“Rabbi Löw, well versed in all of the arts and sciences, especially in the Kabbalah, had fashioned for himself one such servant out of clay, placed in his mouth the magic formula, and thereby brought him to life”.
Such is the legend. But Golem of Gustav Meyrink is a creature that comes in dreams.
It is the narrow, hidden tracks that lead back to our lost homeland, what contains the solution to the last mysteries is not the ugly scar that life's rasp leaves on us, but the fine, almost invisible writing that is engraved on our body.
In the novel Gustav Meyrink managed to create a unique atmosphere of mystique alloyed with WeltschmerzÂ…
The Golem is a darkly lyrical memorial to the epoch and to the people that lived in it and it is a mysteriously poetic memorial to the city and to the people that lived in it.
The vision I had had in the Cathedral, when CharousckÂ’s head had appeared on the monkÂ’s body in answer to my mute appeal for help, was indication enough that I should not reject vague feelings out of hand. For some time now hidden powers had been germinating within me, of that I was certain; the sense was so overpowering that I did not even try to deny it. 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.
Probably every one of us carries some mystical fiery sign hidden deep within one's soul…243 s Bill KerwinAuthor 3 books83.1k


Question: I am thinking of an author of novels and short stories, a speaker and writer of German, who lived in a predominately Czech-speaking area of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in the early years of the 20th Century. His works are often set in the city of Prague, a setting he fills with menace and dark surrealism. He seems both attracted and repelled by Judaism, an ambiguity reflected in his themes of patriarchy and autonomy, authority and law, isolation and identity in an unjust and chaotic world. Who is the writer I am thinking of?

Answer: Franz Kafka, of course.

Response: No. Nice try, but I was thinking of Gustav Meyrink.

In spite of these similarities, Kafka and Meyrink are very different. Kafka's biography reveals the Modernist pattern also seen in Eliot, Pessoa, Stevens: the alienated artist, a middle-class product, disappears into a bureaucracy of trade, banking, or insurance, preserving his originality through a series of expressive masks. Meyrink's biography, on the other hand, shows him to be less a Modernist than a flamboyant German Romantic of the early 19th century. The bastard son of a Wurttemburg baron and a Viennese actress, he was indeed a bank worker--a bank director, to be precise--but he was never drab or calculatingly anonymous: a survivor of nervous collapse, tuberculosis, and attempted suicide, he was a bon vivant, a fighter of duels, an unashamed devotee of the occult. Perhaps this last was just too much for his staid middle-class investors: accused of combining spiritualist consultations with executive decisions, Meyrink was arrested for bank fraud and sent to prison for two and a half months. There he suffered both physical paralysis and financial ruin; he cured himself of the former through the postures of yoga and of the latter through the profession of writing. With The Golem--a re-imagining of the old Jewish tale—Meyrink's reputation became secure.

Kafka's ambiguity towards Judaism derived from fear of his father and a tentative connection to his own Jewish heritage. Meyrink, on the other hand, was not Jewish at all (although some sources mistakenly assert his mother was). It was through his occult explorations that he became fascinated with Judaism: the force of the folk tales, the truth of the sayings, the splendor of the mystical writings. At the same time, he seems both attracted and repelled by the exotic squalor of Prague's Jewish Quarter. I detect a whiff of anti-semitism here, but I also sense that Meyrink sees the Jews as representative of humanity, illuminated by the divine spirit even though debased and enmired in a fallen world.

