Big nights back east.
Jan. 10th, 2018 08:51 pmDay 8
In your own space, share a favorite piece of original canon (a TV episode, a song, a favorite interview, a book, a scene from a movie, etc) and explain why you love it so much. Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.
The Golem and the Jinni by Helene Wecker made me roll around on the floor in pure elation and curl up and weep in both sorrow and catharsis. It's about two supernatural beings, a woman made of clay and a man made of air and fire, finding each other in the fantastic world of New York City's Lower East Side in the late 1890s. They're nothing like each other, and more like each other than anyone around them. It's a book about standing alone together. Gently falling and catching each other, to land while holding hands.
I got a huge kick out of an approach to magic unprecedented in my reading history of fantasy books set in the "real world" - which is to say that magic is present, and a force that can be used, that's a part of the world. It doesn't come in from somewhere else and it's not hidden off in a secret land that only a few people can access. Nobody needs to go anywhere to find it. Not everyone has the tools to use it, but it's unarguably present. I compared it to boulders because there's no arguing with a boulder's presence and there's no ambiguity to its existence. If enough of it's exposed you can climb on it. But there's rarely any direct interaction with it beyond that climbing, and few people have the tools or the resources to move it. As presented, anyone with the right education can do magical things. It's just that not many people have access to the lessons.
But they're still there for anyone.
It's a very Jewish approach, really.
It's a very Jewish novel, really.
I knew it'd be good from the quality of the writing, but it only took about a dozen pages before it went from good to great with a scene that brought tears to my eyes because here was my story! Here was my family and here were my people and here was a story I knew down in my bones:
“The deck was crowded with people, and at first the Golem didn’t see what they were waving at. But then, there she was: a gray-green woman standing in the middle of the water, holding a tablet and bearing aloft a torch. Her gaze was unblinking, and she stood so still: was it another golem? Then the distance became clear, and she realized how far away the woman was, and how gigantic. Not alive, then; but those blank, smooth eyes nevertheless held a hint of understanding. And those on deck were waving and shouting at her with jubilation, crying even as they smiled. This, too, the Golem thought, was a constructed woman. Whatever she meant to the others, she was loved and respected for it. For the first time since Rotfeld’s death, the Golem felt something like hope.”
In your own space, share a favorite piece of original canon (a TV episode, a song, a favorite interview, a book, a scene from a movie, etc) and explain why you love it so much. Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.
The Golem and the Jinni by Helene Wecker made me roll around on the floor in pure elation and curl up and weep in both sorrow and catharsis. It's about two supernatural beings, a woman made of clay and a man made of air and fire, finding each other in the fantastic world of New York City's Lower East Side in the late 1890s. They're nothing like each other, and more like each other than anyone around them. It's a book about standing alone together. Gently falling and catching each other, to land while holding hands.
I got a huge kick out of an approach to magic unprecedented in my reading history of fantasy books set in the "real world" - which is to say that magic is present, and a force that can be used, that's a part of the world. It doesn't come in from somewhere else and it's not hidden off in a secret land that only a few people can access. Nobody needs to go anywhere to find it. Not everyone has the tools to use it, but it's unarguably present. I compared it to boulders because there's no arguing with a boulder's presence and there's no ambiguity to its existence. If enough of it's exposed you can climb on it. But there's rarely any direct interaction with it beyond that climbing, and few people have the tools or the resources to move it. As presented, anyone with the right education can do magical things. It's just that not many people have access to the lessons.
But they're still there for anyone.
It's a very Jewish approach, really.
It's a very Jewish novel, really.
I knew it'd be good from the quality of the writing, but it only took about a dozen pages before it went from good to great with a scene that brought tears to my eyes because here was my story! Here was my family and here were my people and here was a story I knew down in my bones:
“The deck was crowded with people, and at first the Golem didn’t see what they were waving at. But then, there she was: a gray-green woman standing in the middle of the water, holding a tablet and bearing aloft a torch. Her gaze was unblinking, and she stood so still: was it another golem? Then the distance became clear, and she realized how far away the woman was, and how gigantic. Not alive, then; but those blank, smooth eyes nevertheless held a hint of understanding. And those on deck were waving and shouting at her with jubilation, crying even as they smiled. This, too, the Golem thought, was a constructed woman. Whatever she meant to the others, she was loved and respected for it. For the first time since Rotfeld’s death, the Golem felt something like hope.”
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