By Helene Wecker - The Golem and the Jinni: A Novel (2013-05-08) [Hardcover] Hardcover – 1900

The Golem and the Djinni, by Helene Wecker, is a blend of historical fiction and fantasy. The historical part is set in New York around the year 1900, at which time the city was divided into many segments according to the country of origin of various immigrant groups. The two which are most in view are the Syrian and Jewish areas, with occasional forays up into much more affluent zones.The fantasy element - highlighted by the book title - comes in two parts. The golem, a manufactured creature derived from Jewish thought, is female in form, and was originally constructed to be wife to an Eastern European immigrant. He dies on board ship, leaving Chava to find her own way through life. Her impulse to obey the unspoken needs and wants of the people around are a constant source of difficulty, as she tries to reconcile conflicting demands.The djinni represents the Syrian area - a creature of fire, and many centuries old, he was bound long ago into human form by the work of a magician. His struggle is to avoid boredom without being discovered, and also to find a way to unravel the binding.Inevitably the two come into contact, and try to resolve the two problems at once. They are opposites in many ways - one built for obedience and conformity but having to make her own choices, and the other craving a wild and unrestrained life but having to manage limitation. Around that basic polarity a collection of interesting human characters orbit, and the exploration of cross-cultural New York is itself fascinating. One particular character - perhaps the only one with a malignant agenda, and at times a little cartòonish - comes to dominate the plot line in the later stages, as each of the others decides how to cope with his influence.All in all a thoroughly enjoyable book, which could appeal to anyone who likes some fantasy stirred in with their history.

The wonderful thing about this book is the split stories. You start with the Golem and her creation, her journey to New York – but then the Djinni comes in, and his friend the tinsmith, and then we meet a rabbi and the staff of a bakery, and the story flits back to Syria and a girl herding goats, then forward again to the ice-cream man and Sophie, rich and bored and waiting to be married, all interwoven between the Golem and the Djinni. The way the individual stories tie into each other is brilliant – they do come together by the end of the book, but for most of it you’re reading these separate characters and their lives, without knowing exactly how they’re going to fit. It works so well for the story and plot, as you then understand all the people, you see their backgrounds and their characters, without having an info-dump – and by the time we get to the end, we feel that we know all of them. I especially loved that the Golem’s story is known from the beginning and that we see her growing and changing, and the Djinni’s story is found out over the course of the book; he’s fighting to rediscover his memories until everything comes together.The plot isn’t predictable, either. It ambles along, weaving and turning, and I like that the Golem and the Djinni become friends when they meet – it’s a very unexpected friendship, and I do dearly love that the author hasn’t forced them together. They’re both very interesting characters, and it’s their characters that make the story, which makes for a lovely read. It’s not fast-paced, but it is tense (at the end, at any rate) – and the variation in the stories keeps you turning the pages.

What if two mythical creatures from two middle-eastern traditions should meet? Where would such a meeting take place? Why, of course, in the melting pot of New York City in 1899.So here we have a story of immigration and assimilation, and the curious melding of cultures that took place at the height of mass migration. One by one, our characters make their way to New York. The djinni, naturally, arrives in a brass vessel in need of some repair. The golem is created on behalf of a man who wants a good wife to take with him to the New World. Impatient (and sick), he speaks the spell to wake her on the voyage over and then promptly dies, leaving her without a master. (A great metaphor for how some people come unstuck from their traditions in the transformation from one national identity to another.)The djinni is trapped in human form; the golem does not sleep. Both have to adapt to a new way of life; both feel restless and hungry for something more. Inevitably, they meet. In seeking solutions for their various problems, they both create greater challenges and events spin out of their control. There are many intertwined sub-plots based around other characters who have in some way crossed paths with these magical entities. As such, the main plot moves slowly at times, and – considered on its own – is relatively slight. If there’s a fault here it’s that an awful lot of back story gets delivered by telling rather than showing, as information dumps – though these aren’t all at the beginning, at least. Still, it’s a shame that some plot mysteries are delivered in this way rather than being revealed by action.Worth a read, though, and