It is this sense of spiritual potential in a shattered world that most dramatically distinguishes Meyrink. There is little of this theme in Kafka; his protagonists are modern men, vainly attempting to assert their improbable existence in the context of an absurd world. Although Meyrink has much to say about the mystery of identity, his approach seems more gothic, more faux medieval. The Golem, a dark fairy tale, may be filled with false identities, fragmented quests, and madness disguised as transformation (or is it the other way round?), but throughout everything, the self and its potential for spiritual illumination never lose reality. The problem is that our world is in pieces: the individual no longer knows himself, for he is buried by fragments of pettiness and posing, spleen and crime. Meyrink reverenced the Kabbalah, and the narrative of The Golem seems to embody the myth of the Shevirat haKeilim : although the vessels, unable to contain the Light, have shattered, they shall be restored, in the Lord's good time. Until then, their shards, reflecting the Light, help to illuminate our darkened world.200 s Orsodimondo2,258 2,125

LA MADRE DI TUTTE LE CREATURE


Paul Weneger diresse i primi tre film dedicati al Golem, interpretando personalmente la Creatura.

È venuto prima di tutte le “creature”: prima di Frankestein, della Cosa (The Thing), di Hulk, di Terminator, dei replicanti, di Pokemon.
È perfino approdato ai Simpson!

Il Golem è un novello Adamo, ma senza l’anima: la prima volta che viene pronunciato il termine golem è nel salmo 139 della bibbia: ed è proprio Adamo che si rivolge al signore definendosi una massa informe. Un golem.
Perché golem vuol appunto dire materia grezza.
Ma anche embrione.



Il Golem nasce cinque secoli fa (1580) nel cuore di Praga (magica): in sinagoga, il golem prende vita dalle mani del rabbino Judah Loew, grande cabalista, talmudista e matematico, che lo plasmò dal fango della Moldava.
Loew riesce ad animare e dar vita alla creatura di argilla attraverso formule magiche e gli incide sulla fronte il nome di dio.
È sul Talmud che si dice che è possibile animare la Creatura usando il “Libro della creazione”, dove ci sono istruzioni dettagliate sulle combinazioni alfanumeriche usate da dio per dar vita al mondo.
La magia generativa è contenuta nei numeri e nelle lettere, messi nella giusta combinazione: un principio binario che trasforma in un algoritmo il principio della vita. **
E infatti il Golem comincia a vivere grazie al termine emet, in ebraico verità. E smette di vivere quando l’iniziale viene cancellata e rimangono i tre caratteri di met, in ebraico morte.



In pratica, un duplicato della creazione.
Generato per difendere il popolo dÂ’Israele.
Grazie al rabbino Loew il Golem passa dallÂ’antica teologia alla moderna mitologia.

Gustav Meyrink apre i giochi, e con questo romanzo il Golem entra nella Letteratura.
Tra il 1915 e il 1920 entra anche nel Cinema grazie al regista Paul Wegener che gli dedica tre film nel meraviglioso intramontabile stile dellÂ’espressionismo cinematografico tedesco.


I've seen things you people wouldn't believe, attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion, I watched c-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gates. All those moments will be lost in time, tears in rain. Time to die.

Se la Creatura ha/avesse un’anima è dibattito aperto da secoli.
E tutti quei momenti andranno perduti nel tempo, come lacrime nella pioggia. È tempo di morire.
Le lacrime nella pioggia di Rutger Hauer-Roy Batty, il replicante che muore nel finale di Blade Runner, fanno propendere per il sì.

** Il primo computer prodotto da Israele fu battezzato Golem I.


La statura del rabbino Judah Löw, opera di Ladislav Šaloun (1910), davanti al Municipio di Praga.austria150 s Sean Barrs 1,121 46.5k

I wouldnÂ’t want to be a Golem, and I wouldnÂ’t want to see one either. Doing so seems to lead to a high degree of delusion. Well, an unreliable narration at the very least. I feel everything the narrator says and does is questionable, and everything he says is doubtful. ItÂ’s impossible to say how much of this actually happened, and how much of it was in the narratorÂ’s mind. Obscure density is all we are left with.

”I hoped they would change their shape as I looked at them, allowing me to assume some optical delusion has been the cause of the fear that was paralysing me.”



