![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
What I Finished Reading This Week
The Curses – Laure Eve
It’s hard to pen a sequel that’s as good as the preceding book, in no small part because by their very nature, sequels lack the excitement and surprise of discovering the characters and their world. The Curses is the rare sequel that stands up to the excellence of its predecessor.
Much of this has to do with Eve’s unusual but intelligent decision to tell it from the POV of Summer Grace, whose mysterious reputation and the quest for whose friendship drives much of the protagonist's choices in The Graces. It’s great fun to inhabit Summer’s perspective in The Curses precisely because it allows us to see the warts and insecurities hiding under her mystique, and casts events from the first novel in a new light. Instead of resulting in a The Vampire Lestat-style retcon, the POV shift lends additional dimension to what we already know has happened.
There’s less focus here on adolescent social dynamics, but it makes sense, because the stakes are different, and higher, in The Curses. I continue to be slightly put out by Summer's "I love you but I'm not in love with you” declaration, because even more than Uprooted's Agnieszka and Kaisa, these two were made for each other. I also have mixed feelings about River's decision to revert to her birth name. But that said, Eve deftly balances drama, gothic horror, action, and irreverent adolescent dynamics as the book draws to a climax and denouement that punches way above its weight. This is a super satisfying conclusion to a really well-written series, and it's a crime these books aren't better known.
Spellbreaker – Charlie Holmberg
I liked Spellbreaker more than any of Holmberg’s series or standalones since Followed By Frost. The main characters are fun, the magical system is awesome, and the mystery had a couple twists I didn’t anticipate. I do wish Holmberg had set it in the US instead of Victorian Britain, because after the first chapter or so she forgoes any attempt at making it sound British: characters talk about the “ultrarich” and “stressing out” over this or that problem, and so on. Bottom line: this could have been an even better book with a bit more fine-tuning, but it’s still a fun, light read as written.
Women Of The Golden Dawn – Mary Greer
This biography of four well-known 19th century women—Moina Bergson Mathers, Annie Horniman, Florence Farr, and Maud Gonne—focuses on a lesser-known aspect of their lives: namely, their involvement in the Golden Dawn, an organization that played a major role in shaping what most modern-day pagan, new age, and occult movements look like.
The opening and closing chapters, in which Greer tries to assign a Victorian and modern “feminine archetype” to each of the four women, are easily the weakest in the book and a bit of a slog to get through. But once one does, the rest is fascinating, largely because Greer does such an excellent job of integrating her subjects' involvement with the Golden Dawn into their more well-examined accomplishments. As artists, patrons of the arts, political revolutionaries, and advocates of social change, these women did some fascinating things and it's interesting to see how their involvement in Victorian mysticism helped shape their professional lives and causes, instead of it being dismissed as a curiosity or distraction from the "important" stuff.
It’s also fascinating because it frames seemingly familiar stories in new ways. Obviously, these women were far more pivotal to the founding, growth, and demise of the Golden Dawn than the typical Samuel MacGregor Mathers- or Aleister Crowley-centric narrative suggests. (It's interesting, but perhaps not surprising, to learn that #MeToo abuses played a major role in the group's dissolution, although it would be over a century before the vocabulary existed to define those abuses as such.) We see Moina Mathers and Annie Horniman driving much of the development of modern ceremonial magic alongside modern theater, Florence Farr learning to take proto-PUA neg master!G. Bernard Shaw's criticism for what it's worth, and Maud Gonne combining mysticism and political activism in a life that the GC aptly described as "straight up Game of Thrones stuff,” and that tends to be told from the perspective of John MacBride or W.B. Yeats.
Greer relies heavily on primary sources, making this a meatier biography than I'd expected. When she doesn’t have them, she resorts to astrological charts, a device that will probably work better for some than others, but ultimately isn’t that different from many pop historians’ tendency to speculate about what individuals “must have” said or thought when making choices no primary source exists to explain. I took it for what it was worth and moved on.
TL;DR: This book is an overall well-written and fascinating look at its subjects and the personal agency they exercised in their spiritual and professional lives.
What I Am Currently Reading
Tarot – Jessica Hudley
This is a tome, but I’ve already paged through it once and read the first two chapters.
The Silver Bough vol. 2 – F. Marian McNeill
This week I read the chapter on April Fool’s Day. At a handful of pages with no footnotes, one gets the feeling that MacNeill was running out of steam in this volume.
Milk, Sulfate, and Abby Starvation – Martin Millar
In this week’s chapter, the protagonist has just discovered a severe lactose intolerance. Having just discovered a likely allergic reaction to my favorite flavor of sparkling water, I sympathize.
Anam Cara – John O’Donohue
Per the back cover copy, in Anam Cara John O’Donohue “draws from the holy waters of Ireland’s spiritual heritage to lead you to a place where your heart can be healed and nourished.” Here are two examples of that Irish spiritual heritage:
The House On Vesper Sands – Paraic O’Donnell
Not ashamed to admit that I’m eking this reread out to make it last.
What I'm Reading Next
This week I picked up Tarot and Astrology from Taschen’s Library of Esoterica.
これで以上です。
The Curses – Laure Eve
It’s hard to pen a sequel that’s as good as the preceding book, in no small part because by their very nature, sequels lack the excitement and surprise of discovering the characters and their world. The Curses is the rare sequel that stands up to the excellence of its predecessor.
Much of this has to do with Eve’s unusual but intelligent decision to tell it from the POV of Summer Grace, whose mysterious reputation and the quest for whose friendship drives much of the protagonist's choices in The Graces. It’s great fun to inhabit Summer’s perspective in The Curses precisely because it allows us to see the warts and insecurities hiding under her mystique, and casts events from the first novel in a new light. Instead of resulting in a The Vampire Lestat-style retcon, the POV shift lends additional dimension to what we already know has happened.
