The Golem and the Jinni (The Golem and the Jinni, #1) in /r/Fantasy Discussion Group

Nov 11, 2013 Ashley rated it it was amazing

Shelves: religion, immigrants-we-get-the-job-done, fantasy, historical-fiction, urban-fantasy, lit-fic, folklore-and-mythology, speculative, murder-most-foul, award-winners

July 2021: This was just as good the second time. Not going to do a whole huge review because I'm tired, and I'd rather be reading the sequel instead of writing things.

I still think this is an absolutely lovely portrayal of the immigrant experience, both in the way it portrays actual historical immigrant communities (particularly Little Syria and the Jewish communities in NYC) and in the way that Wecker uses the outsized fantastical experiences of the golem and the jinni (Chava and Ahmad, as the July 2021: This was just as good the second time. Not going to do a whole huge review because I'm tired, and I'd rather be reading the sequel instead of writing things.

I still think this is an absolutely lovely portrayal of the immigrant experience, both in the way it portrays actual historical immigrant communities (particularly Little Syria and the Jewish communities in NYC) and in the way that Wecker uses the outsized fantastical experiences of the golem and the jinni (Chava and Ahmad, as they become in their new world) to represent that experience more metaphorically. They are the ultimate strangers in a strange land. It's also just a fun story to tell and to read! The story of two magical creatures immigrating to America, neither by choice, and how they found each other.

The little details really set this apart, and I found myself once again being sucked entirely into the world Wecker has created. She has such a good storytelling instinct, and her writing brings such a human experience to the story. Her villain is also compelling because he remains human in his monstrosity. I also loved the way she do deftly portrays the multicultural aspect of NYC, how so many different people can live in the same place and still seem to live worlds apart.

I started the sequel this morning, and so far so good, and I'm hoping it can live up to this little masterpiece. (I'm still angry the new book doesn't have the dyed pages and thick binding the first book did. The new one feels more cheaply made. This first book remains one of the prettiest books I've ever owned.)

January 2014: 1899. On a ship bound for New York in the middle of the Atlantic, a Golem comes to life. Soon after, her master and sole reason for living, dies. A little ways across the water, a Jinni turned human emerges from more than a thousand years of captivity in a flask in the shop of a tinsmith in lower Manhattan, thousands of miles away from his home in the Syrian desert. Both are out of time and out of place. Who are they in such circumstances? And who will they become?

So begins Helene Wecker's debut novel, which reached inside my body and grabbed my guts with such force, I couldn't let go of it until I'd finished.

I hate to oversell it, because I know how weird some people get about that sort of thing. Afterwards they come at you with knives. You said this book was amazing! You said it would cure cancer! You said I would get laid after! Honestly, I don't know what they're thinking when this happens, because reading is always very personal, at least the way I do it. So maybe it won't be overselling it if I say to you all that I loved this book because it felt so very personal. Because even though fantastical things were happening all over the place and its events occur over 100 years ago, this book is one of the most *real* books I've ever read. The atmosphere, the characters, the culture. Everything about it.

And then, of course, there is the love. And not just romance. This book is NOT a romance, although there is a love story in it. Mostly this is a story about two people (plus the side characters, who are fleshed out in a lovely manner) who have to figure out how to live in a world they weren't built for and have no experience with. I don't think it's a coincidence that Wecker set her story in turn of the century New York when so many people were immigrating to America from The Old Country, whichever Old Country you prefer, although this book mostly focuses on the Little Syria and Hebrew neighborhoods. It's a world in which everyone has delineated roles, and they cling to those roles in the face of the large and unfamiliar country they are now inhabiting. The contrast between all these immigrants and the Golem and the Jinni makes for a very satisfying read. (The contrast between all the different settings and cultures was great as well.) There's also some lovely meditation on religion and faith, but again mostly it's all about the characters. And I won't spoil it, but there are some pretty great plot twists as well.

