Document Type
Book Chapter
Publication Date
2012
Publication Title
Myth and Subversion in the Contemporary Novel
Pages
327-339
Abstract
The late twentieth and early twenty first centuries have seen a resurgence of the golem in several major American novels. What factors might lead to such a re-imagining of the golem in American fiction? Cynthia Ozick's The Puttermesser Papers (1997) and Thane Rosenbaum's The Golems of Gotham (2002) re-invent golems no longer anchored in vengeance but in healing, as vehicles for the kabbalistic notion of Tikkun Olam ("repairing the world"). Ozick creates the first female golem to help the lonely protagonist become a reformist mayor; in The Golems of Gotham, the golem is transformed into a team of literary golems who storm Manhattan not only to heal the grief-stricken protagonist but to cure a city from injustices. In these two novels, the golem is updated as a crusader who addresses both the ills of citizens and a collective fin de siècle melancholy.
Original Publication Citation
Schulman, P. (2012). The golems take New York: The resurgence of the golem in the work of Cynthia Ozick and Thane Rosenbaum. In J. M. Losada Goya & M. Guirao Ochoa (Eds.), Myth and Subversion in the Contemporary Novel (pp. 327-339). Cambridge Scholars.
Repository Citation
Schulman, Peter, "The Golems Take New York: The Resurgence of the Golem in the Work of Cynthia Ozick and Thane Rosenbaum" (2012). World Languages and Cultures Faculty Publications. 39.
https://digitalcommons.odu.edu/worldlanguages_pubs/39
Included in
American Literature Commons, Fiction Commons, Jewish Studies Commons
Comments
© 2012 Jose Manuel Losada Goya, Marta Guirao Ochoa, and Peter Schulman.
Included with the kind written permission of the copyright holders.