The Golem
by Gustav Meyrink · first published 2000
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100% recommend
A masterpiece of surreal fantasy. The protagonist, called Athanasius Pernath is flung from the present, to the past, from one nightmare situation where the characters he meets have no link with anyon else. Underlying all the surface panic is a decades-old tragedy, followed by a present-day one. Kafka and Meyrink were contemporaries in the same city, and both possessed the gift of fantasy. It is not correct to say that Meyrink imitates Kafka. If anything, he outdoes Kafka in his bizarre surrealism
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The early 1900s mystical fiction is a rabbit hole for sure. Voyage to Arcturus is a very good recommendation! Others in this vein include, but are not limited to: Armed with Madness by Mary Butts The Golem by Gustav Meyrink Flower Phantoms by Ronald Fraser The Stone Dragon by R. Murray Gilchrist and so many more.
on “The Best Things and Stuff of 2022” ↗> The Golem by Gustav Meyrink I read this more than 20 years ago, and it still comes to my mind frequently. It’s haunting. Keep trying to read it again.
on “The Best Things and Stuff of 2022” ↗