Le Golem : Généalogie et postérité d’une figure paradigmatique du post-humanisme

Abstract

Between the automata of the classical era and Mary Shelley’s creature Frankenstein, the Golem occupies a singular place in novels that refer, according to the French linguist and archaeologist Clarisse Herrenschmidt, to the mythologies that represent writing as the “double of mankind” peculiar to anticipation literature, which can also be seen as a type of “detection literature,” in that—like in thrillers or mystery novels—in science fiction anticipation works, clues must be used to solve the mystery surrounding the way in which the fictional world functions. This article explores the updating of these mythologies in relation to the Golem legend, which dates back to the eighteenth century. In this revised version of the Golem legend, the Golem’s reminiscences help to build a bridge between meaning and the senses. The novel by Pierre Assouline, Golem, published at the beginning of 2016, describes the example of such a figure with the great master of chess called Gustave Meyer, a man neurologically improved in spite of himself, for whom it will take no less than the crossing of cities such as Warsaw, Vienna, Lodz, Bucharest, and of course Prague to prove by remembering that he is not the murderer of his wife, before he finishes by dissociating himself from the benefits of his scientific enhancement.