Pseudopod 051: Brothers

[Bdoomed]

Pseudopod 051: Brothers


By J. C. Hay
Read by Richard Dansky

And now he was back again, wandering through what was left of the basement of the synagogue where he had huddled with his family and neighbors. Outside in the streets was a Germany gone mad, and this had been a safe place to hide. His father had announced that he knew how to protect them, if everyone stayed here. And he was right; if not for his actions, they would all have died that night, instead of just him. It was time, Jakob supposed, to settle the old ghosts haunting his memory.

He had been a boy of twelve at the time, but he would never forget. It was as indelible in his mind as the numbers tattooed on his forearm. Jakob pushed further into the dark and felt something crunch beneath his foot. The darkness gleefully filled the space in front of him as he pointed the beam of his flashlight down to find metal and broken glass reflecting back up at him whitely.

He picked the glasses up, holding them in the light for a moment. They were covered with dust, one lens cracked, the other fallen out completely. The gold wire holding the round glass in place had twisted and bent, long before his clumsy foot had found them. Jakob was surprised they had survived in the basement this long. He expected they would have been stolen by now. It had been fifty years after all.


Listen to this week's Pseudopod.

[Jim]

The horrors perpetrated by Hitler's SS upon the Jews in Europe eclipse any supernatural horror we can create.

[Listener]

Ah, golems.  The Jewish contribution to the SF/F/H archetypes.

I thought this was a really good story.  I've heard several golem stories before, including the Jewish-themed "He, She, It" by Marge Piercy, which had a similar tale to Hay's woven into the futuristic part of the novel.

Being Jewish, I tend to shy away from Holocaust stories and shows because I've spent so much time learning about it.  However, had I done more than just said "oh, new PP, let me download and listen", I might have missed such a great piece of fiction.

If I have only one complaint, it's that I don't really consider it a horror story except inasmuch as Jim said:

The horrors perpetrated by Hitler's SS upon the Jews in Europe eclipse any supernatural horror we can create.

I think that, as written, Hay's use of light would have worked a lot better than it worked in an audio format, but I can forgive that.

Also, I thought the reading was great -- Dansky communicated the emotion very well in the way he read the story.

Of the five PPs I've heard (I started listening at #47), this is probably the best IMO.  I really liked that there was no Lovecraft or Zombie this week -- in moderation, those stories are okay, but I prefer more esoteric horror or the horror that people can do to other people.

[Roney]

The horrors perpetrated by Hitler's SS upon the Jews in Europe eclipse any supernatural horror we can create.

I liked the fact that the golem itself disagreed with this statement.  For me the horror in this story is Jakob's realization that his loving father was nearly responsible for something worse, and that he himself could be too.  His victory at the end was touching, after relatively few words in the build-up: I loved the economy with which the story was told.

This is another Pseudopod story that's got under my skin.  After 51 episodes I think I'm going to start listening to it more seriously.

[Russell Nash]

I try to come to every story with an open mind.  I clear away any preconceived ideas and once I decide to read/listen/watch a story I ignore everything about it until I've finished it.  This worked for me with this episode. 

If I had brought all of the weight that normally comes with a holocaust story,  I wouldn't have been able to submerge myself into the atmosphere of the reading.  With just the mention of Krystalnacht to set the stage it didn't weigh down the story.

I didn't know what was going to happen and the ended just rolled over me.  It didn't scare the crap out of me, but it did creep me out.

All in all good story.

[Chodon]

I liked the story, but the memory of a "chocolate golem" (the most delicious D&D battle ever) and a "plush golem" (being attacked by it was like being in a pillow fight) from my D&D days kept creeping into my mind.  Kinda ruined the scariness of the clay golem.  If it weren't for my dorky past I totally would have loved it.  Golems just don't creep me out anymore.

[robertmarkbram]

I love golems! Recently I read "Going Postal" by Terry Pratchett that features the golem Anghammarad who was a messenger that found himself sitting at the bottom of the sea. A falling anchor almost hit him once. It was the most interesting to happen in 9,000 years.

This story was filled with a deep sense of sorrow, and to my mind unfulfilled potential - the potential of a saviour turned destroyer. I was mentally screaming "No! He did NOT mean that!" In a time of such unimaginable suffering, the one thing that could have saved them all turned out to be one more fatal trap. The irony of "be careful what you wish for, you just might get it" is what drove this story.

I can only imagine that in making the golem, the protagonist's father unintentionally imbued the golem with too much of his own wisdom. At some level, the Rabi understood the terrible potential of the golem. Maybe he was fuelled with enough hate and fear that he really intended for the golem to be an unstoppable machine that would destroy every single Nazi, down to the last. Maybe while his hands were fashioning the clay an unbidden thought flashed for the briefest of moments and was transmitted before it could be quelled: such a weapon I am making, it would make me a god - and what a terror that would be.

[Planish]

I had trouble keeping track of which character was speaking, but that was just in the reading.

I also couldn't tell if Jakob survived in the end.

Still, the idea of Jakob and the golem being brothers of a sort was interesting.

[Unblinking]

Golems have always been one of my favorite supernatural creatures (right behind dragons).  And it's an interesting revelation that the golem's command would lead it to believe that the ability to create golems was more dangerous than the Nazis.

But the best part had to be the image of a golem running around and smushing Nazis.  It should've joined the Inglourious Basterds!

[Millenium_King]

I thought this one was okay.  I felt like it was a lot of backstory and very little plot.  There was virtually no tension.  Not much else to say, really.  Good reading