He, She and It

This novel is fully science-fiction in genre (for Marge Piercy is not afraid to dabble in whatever style interests her, from historical fiction, to memoir, to sci-fi, to poetry.) And "He, She and It" has many elements found in "The Matrix" (but "He, She and It" came out way before "Matrix) You wonder if the makers of that hit film series owe Ms. Piercy an enormous monetary debt of gratitude. The story centers around Shira, a bright young woman who makes a bad mistake; she marries the wrong man. Pigeonholed by the large "multi" (corporation) who bid for her services when she graduated, she's living on borrowed time in the safe but stifling domed city built by her multi to house the workers and managers against the perils of the polluted open lands and even more perillous decayed and overpopulated metropolis ("Glop" for short.) Shira doesn't realize how short her time really is, and how soon she will be moving on, leaving behind her job, and much much, more of value to her. She moves home to one of the free cities on the seashore, deemed unsafe by virtue of severe weather (a gift of global warming.) She moves in with her grandmother and takes a job with Avram, a cybernetics expert. Avram has created a golem, a robot, a protector of the Jewish free city. Shira is hired to teach the robot, and develops a strange relationship with the creature, who, like Frankenstein's monster, is filled with both love and hate. Meanwhile, she must deal with her own past and past loves, and learn why she made bad decisions. Shira threads a path filled with dangers, but comes out stronger and wiser. Not without a high price, however.Piercy mixes the legend of the Golem from the Ghetto of Prague (a clay creature created by a rabbi to protect the people from a pogrom) and a fast-paced parallel story full of adventure. This story-by-story structure will be familiar to readers of other novels by Piercy such as "Woman on the Edge of Time" where a woman in an insane asylum shifts between her present reality and the future of the year 2037.This is an extraordinary novel. If you liked "The Matrix" and "The Handmaid's Tale" you will love "He, She and It." I don't think it's quite as good as Piercy's superb "Woman on the Edge of Time" but this is a worthy novel that had me reading it cover to cover without stopping. Highly recommended.

Piercy's consolidated reputation as a major American writer rests not only on her lucid verbal skills. Her uncanny ability to extrapolate significant future trends from contemporary social and cultural phenomena is a prominent facet of her work, although perhaps not since "Woman on the Edge of Tme" has she honed her cutting edges so wickedly sharp. In this complex, potentially controversial novel she draws on multinational corporations, bionics and organ piracy, post-militant feminism, drastic pollution of the environment, the proliferation of the Internet, hackers, the development of synthetic foods, artificial intelligence, and virtual reality entertainment to imagine the Earth of 2050 and, contriving an ominously plausible background for a searching story, poses numerous unsettling questions, of which the most provocative is: what constitutes a human being? For a brilliant male scientist has unlawfully built a cyborg in human form, and an equally brilliant female scientist has so sapiently programmed its personality that her granddaughter Shira falls inevitably in love with Yod, the tenth experimental model in the series, who is just what she feels a man should be. Yod's experiences are deftly reflected in a cautionary retelling of the kabbalistic legend of a Golem crudely created in Prague in 1600 to protect the Jewish ghetto, just as Yod has been made as a defense weapon for the data-base of a beleaguered free community in Piercy's disquieting next-generation world where technology marks the watershed between haves and have-nots."He, She, and It" will intrigue mature readers with speculative minds who also enjoy dextrous plotting, an unusual setting, and a dynamic story rife with action, original characters, and profound moral conflict.

I read Chapter 3 and was hooked("Malkah Tells Yod a Bedtime Story" - pure poetry)! I felt right at home. Rarely have I read a science fiction novel which explores inner life so well. Nor one which so successfully analyzes its moral issues from the intelligent woman's point of view. One is reminded of Golda Meir, holding informal cabinet meetings in her kitchen while making chicken soup. The book examines the high-tech net as a tool for a simple low-tech ethnic collective which can exist on its own apart from impersonal futurist worlds nearby seeking to invade. The characters debate the destiny of their advanced, powerful protective robot. One of the robot's creators is a (high-tech) grandmother who tells the robot the Yiddish fable of a Golem who was created to protect the Jews of Prague from pogroms in 1600. We keep returning to the fable - it creates just the intuitive symbolism we need to explore the novel's ethical concepts without losing track of the action. The book unfolds as a mystery, a love story, a question - I found myself reading to answer the unexplained, enjoying the beautifully crafted journey, and staying up all night to do so.

This is #1 on my all-time SF list--a stunning, beautifully written book with new ideas and insights on every page. Piercy examines in minute detail the question of what a "perfect" artificial man might really be like, working mostly from the viewpoint of his lover (an expert in artificial intelligence who has worked for one of the multinational corporations that dominate future Earth). A deeply thoughtful book with excellent characterization and an all-too-believable, if somewhat depressing, picture of future society. While I am primarily an SF fan, I was so impressed with this that I have delved into a number of Piercy's other books, many of which are not SF. "Gone for Soldiers" is also highly satisfying and readable (and of course, her other SF novel, "Woman on the Edge of Time"). It's wonderful--especially for someone like me who has followed SF since the 1950s--to have a writer of Piercy's talent using SF as a medium.

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.