Home and the World
Modesty's First Novelized AdventureThough the book is cumbersome at times with technical descriptions involving an elaborate heist, the action and excitement outweighs it. Look for a spectacular hand-to-hand battle between Modesty and Mrs. Fothergill, one of Gabriel's eccentric bodyguards.
Don't believe the hype that Modesty Blaise is just another female 007. Modesty Blaise is far from an ordinary 'spy'. In fact, she's an exceptional woman way ahead of her time!
Modesty Blaise Is Someone You *Ought* To Know About!Great graphic novels are something half-way between novels and movies. When they truly are GREAT, there's a fascinating tension that develops between the story being told by the writing, and the story being told by the illustrator (not necessarily the same thing). You'll find that here! A more contemporary master of this art form is Frank Miller, who's THE DARK KNIGHT RETURNS is simply *the* best thing *ever* done in "comic book" form! The collected editions of the Modesty Blaise newspaper strips are often *equally* as good! They've appeared in two different versions in this country, both out of print. Ken Pierce originally published many of these in his "First American Edition" series. Titan Books later published a more extensive collection in a larger format, which I prefer. If only...if only...! Some of the later strips (not illustrated by Holdaway) still occasionally appear in The Comics Review. Not to be missed, I think (as O'Conner is still right on target with this series). But, the *classic* stuff appeared *many* years ago, as described above.
Still, O'Connor's novels are a worthy substitute, in the meantime. Many have described Blaise as a kind of female James Bond....and I actually *do* agree with this (what other comparison is possible?). But, I also agree that this analogy really does *cheapen* her a bit. I say this somewhat reluctantly, as I do think Fleming's early Bond novels were remarkable feats of imagination. (Did you know he was a *big* follower of Carl Jung?) Modesty Blaise, however, is an *original* character! There was a *very* bad movie based on her a number of years ago---ignore that! If you are a man, you will utterly fall in love with this woman! If you are a woman, she will become your serious role model. The relationship she has with Willie (non-sexual) is both intimate and powerful...*way* ahead of it's time!
Interested? I hope so....
The first Modesty novel is worth the search.
Good but with a caveatOn the matter of Alchemy, the authors make the statement that no one has ever made transmutation to gold. Perhaps they should review Jacques Sadoul's Alchemists and Gold for good references.
The reason they doubt this is because of their procrustean mindset, just as the Jungians insist on viewing all alchemical writings as being psychological only; these authors fall into the common mistake, imho, of seeing in alchemy a veil for initiatic cults. I have Clark Heinrich's good book, Stange Fruit, and it is very spotty on alchemy. The one excellent illustration he shows from Splendor Solis, of the rebis (hermaphrodite) holding what seems clearly to be Amanita, must be counterpoised against all the other illustrations in the same work, of such classical themes as the Peacock. All of these other pictures show stages of the alchemical process ina glass flask. It is amazing how little he has found considering the thousands of alchemical works,
Take a universally admired alchemical writer such as Eireneus Philalethes. His works have page after page of detailed instructions for a physical laboratory process, and virtually nothing that can be directly construed to relate to entheogens. It is so easy for the entheogen crowd to gloss over the vast majority of alchemical works, which don't support their position at all, unless they contort the books into obscure mystical wanderings. And it makes no sense for the alchemists to heap so much misleading dung on top of a grain of "secret teaching" about entheogens. Why would some authors write book after book, virtually untouching the subject of plant teachers? A mere sentence here or there does not reveal that alchemy is solely about an underground eucharistic stream carried forward.
What is generally missed is that an important shift took place 2500 years ago, with the precession of the Age; the rational mind of the race began to develop, with analytical mind suppressing the subconscious group mind that the race had lived in tribally before. This eventually led to the rise of technology. Prior to this we don't find any typical alchemical writings. The old shamans had no skills with distillation apparatus, since they didn't exist. Their herbal simples were decoctions, compounds, ointments.
