1913-14 The Golem appears in serial form in Die Weissen Blatter.
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The Golem by Gustav Meyrink
Suffering the initial onslaught from a nasty head cold I sat in front of the computer screen. It was nearly midnight and the rain was battering the skylight just above my head. The old timbers of my attic were creaking and groaning, the mice were scrabbling around on the roof trying to get in and I had wrapped myself up in an old blanket as the central heating had gone off hours ago. I had earlier downloaded Gustav Meyrink's The Golem and the image above shivered onto the screen. I was immediately plunged into Meyrink's story of old Prague and of Athanasius Pernath the gem cutter who dreams the dreams of a man looking for his soul:
At times I emerge with a start from the half-light of this reverie and see again for a moment the moonlight lying on the humped cover at the bottom of the bed like a large, bright, flat stone, only to grope my way blindly once more after my departing consciousness, restlessly searching for the stone which is tormenting me, the one which must lie hidden somewhere in the debris of my memory and which looks like a lump of fat.
I read on through the first couple of chapters empathising with the dream like/nightmare like quality of the words, my own head seemed to expand with the effort of concentration and I slipped in and out of consciousness as the words scrolled down the screen.
It was morning and I could make little sense of the few notes I had written last night or of the chunks of the book that I had copied, but it had been an experience to read the text in a slightly heightened feverish state.
I was suddenly visited by the notion that at some time I must have heard or read of a strange comparison between a stone and a lump of fat.
Yes I had read that last night and now Meyrink was telling me through Athanasius Pernath's own semi conscious state in the light of a new day in Prague that the stone and a lump of fat was significant. I decided not to re-read the first chapter because I was convinced I would find no answers there and so carried on with Pernath's own adventures in the Jewish quarter of Prague. Pernath gets involved in the plotting of the consumptive student; Charousek, who is carrying out a vendetta against his neighbour Wassertrum, who he believes is bent on instigating the suicide of the young doctor in revenge for his own sons death. There are stories within stories, the golem makes his appearance after a nightmarish journey through the underground passages of old Prague, Pernath has to make difficult life changing decisions as the the old town and it's inhabitants morph around him. Is he awake, is he dreaming even the passage of time seems to take on a twisted circular aspect. Meyrink uses the stories to give other characters points of view, but it is Pernaths own consciousness that concerns him most.
The voice, which is circling round in the darkness, searching for me to torment me with the stone or the lump of fat, has passed me by without seeing me. I know that it comes from the realm of sleep. But everything that I have just experienced was real life, and I sense that is why it could not see me, why its search for me was vain.
We follow Pernath's tormented path as he struggles to make sense of what is happening around him. Those torments include a spell in prison where he meets the strange Laponder a medium for psychic forces that Pernath believes holds vital clues for his past and his future. The story now seems to be rushing towards its conclusion and ends in a way that makes perfect sense to anyone who has been reading through a dazed fog of feverishness.
If there is one thing that I take away from this delicious tale of fantasy and horror is that if you accidentally pick up the wrong hat when leaving a party: whatever you do, don't put it on your head. Four stars.
Suffering the initial onslaught from a nasty head cold I sat in front of the computer screen. It was nearly midnight and the rain was battering the skylight just above my head. The old timbers of my attic were creaking and groaning, the mice were scrabbling around on the roof trying to get in and I had wrapped myself up in an old blanket as the central heating had gone off hours ago. I had earlier downloaded Gustav Meyrink's The Golem and the image above shivered onto the screen. I was immediately plunged into Meyrink's story of old Prague and of Athanasius Pernath the gem cutter who dreams the dreams of a man looking for his soul:
At times I emerge with a start from the half-light of this reverie and see again for a moment the moonlight lying on the humped cover at the bottom of the bed like a large, bright, flat stone, only to grope my way blindly once more after my departing consciousness, restlessly searching for the stone which is tormenting me, the one which must lie hidden somewhere in the debris of my memory and which looks like a lump of fat.
I read on through the first couple of chapters empathising with the dream like/nightmare like quality of the words, my own head seemed to expand with the effort of concentration and I slipped in and out of consciousness as the words scrolled down the screen.
It was morning and I could make little sense of the few notes I had written last night or of the chunks of the book that I had copied, but it had been an experience to read the text in a slightly heightened feverish state.
I was suddenly visited by the notion that at some time I must have heard or read of a strange comparison between a stone and a lump of fat.
Yes I had read that last night and now Meyrink was telling me through Athanasius Pernath's own semi conscious state in the light of a new day in Prague that the stone and a lump of fat was significant. I decided not to re-read the first chapter because I was convinced I would find no answers there and so carried on with Pernath's own adventures in the Jewish quarter of Prague. Pernath gets involved in the plotting of the consumptive student; Charousek, who is carrying out a vendetta against his neighbour Wassertrum, who he believes is bent on instigating the suicide of the young doctor in revenge for his own sons death. There are stories within stories, the golem makes his appearance after a nightmarish journey through the underground passages of old Prague, Pernath has to make difficult life changing decisions as the the old town and it's inhabitants morph around him. Is he awake, is he dreaming even the passage of time seems to take on a twisted circular aspect. Meyrink uses the stories to give other characters points of view, but it is Pernaths own consciousness that concerns him most.
The voice, which is circling round in the darkness, searching for me to torment me with the stone or the lump of fat, has passed me by without seeing me. I know that it comes from the realm of sleep. But everything that I have just experienced was real life, and I sense that is why it could not see me, why its search for me was vain.
We follow Pernath's tormented path as he struggles to make sense of what is happening around him. Those torments include a spell in prison where he meets the strange Laponder a medium for psychic forces that Pernath believes holds vital clues for his past and his future. The story now seems to be rushing towards its conclusion and ends in a way that makes perfect sense to anyone who has been reading through a dazed fog of feverishness.
If there is one thing that I take away from this delicious tale of fantasy and horror is that if you accidentally pick up the wrong hat when leaving a party: whatever you do, don't put it on your head. Four stars.
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