He, She and It

Set in the near future, the effect of climate change has led to famine, disease and a brief nuclear war in the Middle East. The world is living with the consequences — divided into haves, in the protected corporate domes; and have-nots, in the wastelands known as the Glop; and the few surviving freetowns. Shira was brought up in Tikva, one of those freetowns, a Jewish settlement set up after the troubles. Returning home she finds that the town is under threat. Interspersed with her story is that of the ghetto of Prague in the 1600's, Rabbi Judah Loew and the golem he created to protect the Jews. This story is told by Shira's grandmother, Malkah, to a cyborg created to help protect Tikva.

The parallels between the stories - the role of show more a creator and his (or her) responsibility to the thing created; the importance of self, within family and community; the world and how we live and the consequences of our choices - combine in a way that makes you think. Marge Piercy has created a vision of the future that is plausible and reminds us that history can be repeated. I found this a compellingly interesting read; a wonderful story. show less

I loved [b:Woman on the Edge of Time|772888|Woman on the Edge of Time|Marge Piercy|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1480498743l/772888._SY75_.jpg|838570] so had high expectations of 'He, She, and It' (Oxford comma added for my own sake). I did not find it quite as memorably powerful, because [b:Woman on the Edge of Time|772888|Woman on the Edge of Time|Marge Piercy|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1480498743l/772888._SY75_.jpg|838570] contrasts contemporary, utopian, and dystopian visions so brilliantly. Nonetheless, 'He, She, and It' is fascinating and thoughtful sci-fi. It is largely set mid-21st century, when megacorporations have taken over and ruined the show more planet. Wealthier and luckier people live either under protective domes for corporate workers or more precarious wraps sheltering rare independent settlements; most of the population survives in chaotic slums, unpleasantly named the Glop. In a more conventional cyberpunk novel, the plot would be split between corporate domes and the slums. As Piercy is a distinctively thoughtful writer, she centres her story on a small independent Jewish community named Tikva. Shira, the protagonist, loses custody of her son and leaves her corporate job, returning to live with her grandmother in Tikva. There she meets long-lost family, her first love, and a unique cyborg called Yod. The focus of the book is on Shira's relationships, in particular with Yod. Despite the novel's title, though, gender isn't given much consideration.

In parallel to Shira's narrative, her grandmother tells the story of the golem of Prague. Yod is a 21st century golem, built to protect Tikva, a 21st century Jewish ghetto. The independence of the settlement is continually threatened by corporations, who frequently resort to murder for espionage purposes. As this is a cyberpunk-ish world, people can get their brains fried while jacked into the mainframe. But that is incidental to the exploration of personhood, both of Joseph the golem and Yod the cyborg. A complex web of familial, romantic, and community relationships is carefully developed around them both. I particularly appreciated the thoughtful consideration of duty and morality as applied to Joseph and Yod. Both were created to protect a community from deadly violence, with the implicit sanction to use deadly violence themselves. As they learn and develop, golem and cyborg become more inclined to independent thought. They become frustrated by those who treat them purely as tools and drawn to those who treat them as people. Despite the incremental pace, which allows the characters and their relationships to flower, 'He, She, and It' is very neatly structured. The denouement of Yod and Shira's story isn't unexpected, yet has no less impact for that. I found it very involving and enjoyed the absence any clear ethical conclusions. It felt like an ongoing discussion between the interesting cast of characters, as there are never going to be definitive answers to the questions it raises. show less

This was written in 1991, so some of the ideas about the internet didn’t come to fruition in the way that was described in the book, but the ideas about climate change are pretty realistic. The chief strength and interest of the book is in its characters and setting: the people and the town of Tikva, a free Jewish settlement on the shore of North America. The shore has moved inland and there are drowned cities to the east. The town is sheltered by a wrap, some sort of dome that protects people from the ultraviolet (in this future, the ozone layer was irrevocably damaged by CFCs) and the extreme heat. The town is also threatened by the many corporations that want to swallow it up (governments have all collapsed so the main powers in show more the world are corporations).

