviews I see how much I missed. And 1600's Prague happens to be much of interest to me, after reading 'People of the Book'.
Also the corporate part interests me now more than before because - well, 'The Corporation' and Enron and the bailout and the recession and .. you know, everything. Marge - why didn't we listen??
Will have to gather my energy and try again! I'm pretty sure I More...

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Mar 10, 2011

Madeline rated it:

1. Maybe it's just because I recently read Atwood's The Year of the Flood that I noticed the striking similarities between this novel and that one, but on second thought, no: they are kind of the same book any way you slice it. I think I prefer Year of the Flood because, well, I'm not sure - I think Year of the Flood is a more nuanced book, although it's still pretty In Your Face. But at the same time, maybe I'm not being fair to He, She and It, maybe it's only because Atwood got me thinking abo More...

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Oct 16, 2011

Carol rated it:

This beautiful sci-fi novel is set in the mid-twenty-first century, several decades after a major ecological cataclysm and resulting societal upheaval. The reduced human population can no longer live in the open without protective gear and structures, the majority of food must be derived from algae and grown in vats; but computer technology is very advanced, with AIs, service robots, and sophisticated virtual reality. People live in closed corporate enclaves, the sprawling and chaotic urban Glop More...

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Jan 27, 2012

Laura rated it:

I tried to give this another go, I really did. I read an unusual number of books about the holocaust this past year--most of which were unexpectantly about the holocaust. I guess I just really couldn't handle another Jewish novel--especially one so immersive into their culture. Maybe if the pacing was faster or if the novel didn't flash back and forth from the distant past to the distant future. Or maybe if I hadn't paused my reading right when it was yet another chapter about the magical mud go More...

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Jun 19, 2008

Ariel rated it:

I started He, She, and It on spring break and finally finished it today, but I'm glad I could savor this novel over three months because it is fabulous. Marge Piercy writes a cyberpunk novel that doesn't ignore women, religion, ethnicity, community. She's the kind of science fiction writer I love: someone who doesn't care about how people interface with a computer or what technology builds a cyborg, but rather what happens and what folks feel.

I may call He, She, and It cyberpunk, b More...

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Mar 03, 2008

Jenn rated it:

I was sitting in the sauna at Guemes and realized I'd forgotten to bring in any reading material or a crossword puzzle. I asked Ben to bring me something from the cabin. ANYTHING. I told him to find something that looked "pulpy". He came back with this. I started reading and what do you know? This book is right up my alley.
So far the story is pretty engaging. It reminds me a little of a more epic Oryx and Crake (this one came out in 1991, by the way), in that the world is divide More...

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Dec 14, 2007

Ramorx rated it:

This is the kind of novel that the more radical and pessimistic elements of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) would put on everyones "must read" list. One could substitute the words This Book for Climate Change in the following passage and you get an idea of Piercy's vision -

"Ominously, Climate change plays into the scenario, thoughtfully explored by Naomi Klein, that the community of multinational corporations will seize on the coming catastrophes More...

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Oct 28, 2007

Eileen rated it:

I read when I get into bed at night. Can't sleep without the daily ritual and I look forward to it. But when I have one of those books that you can't wait to get yourself into and when your not reading it, your still kind of in it's world, or it's spell? You know what I mean? Your thinking about it as you go about your day.
Those are the rare ones and this one is one of those kind of books for me. It would make a great movie and I'm surprised no one has not had the rights to it. It was publ More...

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Mar 25, 2009

Kellen rated it:

A woman and her cyborg warrior lover fight to protect a free Jewish town from being taken over by a neighboring corporate city-state in this cyberpunk homage to the Jewish myth of the Golem. The most fascinating part of the book is what happens when the cyborg, who has been programmed to love combat, realizes that his pleasures are morally wrong. What would it feel like for a weapon to grow ethics? I think you'll like it, you nerdy romance cyborg you!

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Jun 04, 2011

Ben rated it:

Very unique perspective on the notion of life (as it pertains to AI, and the moral implications of creating a self-aware, artificial life form). The relatively bleak future Marge Piercy paints - a world ruled by corporate "multi" enclaves, with a smattering of free towns struggling to survive amid near constant corporate squabbles and warfare - sets the mood for a desperate tale of survival, and what it truly means to be alive. I loved this book.

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Mar 24, 2009

Coquille rated it:

AI as Golem. Reminiscent of a punk Fifth Sacred Thing with Judiasm instead of WICAA. Sort of. This book is hard to describe, life is high-tech yet simple. Ruined cities dot the land while small villages house high-tech computers and robots are men. There's the technocrats and the down to earth hippies fighting cyber-battles in virtual reality. Kabbalah code. Love and war. A delving into what it means to be human, and what it doesn't.

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Nov 19, 2009

Brad rated it:

Despite the fact that I can only think of bad things to say about the book, I actually liked it. The first few chapters feature all that is wrong with science fiction; the world-building is done in a highly-irritating, data-dump manner. But after that things settle in for a while. And then basically the last 75 to 100 pages are on total cruise control. Somehow I ended up enjoying it, though, if only for the historical story of the golem that makes up about 5% of the novel.

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Feb 03, 2012

Rachel rated it:

My mother gave me this book and I put off reading it for a year.

I really enjoyed this book, and its weird future telling. This book was published in 1991 and is about the 2050s (and 1600)many things that are true in our lives were imagined in this book, which makes it a little more terrifying since in the story there has been a nuclear war and multinational corporations run the world.

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Dec 25, 2008

Peggy rated it:

This is one of my all-time favorites, probably because it combines Jewish history and mysticism with a futuristic dystopian world view...and resolves the two, parallel story lines with positive messages. I am always lending this book to someone and buying another copy for myself...and somehow, there is never a copy in the house!

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Sep 20, 2011

Alex rated it:

Golem story! This is a pillar of cyborg fiction studies, very popular in the early 2000s before it all came dreadfully true. I hope you like androids and nukes and swimming, greased against the poison sea. Wonderful book. I seem to remember a vague sense of later disappointment, and no need to re-read or own, but a good one.

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Sep 19, 2011

Lynne rated it:

What an amazing and rich story. Set in the 21st century, in an America after major world war and devastation, Avram and Malkah make a cyborg who becomes a person. The parallels with the story of the Golem in Prague are explicit. This is an adventure story and a love story which is hopeful about the future. I loved it.

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Dec 17, 2009

Cedric rated it:

I liked this book a lot. It took a few chapters for me to get what was going on and separate the two stories in my head. But towards the middle of the book I began to find this a very powerful book.
I'm still frightened by how much of Marge Piercy's foretelling is coming true in only a little over two decades.

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