And thatÂ’s exactly it. At the end of the novel he appears to wake up from a dream, but, again, that in itself is highly doubtful. He has spent the entirety of the process in another manÂ’s body, but the events he dreamt about apparently happened in a not so distant past. So how do we identify reality and the fantastic? What divides them? Absolutely nothing. Meyrink intertwines the two resulting in one massive headache of a novel. IÂ’m just not sure what to believe. The narrator could be insane; this would explain the questionable nature of the events and the undertones of the macabre. He could have just had one nightmarish dream and then decided to get on with his life. But what if it did happen? It leaves me with mind numbing questions in the same way that KafkaÂ’s Trial did. Simply put, we will never have our answers.

The setting of the novel is a haunted ghetto. The spirit of the citizens is bleak and morose. Perrath, our protagonist, is in a real dark place. He has no control over the events in his life as he descends even further into this abyss of despair. He has no real sense of freedom or expression of individual will. In part, this can be seen as an allegory for the First World War. The people are subjugated and forced into unpleasant circumstances as the horror of death tears through Europe.

Certainly, there are parallels. But no reading is conclusive. For me, the best aspect of this story is its dream feel. I donÂ’t think an overall interpretation can be applied to the work. Nothing fits it perfectly or defines it. H.P Lovecraft, the man who wrote some of the strangest short stories in existence, called it weird. From him, thatÂ’s a rather large compliment. It would have the same effect as Charlotte Bronte praising the work of a minor author for its feminist aspects. So this isnÂ’t an easy book to read. It is, indeed, a very weird book. It should be approached with caution. If you go into this expecting a linear framework you will be drastically disappointed. This book has a nightmarish quality, after reading it youÂ’re not entirely sure what any of it means. But thatÂ’s not necessarily a bad thing. This one will haunt me for a while.
3-star-reads classics darkness-horror-gothic85 s ForrestAuthor 44 books775

While the story of The Golem alone deserves four stars as Gustav Meyrink's masterpiece, the Tartarus Press edition, of which I happen to be a fortunate owner, pushes the book-as-artifact into the five star category. This book is one of my most prized possessions, one of the books I'll reach for if the library ever catches fire. Everything about it screams "I defy you to find another book as cool as me". From the outstanding internal artwork to the silk ribbon marker to the weight of the pages themselves, this is a book of quality workmanship through and through. If I could own all of my favorite books in a Tartarus hardcover edition such as this, I might do nothing but read the rest of my life, starving to death in an easy chair under the light of a reading lamp.

As several reviewers have pointed out, The Golem is obtuse. It is clearly not the story of the golem as dramatized in the silent movies directed by Paul Wegener. This book is much less forthright in its horror, if it can be called horrific at all. I think that "unsettling" is a more accurate term. The heavy mysticism and symbolism Meyrink employs simultaneously draws in and distances the reader, making for an uneven read that sets up a disturbing cadence in the reader's mind. This can be aggravating at times, and absolutely captivating at others. One always feels that there's something just around the next bend, emotionally and intellectually speaking. I wonder if Meyrink didn't intend the book to read this way. In this way, he is much Kafka, but on a more ethereal plane, if you will. Where Kafka creates unease with a sharp dose of uncaring bureaucracy, Meyrink plays hide and seek with shadows that may be interpreted as real demons or as the slow nightmare of a collective unconsciousness. It is because of this openness to interpretation that one reading is really insufficient to judge the work. The Golem, while not as hallucinatory as some think (those who haven't read it) or hope (those who were looking for an early surrealist Gothic tale) , is also not as incomprehensible as some reviewers complain. It is not an easy read, but, many difficult reads, it is rewarding to wander Prague's streets in search of Meyrink's elusive creature.chained-books79 s Greg1,120 1,962

Hello. My name is Greg and this is my review for:



I should first warn anyone reading this review that I suck at reading and you'd probably be better off reading written by people who don't suck at reading. I only discovered my reading suckness last week, so I shamefully apologize for anyone who has read any of my six hundred and eight other and thought they were reading a review written by someone who didn't suck. This review is probably a much more informative review than mine:

http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/...

AVERT SMUG INKY!

