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2 von 2 Kunden fanden die folgende Rezension hilfreich:
4.0 von 5 Sternen
A grim vision of the future, but a real page-turner, 9. Juni 2002
Von Ein Kunde
A book review by Nadin Bödecker from Burgdorf, GermanyIn the middle of the 21st century, our battered environment has taken revenge on humanity: fierce UV radiation and a rising sea level have made human life very difficult. Wars have assumed dramatic dimensions. The gap between rich and poor in society has grown. People who do not have the privilege to work for one of the big corporations which have taken power are forced to live in the "Glop" where individuals have to fight for their lifes.
Shira Shipman works for one of these powerful corporations, but as they take her son away from her, she begins to fight for her rights as mother and woman. She returns to Tikva, a free town where she was brought up by her grandmother. Here she begins to work on the programming of a cyborg named Yod. Due to technological progress the dream of humanity to create "It" has become true. Artificial life which resembles to human beings. Shira teaches Yod human feelings and behaviour. He becomes more and more human like and soon a love relationship is developing. Y-S which is also interested in the cyborg threatens to destroy Tikva, if they do not hand over Yod. Shira decides to protect Tikva and to get back her son with the help of Yod. Parallely to this story set in the future, a second strand takes us back to Prague in the year 1600. At that time Jews had to live in Ghettos and were not save from persecution by the Christians. In this beleaguered environment the idea to create a being which could defend the oppressed was born.
This mystical tale about the creation of a "Golem" shows that the desire to create humanoid life has existed for centuries, but was technically not possible. Now it will not be a long time before we have the possibility. Marge Piercy's novel shows us what could happen if this creation gets into the hands of power-hungry people who use it as a weapon and that people will not be able to control a machine which should be a copy of a human without faults.
When I heard that I had to read a science-fiction book in my English class I was not very keen on it to start with, because I normally do not like sci-fi books. However after a few pages I was not able to put it aside. Besides a touching love story Piercy also describes a future vision which reflects our society very critically. On the one hand the reader can find out a lot about Jewish history and what it feels like to be oppressed. I was scared to read about the final destruction: such a vision seems to be unbearably up-to-date.On the other hand it shows us a prophecy of a society, where corporations have grown and form totalitarian regimes. Even in our time big corporations have much influence on political decisions and they decide on which research they wish to spend their money. Alas their decisions are not always in favour of humanity. What will happen, if they soon have the possibility to create artifical life? Fact is that humans will never be able to create artificial life which is perfect, because there have never been perfect humans.
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1 von 1 Kunden fanden die folgende Rezension hilfreich:
5.0 von 5 Sternen
highly recommended, 24. März 1998
Von Ein Kunde
Had this book not been a gift, I would never have thought to pick it up. Science fiction, Jewish mysticism; these are not subjects which immediately draw most people in. I'm eternally grateful I did give this book a chance, however, for it is definately one of the best books I have ever read. Weaving together two parallel stories, (the legend of a "Golem" created to protect the Jews in Prague's Jewish Ghetto in the 1600s, and the contemporary story of the cyborg Yod), Piercy has created a view of the future a la Margaret Atwood. Yet Piercy's view of the future, while almost as threatening as Atwood's in The Handmaid's Tale, contains the ever present spectre of redemption. While the characters in He, She, and It may live in a forebidding time when corporations rule the world, they maintain a level of autonomy over their own lives, and the knowledge and power to someday create a world more suited to freedom than that in which they currently reside. Piercy's book is fascinating on a number of levels. It is simultaneously the story of a mother's love for her child and the lengths she will go to when that relationship is threatened, a strong community and the familial, religious, and communal ties that bind a group of people together, a cautionary tale of corporate domination, a fascinating hypothesis of both the possibilities and dangers of modern technology, and above all, a romance. The elements of Jewish history and mysticism add to the excitement and passion of the book, enabling the parallel Piercy draws between the past and the future to flow naturally, and add to rather than detract from the book's clarity. Nor are the characters sacrificed for a well-developed plot. Piercy spends just as much time creating the characters who enable her story as she does on the story itself. I would recommend this book to a wide audience. It is as enjoyable as any beach read, but without sacrificing readability, will leave the reader with a lot to think about. You will have no trouble understanding the book after one read, but it is the kind of book you can read many times and learn something new each time.
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1 von 1 Kunden fanden die folgende Rezension hilfreich:
4.0 von 5 Sternen
A Golem Android In Dystopia, 31. Januar 1997
Von Ein Kunde
This is an odd but intriguing book. It's odd because it's clearly SF but just as clearly not written by an SF writer. Piercy is a mainstream feminist with a strong grasp of characterization and (unlike, say, recent Tepper) the ability to communicate her politics without polemics and man-hating.
Anyhow, the novel is set mainly in a somewhat dystopic semi-near future, with a portion of the book alternating between the main story in the future and a retelling of the classical golem legend. In fact, the main story is quite clearly an adaption of the golem tale, not only in the notion of creating intelligent life, but in that creation being the defender of a shtetl-like town weathering a pogrom. The ending could be stronger, but the book holds up.
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