Golem: Modern Wars and Their Monsters

Barzilai, assistant professor of Hebrew culture and Jewish literature at the University of Michigan, examines representations of the golem legend in 20th- and early-21st-century literature and film. She starts with the three cinematic presentations of the golem story by the German director Paul Wegener, which he directed during and after WWI. Here, the golem was “molded and remolded in response to devastating battles and their traumatic aftermath” and, in its massiveness and power, operated as a “counterweight to the... trivialization of human life on the battlefield.” Barzilai then analyzes the legend as presented by two modern Israeli authors, Yoram Kaniuk and Nobel laureate S.Y. Agnon. There is also a chapter a number of postwar American works in which the golem represented revenge for the Holocaust. Similarly, Barzilai shows that in works such as James Sturm’s 2001 graphic novel, The Golem’s Mighty Swing, the golem represents a “hypermasculine fantasy” of Jewish might. In her final chapter, Barzilai looks at cyber-golems in the novels of writers such as Stanislaw Lem and Marge Piercy. She wisely decides to focus on a limited number of works and on golem representations in response to war and other mass violence. Barzilai’s extensive research and clear, interesting style make this a fine work. Illus. (Oct.)