Popular in 1850, I found a first edition of this at a garage sale and thought to expand my tastes.
Now, this has been a simple read (thank goodness), just - despite the title, entirely irrelevant. The quaint philosophical reflections of a Bachelor in front of his fire; Chapters about the joy a wife and child might bring him, chapters then arguing against the lack of freedom, or speculating upon the heartbreak he'd experience when his wife/child die, etc. Reveries mean "daydreams", yet in this instance it would have been preferable he keep the dreams in the airy clouds rather than set them to paper.
Funny how tastes change, he actually had a good reputation. Unfortunately he's not aged well.
Perhaps charming and picaresque, but I've grown a little annoyed with the shilly-shallying dilly-dallying bachelor who can't commit and prefers to speculate on all the pleasures he will never possess for fear of losing them.
Link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Grant_Mitchell
Works online: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/authors/search/?query=Mitchell,+Donald+Grant
Time now to read something a little bit different.
- Details
- Category: Books
So, in the vein of travel literature, a collection of James's notes on Italy in various chapters.
He discusses Ruskin, enthuses about long forgotten and minor painters, out of fashion: Tintoretto, Carpaccio, Titian, dozens of others, enthusing and curating according to his tastes, postcard descriptions of the people, the pervading melancholy, and I'm rather haunted that I know Venice of this age, from Turner, or abundant other artists, or maybe some previous life, I recognize it well enough from his descriptions, I've never been, and - strangely, am not particular inclined, I have the feeling that I would somehow know it all, there would be that recognition of it, a deja-vu from the countless books I've read and paintings I've seen. Or that, so hyped by the preceding it could only let me down.
Anyways, I'm not a fan of his style, something about it - it's hard to put my finger on - not his writing or prose, more where he turns his attention that disinterests me. And, upon reflection, not even this. But what then? Sentences that run on a hundred or more words, with dozens of semicolons and commas, that meander around my beleaguered attention span, I would have done as well to look at a few dozens of paintings in a gallery as I would have to read this book.
- Details
- Category: Books
This took me way too long to read.
But, that said, it's a dense book that ties together vast realms of mythology and history and makes the argument that the original Goddesses were later supplanted by Patriarchal religions/myths, of which Christianity is just the final step.
He brings to the topic formidable learning, knowledge of mythology, religion, cultures, classics, and provides a scholarly, if speculative treatment of the subject.
I lack the basest rudiments of knowledge to even begin to question his Thesis, let alone conclusions, but I found intriguing his ideas that the history of humankind has been encoded in myth and folklore, a tradition brought to great heights by the bards of Wales and Ireland.
His interpretations are a gold mine of symbolic thought (as much so as a good reading of Dream Symbols, or Carl Jung).
And - even if he were wrong (and can you be wrong in this? I mean, I credit an informed and educated opinion - but some things - myth and history, for example - will perhaps always be somewhat obscure and impossible to untangle).
I imagine a version of it perhaps better laid out like a "Brewers Phrase and Fable", where you can word-golf around the entire volume and come to your own conclusions.
Ideas - of how the bards arranged and created symbols in trees, that a great many of our early myths evolved to mark the passage of seasons, hence the attention to trees, flowers, animals, every one not merely a tree or flower but marking a point of time and an usage to man. A whole list of associated meanings and implications. As well he touches upon the mythic beginnings of the alphabet, written language, and provides examples of the mnemonic devices poets used upon the finger joints of the hand - the dactyls, the symbolism of the forefinger, the pinkie finger - which, as we use to clean our ears is also known as "The Oracle Finger" as the muse might speak to you privately when you held the finger in your ear - fascinating, because - symbolically again in this we see the beginning of Palmistry. Nola, you should perhaps find a copy in the library and peruse pages 195-201, they might provide some fodder for you...(there's more in there too, but that saves you making any big reading commitments.)
And he provides an informed, impartial and intelligent/reasoned view of Christianity, done from without the Church, while a great many people are critical of Christianity (and for good reason), few have done the research he has. He covers the countless misinterpretations of ancient illustrations, myths and texts, that led to the Biblical Scriptures as we know them.
So - intriguing. Much to think about and a book to be revisited. Once again the right book at the right time. But my god a formidable read.
- Details
- Category: Books
Considerably simpler and much more readable than Jodorowski's treatment of the same.
Filled with Jungian references, the history of the Tarot, various incidental characters and metaphysicians, alchemists and other occultists both known and unknown, more obscure writers for me to trap down, these are all spurs to my curiosity.
He makes plain what you knew all along, the interpretations of the cards relatively straightforward and memorable - and - flipping back to Jodorowski; realize that it is possible to give a little too much information. His whole "If the Cards Could Speak" bit is a little over-the-top, if you ask me...
One recalls Bruhl-Levy and Primitive Mind, in which nothing occurs by chance, and so if you place your faith in the cards then so be it, but - JC and the Bible oppose; for you and you alone are the arbitrar of fate.
Nonetheless, the rich symbolism of the cards attracts, and the many ways to shuffle and approach the journey are intriguing to me. As was the information that Manly P. Hall and Knapp conspired to produce their own Tarot Deck, (Link: https://www.prs.org/store/p2910/The_Knapp-Hall_Tarot_Deck_--_Limited_Edition_Reprint.html) which, given Manly's stance on the Occult I suspect were more for meditative than divinatory purposes, although, as we know, in life more than two things, even entirely contradictory, can be true.
Anyways, enjoying this, a pleasant break from Henry James and the melancholy canals and churches of Venice.
- Details
- Category: Books