It's a synopsis. And full of spoilers to boot.
I'm glad I read the book years ago, before seeing this, otherwise I'd be disappointed.
Still, this is one of the truly amusing, if dark, fables that I've ever read.

"One morning it was...the Middle Ages" begins this dark fable.

Young Snickup and the divinely beautiful Superfecta, two wards of an orphanage in a small village in the Netherlands, seem utterly devoted to one another. When of age, they are betrothed and exchange betrothal gifts...two white doves for Superfecta, a wondrous blue cloak for young Master Snickup. An excellent match. All seems perfect.

Meanwhile, a wealthy burgher, Mijnheer van Cats, continues to look for a wife. Van Cats is a man of many vices and he owns the notorious Black Windmill, but since he is quite rich, the local merchants and guildmasters are more than happy to offer him their daughters. Van Cats is not interested. Unfortunately one evening, van Cats spots Superfecta (whose beauty is without peer) in the guildhall. He sends her a gift of gold...and without hesitation she agrees to marry him.

The heartbroken Master Snickup, now dressed in nothing but the blue betrothal cloak, departs on a long pilgrimage across Europe. He eventually settles on a tiny island in the Black Sea, where he prays and fasts while demons tempt and torment him.

During this time Superfecta has had a son, the son van Cats so badly wanted. Alas this son does little to calm the choleric man, as van Cats beats his wife, verbally abuses her in town, and gets into the habit of locking her up some nights in the Black Windmill. The village itself has grown prosperous, but the tiny little orphanage where Snickup and Superfecta grew up is ignored amidst the greed and eventually falls to ruin, utterly forgotten.

Still on his tiny island of rock, Snickup continues to pray. His once wondrous blue cloak is in tatters now and infested by all sorts of vermin. However, Snickup's soul has grown pure. Having found his release, Snickup dies. Noticing their host has died, the vermin take flight...including a small flea, which heads for the trading port of Kaffa. We are told the year now is 1346.

Back in the village, the half-witted son of van Cats hangs around the town brothel, which once was the town orphanage. Patrons laugh until they cry at the favorite story of its madam: she once the town beauty. Unbelievable! Not this hideous woman! Partially due to this, the brothel does very well and the town continues to prosper. Trading ships come from far and near, laden with goods and gold.

Soon, strange things start to happen. The air starts to smell bad. Food rots quickly. People and animals start dying in droves. God starts ignoring the prayers of the pious and sinful alike. The sailors from the merchant ships tell horrifying tales of the death and disease that seems to be everywhere. No amount of prayer seems to help. Hell has arrived.

Mijnheer van Cats, unable to cope with events, ends his life in the Black Windmill. The brothel's madam, despite all her efforts, contracts the disease as well. Nothing could end the Black Plague...it took its casualties, moved on, and took its casualties.

This book was a gift to me many, many years ago. Although it horrified me at the time, it has remained one of my very favorite books. Brian Froud's artwork is simply breathtaking (although macabre)! His work is exquisitely, minutely detailed. Even after all these years, I take this book out and find new details in the artwork. Alexander Theroux's prose is haunting; beautiful and charming at the beginning of the tale, dark and terrifying by the end.

The physical effects of the Black Plague are graphically detailed in this book, as are the bizarre efforts taken by the townspeople to thwart the disease. The art in beginning is cute and elfin; the art the end is the stuff of nightmares.

Very highly recommended, but definitely, absolutely not for children.

I first heard about this book while I was in college. My roommate came back from a Christmas vacation touting its originality. It took me over 10 years to finally get around to reading it, and what a waste of time. Given such a fascinating topic, the whole book focuses on irreverent tidbits of sage advice from "Masters" that are never identified, clarified, or placed into the whole context of reincarnation. For a patient that supposedly went through so many lives and interfaced with so many "masters," she sure was devastated and plagued by more psychosis than the average schizophrenic. The prose was awkward and choppy, and the whole thing read like a transcipt of a really shoddy B-movie.

I'm a 17 yr. old senior in high school, clueless about my future and confused in what to believe in, i thought that having just one life was really unfair and then i read this book, not knowing about reincarnation or past lives. It's kind of comforting to read a book which really does change your perspective on life, maybe Brian Weiss doesn't have any scientific proof and maybe this book doesn't really do much for people who have studied reincarnation for many years and know every detail on the subject, but for someone like me who never knew about it, it changed my life, now death is just a part of life and things that seemed so important, like s.a.t.'s, school, boyfriends and teachers, don't really matter because it's only one life out of so many. And through everything that might happen to me, might just be that i'm learning to "become god-like through knowledge." I thank my sister for recommending this book, i suggest everyone read it, it's real.

I guess the best way I can put this is that I respectfully disagree with the respected Pathologist and the other fellow who claims this was a good "story".

The truth is that in my experience as a hypnotherapist past lives are real. This book offers compelling evidence for the phenomenon but there are many other books that do so as well. I simply like Dr. Weiss's presentation.