I went to the mall because that is what I do for fun. I hang out at the mall. Specifically at the little tables with the uncomfortable metal and wooden slat chairs that are in between the Orange Julius, the Mrs. Fields and the Arby's. Or as I to call it the tables in the triangle of heavenly delight. I'm in the middle of enjoying my third roast beef sandwich of the afternoon when this guy forcefully sets himself in the seat across from me.

"Athanasius Pernath," he says.

I hunker down and use my left arm to encircle my remaining uneaten roast beef sandwich small pile of cookies and two Orange Julius drinks. I glare at the man. He is wearing a hat. When I don't say anything he takes his hat off and shows me the name stitched on the inside of the hat. It says Athanasius Pernath.

"Some mornings I need to look at my hat to see what my name is," he says.

I say nothing, I must finish my delicious Arby's sandwich. He is ruining my enjoyment of only the third one of the day. Damn this man. That is what I think. So I tell him.

"Damn you man!" and a minute later we are talking best friends and I have offered to let him share in some of my food and beverage.

GIVE NASTY MURK!

That's all a lie. But that is exactly how I met the main character of The Golem one afternoon at the mall. We would talk for a while about things, and those things will be partially shared as the review goes on.

But before I get to anything as interesting as my conversation with Athanasius Pernath I need to give a big FUCK YOU! shout out to that taint-tickling, rectum-felching, choad-sucking, chulo-reaming, baby-gook-rimming, honkey-pus-sucking, heeb-analizer Atiba. That's right, fuck you Atiba. Fuck you existing. It's because you exist that this book exists and that I had to read it. It's not that the book is bad I realized you auto-erotic-fisting freak, but that because you fucking exist that this book is as bad as it is. If you had just been a bloody-cum squirt out of your mother's rotten vag than this book would have been better.

This is a picture from the book!



YUM, TRIG KNAVES!

!~~~~~~~~~~~~An @$1d3~~~~~~~~~~~~~~!

TOP TEN GOLUMS. EVER!!!!!!!

Number 10. Golem. From Pokemon!


Stay tuned for the next nine, we'll be counting them down all motherfucking review!!! Speaking of countdowns, that just reminded me of this, so you should listen to it while you continue to read this review.

VEGAN TRIMS YUK!

Back at the mall.

"I don't understand, why you didn't the book, why you didn't me?"

"Maybe I just didn't understand the book, I'm fairly certain I don't know how to read."

"That is interesting, I don't know my name sometimes."

"I noticed that in the book. Part of what confused me was it started off in Prague."

"That is correct."

"And then, Frodo was with the giant tree people, but were you still in Prague then? And I never quite understood how Golem got out of that room he was in and why he cared so much about the ring. Did the ring also only appear every thirty-three years?"

"I have no idea what you're taking about. I think you may be confusing different stories."

"No, it's the story about the Golem, the one that the weird Jewish sorcerer Gangdoff or Dumbledore or something that created and then he talked to some hobbits and convinced them to help him fight the weird flaming vagina that was controlled by the Jewish junkdealer who lived across the street from Frodo and how had the slutty looking daughter who slept with the orcs. And the weird Jewish magician had a buxom and hot daughter who was queen of the Elf Land, right? And then there was that other woman, the saucy blonde who wanted Frodo to help her decieve the evil junkdealer who was trying to tell the world what a dirty whore she was, but Frodo had enough trouble with the Golem who was following him around everywhere, and then....."

"Do you think I'm Frodo?"

"Maybe you are. You're the one who is only aware of his name by what is printed on the inside of your hat."

"The story is about Dopplegangers. It's not about hobbits and Frodos."

"That's what the introduction says too, I'm not a very good reader though. But you know, there is this website I'm on called goodreads.com, which I sully by my very non-good reader existence, and I've been made aware of my deficiencies as a reader. I fear that if I ever wrote a review for the book no one would read it even to the point where I tried to defend myself."

