Mitch's Reviews > The Golem and the Jinni

Just this once, I wish I could say 'The Golem and the Jinni is awesome. Trust me.' and just leave it at that. Not only because it is, but also because Helene Wecker's debut novel is a hard book to put into words, full of wonder and meaning, and an experience I don't think any review can fully do justice to. Still, even though I'll probably miss things, here goes...

Chava is a golem. Ahmad is a jinni. This is not a story of their chance encounter and subsequent whirlwind romance among century ago New York's immigrant community. No, this is one of those books. The ones that ponder the meaning of life and examine what it means to be human, to have free will and faith and hope, using the eyes of the least human among us to do so. It's a mix of historical fiction and Gilded Age myth, Jewish mysticism and Arab folklore, combining elements of Frankenstein and Aladdin in a seamless narrative that's both timeless and modern, insightful yet moving.

I'll admit, I didn't think The Golem and the Jinni would be that book when I first started. Helene Wecker’s writing style leans more toward fairy tale than historical, almost as if there’s a surreal quality that makes her book difficult to place in its nineteenth century setting early on, but, as I would later realize, also lends an idealistic, romantic air to a city and a story that very well needed it. It's fantastical when the story needed to feel exotic, restrained when the tone had to be subdued, but always personal and touching. That said, sadly the first chapter is probably also the weakest, explaining Chava’s origins in that no nonsense, fairy tale way that leaves very little to the imagination, compounded by a story that's slow, very slow, if affectionately crafted.

Yet, as the narrative unfolds, as Chava loses her ‘husband’ to appendicitis and finds herself, alone and masterless, in the urban jungle that is New York City even then, it’s obvious that Wecker quickly turns those weaknesses into elements of strength. Chava, desperately trying to pass as human for her own survival, is taken in by the elderly Rabbi Meyer, and although he’s not unkindly towards the golem, the uncertainty, both for him and for her, of whether she can go against her violent nature hangs in the air. And it’s Chava, created to serve the needs of humans yet trying to understand how to behave like one, who forms half the story. There are deep, profound moments about private thoughts and human nature, and whimsical moments with Chava testing the limits of her body, even eating food and trying to figure out where it goes, and the entire effect is that this wonderfully complex, incredibly compelling character slowly emerges, trying to pass for human out of necessity, yes, but also showing what it means to be one, maybe even a bit about the meaning of existence itself. Needless to say, I celebrated her triumphs, felt for her losses, understood her apprehensions, and hoped for her survival, all as she’s trying to find her way in the world.

The other half of the story is Ahmad, a creature very different from, potentially even the opposite, of Chava. Chava is of the earth; Ahmad is a being of fire. Chava is days old, innocent to the world; Ahmad is centuries old, jaded by his imprisonment. Chava doesn’t understand what it means to be human; Ahmad has the wrong ideas. Yet even before they meet, Wecker has created the perfect foil for the golem, a jinni who’s not less than human, but more, someone as wild and eternal as the desert air bound by flesh and blood, now a fraction of who he was. In contrast to the golem’s uncertainty, his is a restless anxiety that chafes at the limits of human freedom, yet I felt his despair at the constraints of humanity as much as I felt Chava’s fear of the limitlessness of humanity. And in a way, their intertwining stories form a reminder, I think, to the rest of us that, like Chava and Ahmad, we’re all trying to find ourselves between these two extremes.

Lest I forget, there is actually a plot. Chava and Ahmad don’t spend the entire book wandering the streets of New York, discussing the human condition while forming the unlikeliest of friendships, even if I guess my review does give that impression. Sure, a lot of it is about fitting in, being human, some of it a celebration of the immigrant experience through culture, faith, community, even the hope of Lady Liberty followed by the realities of working class New York, but connecting Chava and Ahmad’s story is also one Yehudah Schaalman, evil Kabbalist. The suspense of Schaalman’s machinations adds a bit of urgency to a story that otherwise really doesn’t have any, well beyond flashbacks from Ahmad’s point of view slowly revealing his past while forming parallels with his present, but it’s Schaalman, mostly in the background, ominous and foreboding, who brings Chava and Ahmad’s story ultimately to its conclusion. I’m not entirely satisfied with the (somewhat rushed) ending, particularly with Sophia Winston’s role (though I do see how it mirrors Fadwa’s, a character from Ahmad’s past) and I feel Schaalman as the villain is a weaker aspect of the book than the exploration of human nature, but the epilogue ends on such a bittersweet yet hopeful note I still deeply respect what Helene Wecker has done.

In a word, The Golem and the Jinni is a masterful look at the meaning of life through the eyes of two supernatural beings living in nineteenth century New York. Just by their everyday attempts to understand themselves, Chava and Ahmad, their story, says a lot about all of us.