Those who left negative reviews seem to not realize a simple principle regarding subjective experience. That principle is that all subjective experience is translated through the subconscious before it can be percieved or vocalized by the subject therefore there can be some confusing or disjointed perceptions. Subjective experience is just that, subjective experience. Sometimes it can be proven with evidence found in the objective world; such as historical observations that can be confirmed.

In other cases, these experiences cannot be verified because there are no references available. In these cases the reality of the experience will be its effect upon the subject. If the experience was transformative then it is fundamentally "real" for the person involved. These types of cases aren't able to be proven. That doesn't mean it didn't happen.

I have no doubt that those who gave negative reviews have beliefs that are less than 100% grounded in reason and proof such as God/Jesus/Buddha/Allah/Krishna or any Higher Power by whatever name or an afterlife. There is at least as much "proof" for the existance of past lives as there proof of God(s) or an afterlife. So before you scoff consider that we all hold beliefs (well 99% of us at least) that are gounded in a reality beyond that which we can perceive with the senses. I'm not talking about resurrections and parting red seas I am talking about that which we can experience, not in simple faith which can be likened to continuing to believe in Santa well into adulthood. You may believe but that belief is largely baseless.

Plus, the soul/mind/spirit has its own wisdom beyond the physical brain. It is that perception that allows us to perceive that which cannot be empirically proven. I love science, but my religion isn't materialism and sometimes we can become blinded by "reason" to truths beyond the scientific method.

Chris

A tape series you can put to use immediately! Even though it has been around a while, it still delivers wonderful ideas on goal setting, time management, and a general philosophy of "time."

After the Jeffrey Dahmer story broke, it was easy to think that no one else like him ever did or ever could have lived. After all, his motive for killing was bizarre to say the least-- he wanted to keep the men he picked up from leaving him. Then a few years later I picked up Brian Masters' Killing for Company almost by chance-- It was shocking: here was Dahmer's mirror image in a quiet British civil servant named Dennis Nilson. For some reason his crimes had not been publicized in the US.

Nilson's crimes had been discovered in 1983 when the plumbing in his apartment buildng started to back up. Workmen were called in and discovered what looked like human flesh was the problem. The police questioned Nilson who confessed to his crime. He had been actively killing young men for 4 years and using their bodies in bizarre tableaus of domesticity and no one had noticed--would probably not have noticed had it not been that his plumbing couldn't handle his method of body disposal.

Masters' book does a very good job of laying out Nilson's life. It is definitely not a quickie books churned out to take advantage of a sensational crime. If you are at all interesed in the darkest, most tabu areas of the human soul this is a very interesting read.

I was surprised by how good this book was.

In 4: A young girl finds herself gaining the skills of her friends as they are offed by Freddy.

In 5: The main from the fourth finds herself caught in dreams as she is awake. She discovers that Freddy's attempt to take over her unborn child is the cause of this.

Both novels were quick, simple, and surprisingly suspenseful reads. The main character was sypathetic as she discovered that her friends are dying because of her ability to join others in dreams. So, every time she sleeps, Freddy pulls one of her friends into the dream with her and forces her to watch as they die. Freddy fans will find this an enjoyable read, as will others. The writting is obviously intended for a teenage audience. This is surprising because of the inclusion of swearing in the novel. Heck, the first paragraph of part 5 details a sex scene between two teenagers. This is not too bad, though, so I will still recomend this read to anyone who can find the book.

I have several of the boks from this series and I do like most of them - apart from this one. This book contains the more idiosyncratic Zen stories. The main problem is that if you haven't understood those stories before you might not really understand them after having read this book. This is mainly due to the stories' nature and, of course, not due to the way the artist presents them. I did know some but not all of the stories before I read this book. I found that the ones I knew were presented in a nice way but I had doubts the comics made them clear. So if you want to learn more about Zen you might want to get the "Shouts of Nothingness" book from the same series and another book, maybe one by Suzuki. Zen is a hard topic to talk/write about in the first place and putting the hardest bits into a format like this doesn't really seem to work.

PS: If you understand the stories why would you want to read any book about them anyway?

If you are a fan of his other works that convert Eastern literature, riligion, and philosophy into an entertaining and reliable comic format, you will also love this book. I agree with others that it is not as engaging as his first Zen book. Presumably, this is because of the Zen literature used for the books, and not some nuance of his performance. If you don't have the first book ("Zen Speaks") then get that and read it first. If that one left you wanting more, as it did for many of us, then pick up this book- you'll enjoy it.

Just getting started on your desire to understand eastern philosophies? Have you stood at the bookstore for hours pouring over where to start and what to buy?

Any of this authors books are a wonderful place to start. The reason? Because these books are all about the title subject in a nutshell, easy to read as a comic book, the story lines and illustrations are wonderful, and after you read this as well as all the other books by Tsai, you will have a great, well rounded start on your path and will know what you want to study more deeply!

To add, when others ask you about your interest in eastern philosophy, you can get them started here as well, because these books are fun, consise, and you know they will enjoy them over and over again!