There’s less focus here on adolescent social dynamics, but it makes sense, because the stakes are different, and higher, in The Curses. I continue to be slightly put out by Summer's "I love you but I'm not in love with you” declaration, because even more than Uprooted's Agnieszka and Kaisa, these two were made for each other. I also have mixed feelings about River's decision to revert to her birth name. But that said, Eve deftly balances drama, gothic horror, action, and irreverent adolescent dynamics as the book draws to a climax and denouement that punches way above its weight. This is a super satisfying conclusion to a really well-written series, and it's a crime these books aren't better known.
Spellbreaker – Charlie Holmberg
I liked Spellbreaker more than any of Holmberg’s series or standalones since Followed By Frost. The main characters are fun, the magical system is awesome, and the mystery had a couple twists I didn’t anticipate. I do wish Holmberg had set it in the US instead of Victorian Britain, because after the first chapter or so she forgoes any attempt at making it sound British: characters talk about the “ultrarich” and “stressing out” over this or that problem, and so on. Bottom line: this could have been an even better book with a bit more fine-tuning, but it’s still a fun, light read as written.
Women Of The Golden Dawn – Mary Greer
This biography of four well-known 19th century women—Moina Bergson Mathers, Annie Horniman, Florence Farr, and Maud Gonne—focuses on a lesser-known aspect of their lives: namely, their involvement in the Golden Dawn, an organization that played a major role in shaping what most modern-day pagan, new age, and occult movements look like.
The opening and closing chapters, in which Greer tries to assign a Victorian and modern “feminine archetype” to each of the four women, are easily the weakest in the book and a bit of a slog to get through. But once one does, the rest is fascinating, largely because Greer does such an excellent job of integrating her subjects' involvement with the Golden Dawn into their more well-examined accomplishments. As artists, patrons of the arts, political revolutionaries, and advocates of social change, these women did some fascinating things and it's interesting to see how their involvement in Victorian mysticism helped shape their professional lives and causes, instead of it being dismissed as a curiosity or distraction from the "important" stuff.
It’s also fascinating because it frames seemingly familiar stories in new ways. Obviously, these women were far more pivotal to the founding, growth, and demise of the Golden Dawn than the typical Samuel MacGregor Mathers- or Aleister Crowley-centric narrative suggests. (It's interesting, but perhaps not surprising, to learn that #MeToo abuses played a major role in the group's dissolution, although it would be over a century before the vocabulary existed to define those abuses as such.) We see Moina Mathers and Annie Horniman driving much of the development of modern ceremonial magic alongside modern theater, Florence Farr learning to take proto-PUA neg master!G. Bernard Shaw's criticism for what it's worth, and Maud Gonne combining mysticism and political activism in a life that the GC aptly described as "straight up Game of Thrones stuff,” and that tends to be told from the perspective of John MacBride or W.B. Yeats.
Greer relies heavily on primary sources, making this a meatier biography than I'd expected. When she doesn’t have them, she resorts to astrological charts, a device that will probably work better for some than others, but ultimately isn’t that different from many pop historians’ tendency to speculate about what individuals “must have” said or thought when making choices no primary source exists to explain. I took it for what it was worth and moved on.
TL;DR: This book is an overall well-written and fascinating look at its subjects and the personal agency they exercised in their spiritual and professional lives.
What I Am Currently Reading
Tarot – Jessica Hudley
This is a tome, but I’ve already paged through it once and read the first two chapters.
The Silver Bough vol. 2 – F. Marian McNeill
This week I read the chapter on April Fool’s Day. At a handful of pages with no footnotes, one gets the feeling that MacNeill was running out of steam in this volume.
Milk, Sulfate, and Abby Starvation – Martin Millar
In this week’s chapter, the protagonist has just discovered a severe lactose intolerance. Having just discovered a likely allergic reaction to my favorite flavor of sparkling water, I sympathize.
Anam Cara – John O’Donohue
Per the back cover copy, in Anam Cara John O’Donohue “draws from the holy waters of Ireland’s spiritual heritage to lead you to a place where your heart can be healed and nourished.” Here are two examples of that Irish spiritual heritage:
In South America a journalist friend of mine met an old Native American chief whom he would have loved to interview. The chief agreed on the condition that they could have some time together beforehand. The journalist presumed that they would hold a conversation in the normal manner. Instead, the chief took him aside and looked directly into his eyes in silence for a long time. Initially, this terrified my friend, he felt his life was totally exposed to the gaze and silence of this stranger. After a while the journalist began to deepen his own gaze. Each continued this silent gazing for more than two hours. After this time it seemed as if they had known each other all of their lives. There was no longer any need for the interview.Yeeeah.
There is a lovely story of a man exploring Africa. He was in a desperate hurry on a journey through the jungle. He had three or four African people helping him to carry his equipment. They raced onwards for about three days. At the end of the third day, the Africans sat down and would not move. He urged them to get up, telling them of the pressure he was under to reach his destination before a certain date. They refused to move. He could not understand this; after much persuasion, they still refused to move. Finally he got one of them to admit the reason. This African said: ‘We have moved too quickly to reach here; now we need to wait to give our spirits a chance to catch up with us.’
The House On Vesper Sands – Paraic O’Donnell
Not ashamed to admit that I’m eking this reread out to make it last.
What I'm Reading Next
This week I picked up Tarot and Astrology from Taschen’s Library of Esoterica.
これで以上です。
Tags:
From:
no subject
From:
no subject
From:
no subject