AUTHOR: Helene Wecker
This took me a lot longer to read than I would've liked, partly due to the smallish text (maybe I should've read it on my Kindle), but toward the end, partly because I didn't want to say goodbye to these characters. I read a sequel is coming in the fall, but this book has a perfect ending and while I welcome the chance to read more about Chava the Golem and Ahmad the Jinni, I would have been happy enough with just this.
Chava is a Hebrew creature made of clay to be the wife of a man who dies en route from Prussia to New York City in 1899. An elderly rabbi realizes her true nature and takes her under his wing, trying to teach her how to fit in. Ahmad (his real name is unpronounceable) is a jinni released from a flask by a Syrian metalsmith after years of captivity. Still trapped by the iron cuff on his wrist, put there by the wizard who had imprisoned him, the newly-named Ahmad is stuck in human form.
Wecker makes full use of their opposing natures as the two non-human creatures happen upon each other one night and form an odd friendship. Chava has been left masterless yet privy to the thoughts of all humans she comes in contact with. Needing neither sleep nor food or drink, possessing no beating heart, she is under constant stress of being found out. A being of superior strength, she poses a danger to society and she can be destroyed by the reading of a particular spell. Freed from a master's control though by nature she was made for such control, Chava struggles to find her place in the city she finds herself in.
On the other hand, Ahmad is a creature born to soar and the constraints of human form and the need to also fit into society, are as chafing to his nature as the cuff on his wrist.
Dangers come from all directions, including the arrival of the elderly mystic who created Chava who is seeking eternal life, the bewitched man who senses Ahmad's true nature, and instances where both Chava and Ahmad inadvertently reveal their special abilities. Wecker does a wonderful job weaving together the disparate characters and events, including flashbacks, to give us a fully realized, fantastical New York City at the end of the 1800s. Along the way, she gives us a treatise on what it means to be human, as well as an unexpected love story.
No comments:
Post a Comment