"Why would someone not read what you have to say, maybe if you just stopped confusing the plot of my story with that of Bilbo..."

"Ha! You are really part of the Hobbit story! I knew it!"

"No, you are confused, you are probably caught in some frightening dream..."

"A dream? Let me tell you about a dream."

A Dream. With Dream Photographs

most of my boring dreams this one took place at work. My subconscious so infused with the boredom and tedium of my everyday world that even dreaming was no escape from it.

I know that hearing about someone else's dream is about as exciting as paint drying, but please bear with me.

I went into the backroom at work. I don't know why. I had to do it. You know what it's in dreams. And what did I find? My whole being felt the horror approaching. And I was powerless to stop myself from moving on. I must go on. I must not. The HORROR! Terror no mere mortal has ever felt as I moved on. And in that back room I came face to face with it!



The Golem. It's yellow skin looking at me from the cover of the Dover edition of the book! I had never been so afraid in my whole life. I thought I would go mad! Madness! Arrggghhh!!

But, lest I be trapped in the insanity of my dream forever, I knew I must muster up all my strength and fight this terror! And so I did.

I prepared to attack!



The Golem showed no fear. So I struck.



And I hit him. And the laughter rang out from inside its pages. "You can not hurt me!" the book taunted.

"No?" I asked. And I tore into him.



And he gasped. I could feel his own terror. He knew I would destroy him.

And I stomped him into the ground.



And as he lay broken and shattered, and I emerged victorious from a battle I hope never to have to engage in again I told him what I thought of him. "Fuck you, Golem," I bellowed.



And then I awoke.

Top Ten Golem's of All-Time: Number 9

The Golem from this book:



Keep checking back because I'm not going to fucking stop until I get to the motherfucking top.

A Stinky Mug Rev!!!

"You really have no idea what this book is about do you?" the character from the novel asked me.

"Of course I do. But since you think you know everything, what do you think the book is about?"

"It is about Doppelgangers. Do you even know what one is?"

"I'm not an idiot, of course I do. In fact I have one on Goodreads.com"

"You have one?"

"Yes."

The Story of My Goodreads.com Doppelganger(s)

Obviously my doppelganger is David Kowalski. I can't go into too many details about the why he is, and I certainly can not describe the metaphysical reasons how this all came about, but a doppelganger is an apparition of a living person. I am the living person and he is a ghostly double that is actually much wittier and a better writer than I am, but he is in fact my goth double trapped in the netherland purgatory of Indiana. Really the only proof I'm allowed to divulge at this time is that when our ectoplasmic connections become too strained, or when I threaten to grow a life of my own and take over from him the life forces that we share he disappears from the interwebs and all evidence of his ever having existed on goodreads.com disappears with him. For the good of everyone it would probably be better if things worked the other way, where I would just disappear with my long rambling nonsensical , but he's the apparition and there isn't anything I can do about that. Maybe in the future that will change and I'll become the apparition and then I'll disappear, taking all my foul-mouthed with me.

Top Ten Golem's of All-Time: Number 8

Donny "the Bear Jew" Donowitz from Inglourious Basterds. Who the German Army call a golem!



Keep it on this station to see what will be in the top seven golem's of all time!

An Aside, which really isn't an aside since there is no real non-aside to this review so far

Alfonso believes that I intentionally tried to traumatize him by wearing pants that were torn in the crotch area and he thinks I was trying to get him to see my 'junk' as he calls it. I don't think anyone in the world wants to see my 'junk' and it was only the comfort of the pants that overrode the possible shame involved in wearing torn pants that made me continue wearing them. I had no idea that I was possibly causing any horror by my wardrobe to people who might be sitting on the floor at Barnes and Noble trying to read. Please accept my sincerest apology to anyone who felt uncomfortable by my holey pants. I always wear underwear though and there was never any danger of any of my parts being exposed, but I can understand that the fear of having to see my unmentionables could cause undue anxiety on just about anyone. I'm sorry.

