Gustav Meyrink

http://www.laurahird.com/newreview/thegolem.html

THE GOLEM

Gustav Meyrink
(Tartarus Press 2004)

Reviewed by Mario Guslandi

Golem is a word employed in the jewish tradition to indicate an artificial creature, imbued with life through Cabbalistic magic or God’s intervention. In Hebrew it means “shapeless mass”and, according to the Talmud, Adam was considered a “golem” ( a body without soul) for the first twelve hours of his existence. The most famous legend of the golem is linked to rabbi Judah Loew who is said to have created a golem out of clay to protect the Jews community of the Prague ghetto during the sixteenth century. The Golem legend has inspired countless artists, writers such as Gustav Meyrink, Isaaac Bashevis Singer , Avram Davidson and film directors as Paul Wegener. In 1915 Gustav Meyrink, a friend of Kafka, published a successful novel by the same title, loosely inspired to the story of rabbi Loew’s creature. Contrary to a diffuse belief, the famous Wegener’s movie released in 1920 was not a rendition of Meyrink’s book, but was directly connected with the legend of the clay creature moulded by the rabbi..................

© Mario Guslandi 2004

---

Mario Guslandi was born and raised in Milan, Italy, where he’s currently living. He became addicted to horror and supernatural fiction more than twenty years ago, after accidentally reading a reprint anthology of stories by MR James, JS Le Fanu, HP Lovecraft and A Machen. Since then his collection of horror books has expanded to the point of requiring continuous addictions of new shelves to his library, in order to avoid the collapse of the whole structure. Most likely the only Italian who regularly reads (and reviews) dark fiction in English, he’s always tempted to hide his true identity under feigned English or american pen-names, just for the fun of it, but then he keeps forgetting to do that.