The story is interspersed with episodes from the story of the Golem of Prague, and how the great Rabbi Loew’s creation helped to save the people of the ghetto from a pogrom.

The big question at the centre of the book is, if you create something (a golem or an android) to kill, can it ever transcend or escape its nature? Can an android or a golem be a person in the full sense of the word?

There are so many interesting characters in the book: Malkah, who tries to give the android a conscience and a more rounded personality; Avram, the creator of the android; the android himself; Nili, from Israel, who is an artificially-enhanced human (to provide a contrast with the android). I didn’t find the central character, Shira, all that convincing, but she is more than made up for by Malkah. I also enjoyed being immersed in a Jewish perspective on the world for a bit. show less

Well-done slightly dystopic scifi novel with a definite Jewish flavor. In this post-ecodisaster world of the future, billions have died from famine, plagues, and a nuclear war in the Middle East. The remaining population now lives either in corporate enclaves, or out in the “Glop,” “the jammed fetid slum where most people live.” Some free towns remain, however, like the Jewish community of Tikvah, in the northeast of the former U.S.

Parallel chapters juxtapose events in the futuristic Tikvah with the real Jewish ghetto of Prague in the late 1500’s, at the time of the famous Rabbi Judah Loew. Brilliant scientists in Tikvah construct a cyborg, Yod (a mixture of biological and machine parts), to protect them from the pirates and show more assassins of the enclaves and the Glop, just as Rabbi Loew supposedly constructed a golem (or man of clay) to protect the ghetto from the antisemites beyond its walls. Rabbi Loew was a follower of Kabbala, which ascribes mystical powers to letters, numbers, and words. He creates his golem with words, just as we create our truths by naming them. Rabbi Loew’s story is told by Malkah, one of the scientists who creates Yod. Her granddaughter Shira used to be in love with Gadi, son of Avram, the other creator of Yod. Together all of the them struggle with the need for connection. And together all of them explore the nature of the fluidity of reality by virtue of simulations, cyberspace, religion, socialization, desire, and myth, trying to discern which is “true” and even what truth is. A thought-provoking book on many levels.

(JAF) show less

https://nwhyte.livejournal.com/2974689.html

We are in the near future (to 1993); the Middle East has been destroyed in a war, global warming and pollution run rampant, and corporations control all aspects of life for those who accept the security of living in their communities. Our protagonist, Shira Shipman, flees a nasty divorce in one of the corporate burgs to a Jewish free town, to link up with her robot-building mentor; meanwhile a parallel narrative recounts the story of the Golem of Prague. I generally really hate stories with cute robots, and the android here is not just cute but sexy. But it's far from being the entire point of the story, which involves identity in several different ways, and also is based in really effective show more world-building and characterisation of the various relationships. Apparently Arthur C. Clarke himself was rather pleased that it won his award, though it is pretty far from Clarke's own style. show less

As usual, Marge Piercy is full of interesting ideas. In this book she explores our relationship to technology, as individuals, as.communities and as a society. Her primary question concerns the notion of humanity. What does it mean to be human? What are the essential attributes? What does it mean when acknowledged human beings don't have those qualities, vut cyborgs do? What are the benefits and risks of merging the biological with the technological? Great questions for our current moment. Unfortunately Piercy ' s writing falls far short of the expectations set by her framing of her subject. It's sentimental, trite, even juvenile at many times, making it hard to get through and distracting the reader from the interesting problems Piercy show more ' s presented us. show less

You know those books that you really didn't like...but you can't really put your finger on why so you waver back and forth between 2 and 3 stars? Yeah, this is one of those. This book tells the parallel stories of a golem and a cyborg, both created to protect a Jewish community and both of whom fall in love with human women. The conceit is fascinating...but the execution just lacks something. This book is very much of its time in terms of acid rain and plastic surgery being a primary concern of the characters, which makes it feels like late 20th Century people just ported forward in time rather than a society that truly evolved over the 100ish years that have allegedly passed. Ultimately, it wasn't a bad read, but I don't think I'm in a show more rush to read another by Ms. Piercy. show less