Top Ten Golem's of all Time: Number 7

The Golem, from Marvel's Strange Tales.



I've got no commentary for this one. Number 6 will be disclosed after this return bit more of the inane conversation I'm having with the main character of the book.

MURKY GETS VAIN!!!!

"But," I ask him, "what about all the women in the book, isn't it weird that you want to sleep with all of them, sometimes in the same sentence?"

"Well, I the ladies, don't tell me you don't have crushes on anyone, and feel this one person is the perfect person for you, but then you think no, this person is, and then you think really I just might want to bang that slutty looking shiska that does the lewd gestures with her mouth and shows her panties to deaf boys."

"But it's every woman character in the book, shit even the waitress towards the end doesn't make it through the scene without her top almost popping open under the mental undressing she's given."

"This is rich coming from a person who wrote a novel that contains one woman character, and you make her a stripper."

"This isn't about me, this is about you and the book your in."

"Whatever, it sounds to me you are the one with the hang-ups. Maybe it's natural to want to be passionate with lots of women, maybe all the women you know. What isn't natural is the way you won't even admit to having any crushes on any of the very intelligent and attractive ladies on goodreads. Why won't you just give Alfonso what he wants and answer the question?"

"Ok, ok you win..... my goodreads.com crushes are Top Ten Golems of All Time: Number 6

This golem:

from what might be Magic: The Gathering. How will Alfonso react to my not so cunning evasion of what I know was the one part of the challenge that he really wanted me to answer? Will he find any irony or humor that I skipped over his beloved question with a Magic card? Find out below in the comment section, and stay tuned for the top half of the all-time golems!

A long story short

"How interesting, you have crushes on them? I would have never guessed."

"Look it's been fun but I'm getting really bored with talking to you, so why don't you go fuck off and I'll go on writing this review with you."

"That was not polite."

"Look just fuck off, go away, I'm tired to writing a review in the form of a conversation. It's been done, I've done it, know kindly get the fuck away from me so I can have my Orange Julius and Mrs. Fields cookies in peace."

Top Ten Golems of all time: Number 5

Myspace sensation: the band Golem.

(picture went bye-bye)

Maybe they aren't a sensation on Myspace, but they have a Myspace page. You know who else has a Myspace Page for music?

Me! You can go listen to four songs I recorded right now if you want! I'd recommend "Live for Me". For those of you who don't know me personally you can hear what my whiney voice sounds .

Only four more to go!

Hail Satan!

666

Hey all. Demon here! LOLZ!!!!
I was invited to say something, and WTF! I dunno wat to s@y!!!! LOLZ.....

Where did U?!? think text-message speak came from?

So I've got this forum to talk, and I'm gonna set the record straight (SHOUTZ to LUCIFER and SATAN!!!! WooHooo LUZ U GUYZ (not in a fag way!!! whooo woooo).

I don't tYping 2 much (^^^666^^^!!!), so go here:

http://creation.com/a-remarkable-witn...

And see what all U FAGZ who think PPL evoluted from SLIME are STOOOPID. UP YRS SAM HARRIS!!!! MY dawg SATAN says it aint TRU!!!

SUk A DICK RICHARD DAWKINS!!!!

HAIL SATAN@@@@@@@@@@

Im OUT!!! (but not in a fag way)

AND END SCENE

Sorry, I had to invite a demon to say some words.

Top Ten Golems in History: Number 4

Gollum!



He should be number one, but he's not really a golem (neither are Eli Roth or the band but they are in spirit). He is the most famous on the list and more people will think of him when they hear golem than some mud creation in Jewish folklore.

Yep, keep on reading, and you'll get to see who the top three are.........

On and on and on with this review

I don't know if you realize, but I've been writing this thing for days now. I have no idea if it is coherent, and I have a feeling that you might be getting as tired reading it right now as I am writing it. I sort of felt the same blahness about reading the book though. You know what would have made the book more exciting? If the motherfucking Penetrator had been in it. First of all if he had been the main character, or any character he would have banged all three of those women, plus some others that we didn't even see in the book. They would sleep with him and thirty minutes later have had the best experience of their lives, and they would feel empty inside for the rest of their miserable existence because they would know that the Penetrator would never come back their way again. But they would also feel great because they had gotten to 'know' him and his manly mustache.

