Thanks Chris. There is no colour in this book. It is a curiously circular book of shadows and spectres where, in the half-light of dreams and the unconscious, a group of obsessively driven characters, in a Jewish Ghetto, act out a ghostly play of vengeful illusions, cabalistic keys, fatal mistakes, and merged identities.

To feel letters, not just read them with my eyes in books, to set up an interpreter within me to translate the things instinct whispers without the aid of words: that must be the key, I realised that must be the way to establish a clear language of communication with my own inner being. p. 104.

( )

Amazingly important story, captivating, and well rounded. I wonder why is isn't as well know as Mary Shelly's Frankenstein? Full of references to Jewish Magic and mysticism, Egyptian Magic, and Prague mythology. The story follows a successful repairer of goods; a skilled artist is haunted by memories he cannot retrieve, led by his friends, including a puppeteer, and a rabbi, discovers they are protecting him from a breakdown he had in his past, through hypnosis locked the malevolent feelings in part of his mind. Fantastic descriptions of the Jewish in Prague, the tunnels, the folklore, the mysticism. Recounts the story of Rabbi Loew, and the origin of tarot. Some of the details in the book include The Book of Ibbur (the name of the book the protagonist was to repair for a customer), but so distracted by the book, after reading, could not recall what became of the customer, nor his appearance. The book was in part responsible for his revelation of his own past. The Egyptian ibis head on top of the apparition in the chapter "Fear". "Do not fear, it is Lelshimurim, the Night of Protection". "Chabrat zereh aur bocher" was written on his breast. Habal Garmin, name of protagonist's double. References to Václav Babinský, and "The Wall by the Last Lamp, Stag's Moat". ( )

Vérbeli misztikus kalandregény mindennel, ami a műfaj kötelező eleme: akad itt szerelem, gyilkosság, ármány, kabbalista titkok, rohangálás sötét sikátorokban, ártatlanok szenvedése és gonoszok démoni kacaja. Ugyanakkor van valami, ami az egészet igazán ínyenceknek való csemegévé teszi: az elbeszélő, Pernath figurája, aki mintha ébren álmodná végig a rohanó cselekményt. A megbízhatatlan krónikás iskolapéldája, nem csak rettentő egzaltáltsága okán, hanem azért is, mert nem emlékszik a saját múltjára (ami mondjuk lehet, engem is egzaltálttá tenne), annyit mindenesetre sejt, hogy nemrégiben egy bolondokháza vendégszeretetét élvezte – ezért is bánnak ismerősei vele úgy, akár a hímes tojással. Ő bolyong keresztül-kasul a hátborzongató, gótikusan szürreális prágai gettón, miközben a zsidó mitológia ősszörnye a sötétből fen rá fogat. Persze ez az egész voltaképpen egy metafora: a prágai gettó az elme labirintusának tükörképe, Pernath abban vetődik ide-oda, a Gólem pedig, aki egy ajtók nélküli szobában gubbaszt arra várva, hogy kitörhessen, alighanem Pernath őrülete maga. Meyrink példásan adagolja a miszticizmust, a pszichologizálást és az atmoszférát, aminek csodásan áll az expresszionista máz, jó ez a könyv, jó benne lenni, jó járni az azóta porrá omlott prágai gettó szűk utcáit, és közben fülelni: mi ez? Csak nem lépteket hallunk? Csak nem...

És jön a Gólem.

Jön a Gólem.

A Gólem.

(Mit találtam, miközben képeket kerestem az értékelésekhez? Hát ezt.

Hm, hát már gólem is. Különös, hogy a kormányzati propaganda ezt még így nem kapta fel.) ( )

The eyes of the outer limits. What can you say about The Golem, that has not been said about other Meyrink stories? Published in 1915, this type of literature will surely keep you on your toes. The reader is led down a road that continuously reinvents itself. One moment you are on a straight and narrow road, the next you are face down beside it. The Structure of the Golem is not as linear as Walpurgisnacht. The plot and writing is all over the place. But...was that the intention of the writer? In some places it would be a big yes and some he just got a little lost. But one thing the story does is disorient you to the point of madness. He wants the reader to feel like the characters and achieves that goal by leaps and bounds. At times the story feels a little rushed and character development lacks. But with this book atmosphere is key. Recommended? Yes. If you think you are going to read this and discover a horror story...…well then prepare to be disappointed. Eerie but not scary. Understanding the East European mindset at this point in time will grease the gears a tad while reading....but still leave enough friction to give the reader some nice burns on the outer layers of imagination. The more Meyrink I read the more I think of Maturin's Melmoth the Wander. Lots of parallels. ( )

Originally published in German in 1915; translation by Mike Mitchell 1955; Folio Society edition 2010

I became engrossed in this atmospheric tale, about the Jewish Quarter in Prague, with mysteries everywhere. The narrator is Athanasius Pernath, who lives in a small flat and supports himself by engraving jewels. He is tall and aristocratic. It is hard to summarize the plot, and, at the end, when it seems that Pernath has been released from prison into Prague years in the future, where none of his friends and his loves are to be found, after possibly dying but rising again, the point of the book remains obscure. I suspect Pernath is a supernatural being, perhaps the Golem (he is mistaken for the creature early on in the book), but I am unsure, confused by a dream sequence at the end. He spends months, possibly years in prison, refusing to confess, to a crime he did not commit. The jailers and the bureaucracy are, of course, absurd and tangled. In the early part of the book he hides a noblewoman almost caught in an assignation, and rides with her in a carriage, but falls in love with the impoverished daughter of a rabbi living downstairs. His friend, a medical student, is exacting a horrible revenge on a Jewish shop owner, who may have been his father, and who may have killed his mother. There is almost nothing straightforward, but the sequence of events and the atmosphere of the book are compelling. I might read it again, because the puzzle may become more clear.

page 17; on images in a book - "They are strings of pearls slipping along a silk thread, single notes of a melody pouring from an invisible mouth"

page 148: "Or perhaps it was the Jewish blood in him which led him to lavish all the love he was capable of on his offspring; our race has an instinctive fear of dying out and not being able to fufill its mission, which we have forgotten anyway, but which lives on in some obscure corner of our being"

page 161: "By the way, the hare was the symbol of Osiris, so that's probably where all the business of the Easter Bunny originated"

And, because I am a neurologist:
page 192: [referring to the prison doctor] "There's only one thing puts the fear of God into him, eppeleppsy. If you can throw a good fit, you'll be in the prison hospital in no time at all, and it's child's play to break out of there. Eppeleppsy. Just watch me and see 'ow its done. First you fill your gob with spittle - he blew out his cheeks and moved them from side to side, like someone rinsing his mouth out - then you foam at the mouth, like so.' This he proceeded to do with the most revolting realism. 'Then you grab your thumbs, go all cross-eyed,' he squinted horribly, 'and then, this is the 'ard bit, you have to give little grunts, like this, "Berr, Berr, Berr" and fall over at the same time.' He collapsed on the floor, making the walls tremble. 'That's your natural eppleppsy.'" ( )