bookshelves: czech, mythology, noir, philosophy, classic, boo-scary, fantasy, translation, tbr-busting-2014, paper-read, halloween-2014, autumn-2014, lit-richer, prague, jewish, gothic, published-1915

Description: "A superbly atmospheric story set in the old Prague ghetto featuring The Golem, a kind of rabbinical Frankenstein's monster, which manifests itself every 33 years in a room without a door. Stranger still, it seems to have the same face as the narrator. Made into a film in 1920, this extraordinary book combines uncanny psychology of doppelganger stories with expressionism and more than a little melodrama... Meyrink's old Prague - like Dicken's London - is one of the great creations of City writing, an eerie, claustrophobic and fantastical underworld where anything can happen." -- Phil Baker in The Sunday Times

The moonlight is shining on the foot of my bed, lying there like a large, bright, flat stone.

This story is a hotchpotch of no-noes pleached into a tantalising horror tale strong enough to put the willies up (figuratively speaking, natch) the Germans with their fear of doppelgangers, Jews everywhere, and the incredibly superstitious Prague-ites. Fantastic. This is low down and dirty, and it starts off when Rabbi Loew see in the stars that something horrible will befall mankind.

Yes, folks ::SOMETHING HORRIBLE::

I plan to read Singer's version of the story to compare, and if you are not up for this book, the fruit of a failed suicide and rabid occultist, then maybe the silent film will suit better:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZO_Kd...

Seriously good Hallowe'en fayre.



4* Walpurgisnacht
4* The Golem
2* The White Dominican