But really the part of the book that would have been greatly improved was the drawn out jail scene. If the Penetrator had been in that jail he would have killed everyone, and escaped in one chapter. And if he hadn't been in jail he would have killed everyone guarding the main character and gotten him out and then went and fucked the ladies while the freed main character cried in the corner because he could never be even ten percent of the man that the Penetrator is. This book should have been a Penetrator novel, a lot more would have happened in it.

Another Aside

This challenge has been hell for me. I blame myself and not the challenge itself. This has taken me weeks now. It hangs over my head and taunts me. More than once I've thought to myself once I finish this review I'll never write another one.

Here is a Morrissey song that sort of captures how I feel about writing right now (actually mostly just the last two lines are relevant, but it's a great song anyway).....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4mjKg9...

Top Ten Golems of All-Time: Number 3

Der Golem! from the 1920 German film.



A Story! Of which has no relevance to anything to do with this book, but which could have if the book had been about my childhood, which it isn't

(note: I was going to use the throwing a stick through the spokes of a bully's bike but that story has already been used in another review, so instead here is another bad-ass story of my youth)

There were two douchebags that lived up the street from me. They were in high school or maybe older. They drove a car. They were probably the equivalent of the early 80's version of what those idiots on the Jersey Shore are. You know guidos, or jerk-offs from Jersey. Which is fitting since I lived in Jersey at this point. They d to drive really fast and yell things out the window of their car and sometimes drive over our lawn when taking the corner that my house was on. So one day they came speeding down the hill and as they were passing my house I gave them the middle finger and yelled, "You fuck your mother, assholes!" They screeched to a stop and threatened me and I told them I thought they were someone else and the one in the passenger seat told me not to make the mistake again and they peeled out. I guess it would have been more badass if I had told them they really did fuck their mom and then ended up once again in a fetal position while getting kicked in my side on two other occasions of me doing something stupid to some older meathead, but instead I took it back. Badass.

To relate this to the book, if I had seen the golem wandering around the city and I had been eight I to think that I would have yelled at him that he fucks his mother, and I would have looked all bad-ass because everyone else was all scared of him, and seriously who should be scared of a mound of mud with a piece of paper in his mouth? He probably doesn't have a mother to fuck though, so it would have been even funnier.

(the review continues in comment number 51......)fiction63 s Jack Tripper439 290

There are plenty of here already for this oneiric/nightmarish German masterpiece, but after my recent reread, I thought IÂ’d comment on the two different English translations, as thereÂ’s not much out there on the topic in internetland (at least that IÂ’ve found). Some potential reader may find it useful.

While overall I think I prefer the more recent Mike Mitchell translation from 1995*, as itÂ’s much clearer and more direct, and with slightly more modern-ish prose, thereÂ’s something about the 1928 Madge Pemberton version that I as well. It can be a bit opaque and harder to follow at times, but thereÂ’s more of a strangeness or otherworldliness to the writing that suited the story. IÂ’d recommend reading the Mitchell (published by Dedalus) first for clarityÂ’s sake, and if you ever decide to have another go at it, check out the Pemberton (published by Dover) for a more detached, foggier sort of vibe.

ItÂ’s hard to get a feel for the styles based on short snippets, but here are a couple examples of the differences in approach, both from the second chapter:

(Pemberton)
Once, long, long ago, it is in my mind that somehow or other I took the wrong hat by mistake; at the time I was surprised how well it fitted me, for the shape of my head I always thought peculiar to myself. I had glanced at that time, down at the lining of the hat, and observed, in letters of gold in the white silk:

ATHANASIUS PERNATH

And, for some reason I did not understand, the hat filled me with fear and dis.