I checked this book out of the library, and am regretting it. The actual physical book was *gorgeous*. Thick paper, set in old timey typeface, with navy blue-tipped pages. I need to own it in hardcover immediately, considering how much I ended up loving it (I stayed up way too late last night finishing it, and am now wasted for my work day, but it was totally worth it). ...more

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Dec 03, 2013 Tracy rated it it was amazing

Shelves: 104-books-of-2014

A gorgeous brilliant and lovely first novel. The type of lush and lovely writing that picks up each character and let's them breathe so the reader can really come to care about them, and then gradually pulls all the narrative threads together into a satisfying ending. If you loved 'Shadow of the Wind' and 'Jonathan Strange', this is the book for you. ...more

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Nov 18, 2013 Nicholas rated it liked it

The Golem and the Jinni is a thoroughly immersive tale that blends the Old World cultures of the near East in the bustling melting pot of New York at the turn of the last century. A newly created Golem from the Yiddish speaking regions of Germany and an ancient Jinni from the Syrian desert find themselves awakened into a thoroughly modern world amid circumstances that at best make them fishes out of water and at worst leave them despairing and morose about their ability to simply continue existi The Golem and the Jinni is a thoroughly immersive tale that blends the Old World cultures of the near East in the bustling melting pot of New York at the turn of the last century. A newly created Golem from the Yiddish speaking regions of Germany and an ancient Jinni from the Syrian desert find themselves awakened into a thoroughly modern world amid circumstances that at best make them fishes out of water and at worst leave them despairing and morose about their ability to simply continue existing. Fortunately, both are provided with tethers in their respective transplanted communities and before long discover some small amount of comfort and hope in each other as they unravel the mysteries of their pasts.

I'm really torn on this one. Wecker couldn't possibly have picked a better setting for her work and the atmosphere in this novel is vivid and engrossing. Mixing Jewish, Syrian and Arabic cultures and mythologies was a bold choice given the more recent history of those peoples and Wecker weaves a rich tapestry of them in the patchwork of immigrant communities that intertwined in the neighborhoods of New York in the early modern era that highlights a shared immigrant experience - the sense of dislocation, the desire for stability and the longing for the familiar. Bringing together the old mythologies of those peoples brought an extra layer of texture to a novel that could have easily been simply historical fiction and just as beautifully told.

That being said, I thought the plotting was horrendously slow. I didn't really struggle to continue, because it felt like taking a walk in the park. I enjoyed the surroundings and they kept pulling me back...I just wish the tour guide did more than meander. There are tons of subplots, which again, provide a richness and texture that add to the atmosphere of the novel, but they detract from any sort of direction for the central narrative. Nothing really significant happens beyond the anecdotal adjustments to modern life of mythological beings for the first two-thirds of the book (and the golem herself only gets a name roughly 90 pages in). The pacing is absolutely glacial until the last fifty pages, at which point the novel really begins to deliver on its potential. Wecker ties things up in a satisfactory fashion and expertly avoids the fantasy trope of good guys versus bad guys where one wins and one loses, which is pleasant because it matches the overall complexity of her tale. There's a confluence of events both hundreds of years and several months in the making. The lives of the Jinni and the Golem are contrasted and the question of essential nature is provocatively framed by many of the developments throughout the story. That's all well and good, but oftentimes it feels rather purposeless. Maybe that's the point and I was just too distracted to see it. Ultimately The Golem and the Jinni is a classic story about how immigrants build new lives for themselves. I was perhaps hinging too many of my expectations on the "fantasy" tag in the genre description.

Wecker's writing is top-notch as well and that alone was more than enough to keep me going given the crap from the genre I've been reading lately. Three and a half stars? Yeah, three and a half. ...more

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Jun 09, 2021 Ketutar Jensen rated it it was amazing

Shelves: series, fantasy, magic, fantasy-challenge

I think it was wonderful. :-)
Of course. I gave it 5 stars.

I think Helene Wecker managed to make golems and jinnis well-rounded creatures, without taking anything away from their traditional nature. In fact, I think she explains their traditional nature, without diminishing or what-s-it-called weakening, making it bland or boring, or less dangerous and terrifying.
I love the fact that she uses old traditions, mainly Jewish, that's not that usual in Fantasy.
The solution was not the best, though... ...more

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Jan 14, 2014 Mackay rated it liked it

Shelves: fantasy

Hmm. I feel somewhat bad for not loving this book, for not raving about how wonderful it is. It is a fresh and exciting idea; its writing is smooth and polished; it gives an interesting, believable portrait of immigrant New York City in the 19th century; some of its characters are intriguing and make the reader want to know more about them (particularly Ice Cream Saleh, Fadwah, Maryam, even Arbeely and Sophia...in other words, all the secondary characters).

But I didn't love it. I found it hard ...more

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Jun 08, 2017 Siavahda rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: myths-and-fairytales, automatic-buy-authors, re-read, sf-f-mistressworks, assorted-human-magic-users, every-book-a-doorway, historical, general-fiction, awesome-girls, issues-without-preaching

Beautiful. Loved it just as much on a reread as I did the first time. A modern masterpiece, entwining history and immigrant culture with ancient mythology. Gorgeous.

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