The unique thing that happened is that individuals,who were still initiates into the Axis Mundi world view of Nature (whether thru natural talent,or through entheogens), were able to analyse what they saw in their visions, and now apply technology. They realized they were one with Nature, but they also saw its principles and how the essential radiance (polar opposites) could be separated out and developed, by pitting them against each other within the confines of a glass egg. Thus the Philosophers' Stone is the ultimate entheogen perhaps, for man is Nature knowing Itself, and the alchemical work is therefore Nature developing Itself thru Art into a higher manifestation. Only the vision was possible before in the archaic world.
The role of entheogens in the origins of Christian ritesWhoever approaches these pages must accept the challenge of drinking new wine from an old wineskin, and then he will not only discover a novel viewpoint on archaic themes, but also a whole new method of interpretation, fruitful in its essence and fruitful in its form. It may be that the reader will not be able to divest himself of the inevitable prejudices in which we have all been indoctrinated and will succumb to the temptation to reject the proposals and evidence presented here before even examining it, but this would be an inexcusable error: the authors have worked in accordance with the strictest standards of scholarship and offer in support of their re-examination of their subject an impressive array of data from every source available and innumerable textual citations from the primary material. This documentation, presented as footnotes on the page in conjunction with their case, allows the reader to refer to the original expression of particular points while simultaneously considering the new interpretations being given. Thus, the reader himself is given the capability of judging as he progresses through the argument the true meaning of the materia prima, according to his own particular world view.
The Apples of Apollo also confirms that the character of early Christianity as a mystery religion cannot be understood as being merely marginal to the other mystery religions of the ancient world. Without any question of a doubt, the most controversial chapter of The Apples of Apollo is Chapter Five, Jesus, the Drug Man, in essence the pivotal point of the entire work. In this chapter the reader will be confronted with a Christ linked to the use of entheogens, a Christ who is the dispenser of "enlightenment" through the mushroom; this may sound amazing, but the institution of the eucharist now consists literally in the ingestion of a substance that alters consciousness, albeit a weak one -- wine. But more disturbing than the inefficacy of the wine as a key to divine revelation, is that the Church finds the idea of eating God preferible to eating the plant of God, which is, by definition, also that very same God, like the bush which burned in the Sinai with an incombustible fire before Moses. The secret of those flames is but one of many revealed within these pages.
So let's escape from prejudice. Let's abandon the fear of reconsidering our dogmas from a new perspective. Let us feel once again the fascination of the unknown, recover the distinctly human aspiration for the quest, even at the risk of the pain it might cause us. Let us dare . . . Let's open the pages of The Apples of Apollo, journey through them, discover their proposals and who knows: it could be that, after all, the truth lies therein.
José Alfredo González Celdrán
THE FACTS
List price: $16.00 (that's 30% off!)
My 2nd reading
a must read
An Excellent description of Armenian history and culture.'Passage To Ararat' is about the author's reflections on Armenians and his attempt to find out what Armenians are all about. His writing is excellent in this book, as he describes all his observations in a very interesting, yet simple manner.
The book covers a great deal of accurate Armenian history, where both Turkish and Armenian views are considered. This is a great book to learn about Armenian history, culture, mentality and the Armenian Genocide.
List price: $24.00 (that's 30% off!)
Blaise shows off his knowledge of art but wastes our timeBlaise takes any opportunity to link a subject he knows well to time. He would have the ability to link a sentence such as: "Van Gogh took his time in painting" to a chapter on Van Gogh's artistic style. Actually, he mentions Van Gogh's interest in Japanese woodcuts nearly as often as he mentions Fleming and his debacle with the Canadian Pacific Railway.
By stating that 'works of art are timeless', Blaise is able to launch into nearly a whole chapter on a painting by Gustave Caillebotte. While that may have been of interest to art students, it added little to one's understanding of Sanford Fleming or standard time.
What started off as an interesting read about time, turned into a boring display of Clark Blaise's knowledge of art and literature. He drops hundreds of famous names in art as a way of showing that he knows who they were and his reader may not. As the former head of the International Writing Program at University of Iowa, he should know better. My rating of this book 2 stars, but you may stop after Part One. The rest is fluff.