(Mitchell)
I think Â… I think that once, a long, long time ago, I took the wrong hat somewhere, and even then I was surprised that it fitted me so well, since my head has a very individual shape. And I looked into this hat that belonged to someone else Â… all those years ago, and Â… yes Â… there it was in letters of gold on the white silk lining:

ATHANASIUS PERNATH

I was wary of the hat, frightened of it, though I didnÂ’t know why.
—————————
(Pemberton)
I did not meet her look.
I detested that insistent smile of hers and her waxy, rocking-horse face.
Her flesh must be white, surely, that of the axolotl that I saw the other day at the birdshop in the salamanderÂ’s cage.
As for the eyelashes of the red-haired, IÂ’d as soon contemplate those of a young rabbit.

(Mitchell)
I avoided her glances.
Her teasing smile and waxy, rocking-horse face disgust me. I feel she must have white, bloated flesh, the axolotl I saw just now in the tank of salamanders in the pet-shop. I find the eye-lashes of people with red hair as repulsive as those of rabbits.

I have no idea which is considered more “accurate”, but Mitchell’s is a bit more immersive to me, and Meyrink’s humor comes across better as well. I noticed I tend to favor more recent translations in general, despite my usual preference for vintage books. That trend continues here for the most part. Either way, you can’t really go wrong with either. Some damn eerie atmosphere any way you slice it.

* ETA: I know Mitchell revised his 1995 translation to some degree in more recent years, but I’m not aware of what the differences are between the two. I only have experience with the 1995 Dedalus edition. Also, the 70s Dover editions of Pemberton’s translation were “emended”** by the literary scholar and editor E.F. Bleiler, which is what I’d read (and quoted here).

** TIL that “emended” is a word that means something slightly different from “amended”.horror translation weird-surreal52 s12 comments Eliasdgian421 117

?? ??? ??????? ????????????, ???????? ??? ??????????? ???????????, ?? ?????????? ??? ????? ??????? ???????????? ?????? ??????????? (????, ???????, ?????????? ???? ??????????? ??? ????????? ?? ????????? ??????????? ??? Hugo Steiner - Prag ??? ??????? ??? ??????!), ?? ??? ???????? ?????????? ??? ????????????? ??????? ??? ???????? ?????????, ??? ?????, ??? ?????? ??? ????? ??? ???????? ?????, ??? ????? ?????????? ???????? ?????????, ???? ??????????? ??????? (??? ?????, ???? ??? ???????, ????? ??? ?? ???), ??? ????????????, ?????? ??? ?????, ??? ???????? ???????? ??? ??????? ??? ?????, ? ????????? ??????? ??? ??????, ??? ???????? ??????? ???????? ??? ?? ???? ??? ?????????? ??? ?? ??????? ??? ?????? ??????? ???? ??????? (????? ???? 17? ?????) ??? ???????????? ????? ??? ??????? ??? ?????? ?????????, ?????? ?? ??? ????????????? ???????? ???? ???? ??????? ??? ???????? ??? ????????? (???????) ? ???????, ???? ??????? ??? ?? ??????? ??? ?????, ? ??????, ????????? ?? ??????? ?????? ??? ?????.46 s William2782 3,289

The Golem is a high-brow literary thriller. Very readable, even re-readable. Here's what the great Jorge Luis Borges wrote about it in 1936: "...An extraordinarily visual book that enchantingly combines mythology, eroticism, tourism, the 'local color' of Prague, prophetic dreams, dreams of past or future lives, and even reality." A "wonderful book." This quote is from a brief review of Meyrink's later The Angel of the Western Window, about which Borges was far less enthusiastic. See Jorge Luis Borges, Selected Non-Fictions.20-ce candidate-to-reread czech-republic ...more45 s °°°·.°·..·°¯°·._.· ????? ??????? ???????? ·._.·°¯°·.·° .·°°° ?·.·´¯`·.·? ?????? ???????? ??????? ????????? ??736 836

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