(no subject)

[seekingferret]

The Golem of Brooklyn by Adam Mansbach

chestnut_pod ran an op to get all of Jewish dreamwidth to read this book, and I am the latest victim.

And I don't know, it is funny and fun and fast moving and intriguing, but it also feels half baked on multiple levels. It runs on momentum to such a degree that it never has time to stop and take a breath, and so chestnut_pod writes of finishing and spending 30 minutes in silence processing the ending, as a sign of its complexity and philosophical depth, but I wonder to what degree that's just stopping to think and say what the fuck did I just read?

I think there's a lot that is interesting about the ending, but I felt by that point Mansbach has invested narrative capital in so few characters that to me it seemed more pythonesque than anything substantially thoughtful. And truly there is something fascinating about writing a revenge fantasy murder spree of klansman by a mystical creature in a pythonesque madcap style, but also what the fuck did I just read?

I don't know, I feel like I have an essay in me about Inglourious Basterds and Hunters and The Golem of Brooklyn and the way contemporary Jewish revenge fantasy tries to make unambiguously immoral behavior feel... safe? Is that the word? Safe because we know it's fiction and we don't really believe, or at least are willing to pretend it's not true, that violent art creates killers, and so we can imagine a world where killing anyone who dislikes us is a tikun and not a deep moral stain.

But there's another kind of safety in pretending or imagining we are strong. The weird safety paradox that Mansbach does a decent job of grappling with, but which still kind of undermines his plot, is that modern klansmen are chickenshit when it comes to their Jew hatred. There are so many more antisemites than Jews and weapons available are so sophisticated that if American Jew haters actually got their act together they could do what Hamas did last October, kill a thousand Jews in a day. Instead they march in these dumb rallies, making them seem weak, making them seem like they're not really a threat. If the klansmen were like Hamas, the question of whether the Golem should be violent would be moot. This book only works because we still don't, in our gut, actually believe that America could start rounding up Jews and I don't know what to tell you, they absolutely could. And there isn't much we can do about that, a single Golem and a few million Jews is nothing against the full weight of American Jew hatred.

So there is something unsatisfyingly tame to me about this book, it's a book about violence that seems wary of acknowledging the primal pleasure of violence, and its comcomitant costs.

Comments

[ambyr]

I have been reading about this book as it goes around DW, but I remain on the fence about actually reading it. Revenge fantasies that aren't ultimately on some level tragedies aren't usually my thing.

[lirazel]

This is such an interesting post. I haven't read the book yet, but I'm going to be thinking about this a lot.

[lannamichaels]

Yeah, having thought about the book more, I think it's something that has to exist in its current form. It's all over the place and ambitious and trying to do so many things, and I think it fails in several of them, BUT if it was more edited and consolidated and thoughtful, it wouldn't be anywhere near the same book. So is there value in this book existing in its form? I don't think it would exist in any other. He threw a lot of things at the wall and some of it stuck and some it if emphatically did not stick. On the other hand, it's short enough already that if he cut all the things that didn't work, and heavily revised it, it's just a short story about a golem.

[chestnut_pod]

I admire the "spaghetti on the wall" approach very much -- it's interesting to me at a craft level watching him include script pitches and emojis and hip-hop and longform poetry and interstitial short stories and the whole novel -- but I can also see where many would feel that it's way too much! I guess I just really like ambition in my literary fiction, and to me, it felt like it had it in spades.

[lannamichaels]

I loved the poetry! Could have done without a couple of those pitches.

Also I don't know if this is what is called "telling on yourself" but I was like "okay but who doesn't have generational trauma, really." ;)

[chestnut_pod]

Ha! That’s very funny. Sometimes I do run into people without, and it’s always a funny experience.

[chestnut_pod]

[personal profile] chestnut_pod ran an op to get all of Jewish dreamwidth to read this book, and I am the latest victim. -- this really made me laugh. Sorry that it was victimizing, in this instance!

I sort of disagree that this book at all tried to make immoral behavior feel safe --my read was that that was kind of the whole point-- but it's interesting to read your take!