Richard Stampfle Nong Khai, Thailand
Another author needs to do this subject justiceThere's some great history hidden in this book, including a wonderful drawing of what life was like for a railroad traveler before standard time was established. However, it is totally buried in the author's personal ruminations about time and the railroad's part in cultural history. I suppose this could have been interesting if the author had an engaging and knowledgeable voice - but to be honest, I felt like I was stuck listening to a boring relative go on about his personal theories at a holiday dinner. It also was a bad sign for me when the only time I found these analysis sections interesting was when he was reporting other historian's theories - as soon as he put his take on things, I found the arguments far more wandering, strained and pointless. I am also not heartened to learn, glancing through other reviews, that some of his facts are apparently erroneous.
What a disappointment. I hope someone else takes up this fascinating subject, dusts off the useless analysis, and lets the world discover one of the greatest and most long-lasting inventions of the 19th century with an engaging read.
Time Lord is definitely worth the time
Blaise and Mukherjee met at a writers workshop in Iowa, married, and lived in Canada with their two children until their house burned down which left them homeless and prompted their journey east. Mukherjee spent her formative years in Calcutta and is returning to a largely familiar world but to Blaise everything is new. The first sixty pages of his narrative take place in Bombay and Blaise is never altogether at home there as they are staying with Mukherjees parents and her father is the uncontested head of the household. Blaise's trips into the city are flights from the congestion of stifling family life, his insights into the nature of Indian family life are in equal parts humorous and informative(the family does not even know the first name of a servant who has lived with them for years, nor do they show any interest in knowing). This view of India from an outsider given an insiders access is just one of many aspects of this book that distinguishes it from mere travel narrative. His initiation into the rituals and customs and (to him)peculiarites of Indian family life make for great reading. But the best section is the sustained amazement and energy of the 10-15 page description of Calcutta(where they have chosen to spend the better part of the year in a mission which caters to scholars) as he rides a rickshaw through its cluttered streets. Over the course of the year Blaise will meet many of Calcutta's elite including its most famous(to the west anyway)citizen, the film maker Satyajit Ray. Calcutta is the major city of Bengal, the eastern most province of India, filled with a proud and cultured people, and Blaise spends many fascinating pages analyzing both its culture and polotics:
The Bengali has lived with the English longer than any Indian, and he has absorbed him,while keeping his own soul, with astounding ease. -p.122
Blaise begins with illusions about India but over the course of his year in Calcutta he learns about its culture and people and the contact with this world different in every imaginable way from his own has a profound impact on him, the way he views the west, and the way he views his marriage.
In counterpoint to Blaise's description of the year is Mukherjee's. She is a westernised Indian who has married outside,and according to her father beneath,her caste and in caste conscious India that is often an unforgivable offense. The Mukherjee girls(Bharati and her sisters)are brilliant and Bharati is beautiful and her novel, The Tigers Daughter, just published to rave reviews, has made her famous in her home country. Her year is marked by equally profound realizations which include increased self awareness of her own very personal way of blending if not bridging the two very distinct cultures of which she is a part:
My aesthetic, then, must accomadate a decidedly Hindu imagination with an Americanized sense of the craft of fiction. To admit to possessing a Hindu imagination is to admit that my concepts of what constitutes a "story" and of narrative structure are noncausal, non-Western.-p.298
But perhaps the most fascinating part of her section is her portrait of her former classmates who have stayed in India and married and now make up the elite. These highly educated women are nonetheless stranded in their homes and live cloistered social lives atop an India which has grown restless and intolerant of the wide divisions that separate the rich from the poor. Riots and robbery are always imminent realities. The women Mukherjee observes clothed in silk saris and gold bracelets and diamond earings in their gated community of mansions in the worlds poorest city seem trapped in a world that they know cannot last. They go on as if immune(or wishing to be) from all the realites around them, a social elite with money to burn but drained of contact and significance to the greater India outside their own very high walls.
Rare book by two excellent writers & one that has not gone through too many reprintings so get a copy while you can. I especially like the sturdy(always good for a travel book) '95 Hungry Mind paperback edition with excellent cover art as well as updated prologues and epilogues by the authors.