Book Description
The first edition of W. B. Yeats's The Tower appeared in bookstores in London on Valentine's Day, 1928. His English publisher printed just 2,000 copies of this slender volume of twenty-one poems, priced at six shillings. The book was immediately embraced by book buyers and critics alike, and it quickly became a bestseller.
Subsequent versions of the volume made various changes throughout, but this Scribner facsimile edition reproduces exactly that seminal first edition as it reached its earliest audience in 1928, adding an introduction and notes by esteemed Yeats scholar Richard J. Finneran.
Written between 1912 and 1927, these poems ("Sailing to Byzantium," "Leda and the Swan," and "Among School Children" among them) are today considered some of the best and most famous in the entire Yeats canon. As Virginia Woolf declared in her unsigned review of this collection, "Mr. Yeats has never written more exactly and more passionately."
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Once out of nature I shall never take My bodily form from any natural thing, But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make Of hammered gold and gold enamelling To keep a drowsy Emperor awake; Or set upon a golden bough to sing To lords and ladies of Byzantium Of what is past, or passing, or to come.
Average customer rating:
- Thank goodness Hurwitz got better
- Nitpicking, but valid observation.
- The Big Book of Action Novel Cliches
- 2 1/2 Stars -- A "Who Cares" So-So Thriller!
- TARNISHED JADE
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The Tower: A Facsimile Edition
Gregg Andrew Hurwitz
Manufacturer: Simon & Schuster
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Book Description
Allander Atlasia is an infamous psychopath whose heinous crimes have earned him a lifetime stay at the Tower (nicknamed Alcatraz II), the world's most extreme maximum-security prison. But after a briliant and brutal escape, the criminal mastermind begins a killing spree that is intensely personal -- one by one, victims fall prey to a twisted and chilling re-enactment of his own depraved past.
Jade Marlow is an ex-FBI profiler and tracker whose fearlessness is only surpassed by the severity of his own inner demons. With a record of irrational behavior and a genius for putting himself into the mind of a criminal predator, he may be the one man diabolical enough to catch Atlasia. In an excalating contest of wills and wits, two equally defiant men race toward a showdown where daring is deadly and failure is fatal.
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A masterful and unforgettable debut in the bestselling tradition of "The Silence of the Lambs"--a hard-hitting, breathtakingly suspenseful novel of a traumatized prisoner's "impossible" escape from the "Tower", a forbidding, vertical prison surrounded by the cold Pacific waters near San Francisco.
Customer Reviews:
Thank goodness Hurwitz got better.......2005-11-18
I've read Hurwitz's most recent books and have enjoyed them. I decided to read his earlier works and started with this debut. To be honest, I couldn't even finish it. I could hardly get past the names he gave to his characters. I was sticking with it up until Jade stops by and figures out for the local cops that an unrelated murder was committed by the husband. Pure amatuer trash. I'm hoping that his second novel will be better.
Nitpicking, but valid observation........2005-03-18
Hurwitz's other books, especially "The Program,"deliver far better reads than this fairly predictible novel. In my opinion, those who presume to write about crime and guns have an obligation to learn enough about these subjects not to deliver such laughable lines as: "It was a bolt gun, holding four rounds in the mag but only one in the chamber." (As if there are any guns of any type whatsoever that hold more than one round at a time in the chamber.)
The Big Book of Action Novel Cliches.......2004-07-28
I had high hopes for this book--the premise is solid and the opening pages showed Hurwitz has genuine skill as a writer. The "Tower" itself is a great concept and the descriptions come alive such that an actual picture is formed in your mind in which the plot can unfold.
Sadly, the plot doesn't unfold so much as it flails lamely on the floor. The two main characters, Jade Marlow and Allander Atlasia, are well conceived but play out their roles in a series of cliches and hackneyed chase/sting/shoot-out scenarios that belong in a made-for-TV movie. I had a real problem with the anti-hero "Jade", who was basically a cookie-cutter angry ex-agent with a strange female-stripper's name. Jade works well enough in the color-by-numbers action/mystery parts, but when he interacts with other people, it is awkward at best.
The story briefly redeemed itself with an exploration of the parents of a serial killer--what happens when good parents produce a monster through no fault of their own? This is a very intriguing idea, and one well addressed in "We Need to Talk About Kevin", but quickly abandoned for more dull cliches in "The Tower".
By the end of this novel I was actually laughing out loud at the ridiculous dialogue and scenarios--as satire it would get several more stars, but clearly this attempt at suspense was made in earnest. The love scene has actually made the $1 I spent on this book worthwhile, as reading it aloud at cocktail parties is always good for a laugh--it is without question the most ridiculous coupling in modern print.
Perhaps Richard Greico or some other washed-up actor can breathe life into this dud of a novel as a USA Network movie, otherwise it is best left alone.
2 1/2 Stars -- A "Who Cares" So-So Thriller!.......2003-12-16
The Tower, the debut novel by Gregg Andrew Hurwitz, conceptually has all of the elements a good thriller should have; however, it falls short on delivery. The characters are not well developed and are unlikable, and the ending was not very surprising and satisfying. I found myself disliking the hero, Jake Marlow, almost as much as the psychotic killer, Allander Atlasia. As a matter of fact, there wasn't one character I cared about enough to be concerned about what happened to them. The main challenge for me was not to figure out what happens next, but to finish the book as quickly as possible so I can move on to my next book. Hurwitz demonstrates considerable potential to create excitement and suspense; although his ability to sustain this suspense was, all too often, lacking. The Tower is not a bad book. It was good enough to finish but not good enough to recommend -- unless you have an interest in reading a first book by an author who has gone on to receive some very positive acclaim for his subsequent books.
TARNISHED JADE.......2003-11-05
JADE MARLOW, the "hero" in THE TOWER is not likeable in the least. He's egocentric, rude, boorish, overbearing, humorless, a racist, and a heart as cold as a Connecticut winter. Allander Alsatia, the "villain" is equally abhorrent and definitely deranged. Agent Travers (no first name) is a beautiful FBI agent who finds herself partnered with Jade and their relationship is belligerent to say the least. Although there's one love scene that's hilarious in its "abruptness". So what makes Hurwitz's novel so entertaining? It's bullet-paced; some of the scenarios bristle with excitement, and one can only laugh at the ineptness of this so-called "super tracker." Add the mysterious Wonton (I wonder if his last name is Soup?), who is as mysteriously evil as Donald Plesance's Blofeld in "You Only live Twice."..and you have one seriously warped book. But it's fun, and I found myself eager to get to the ending...woops! What a strange, strange ending....no closure. But since one doesn't really care for Jade, his future isn't all that exciting. Anyway, this is Hurwitz's first book and he's gone on to more critical acclaim, although as far as enjoyment goes, this may be his best?
IF YOU'RE LOOKING FOR A MINDLESS IF GRAPHIC READ, THIS ONE'S FOR YOU!
Customer Reviews:
Linda Winstead Jones Devlin Fallon..........2003-07-17
Whatever pen name Linda uses, her books have ALL been awesome! No Angel's Grace is my favorite, Chase the Lightning second, and this is my third favorite - doesn't mean it doesn't rate five stars - it just means that she's such a fabulous author it's hard to judge! AND, this rating does NOT include her Linda Fallon or her Linda Devlin books... they're so grand I have 3-way ties for my favorite books from her! Buy this book. Read it, and keep it to read again and again!
engaging early Americana romantic.......2002-04-10
Twelve years ago Anya Sedley was thought dead in the shipwreck that took the lives of her parents. However, she managed to find haven on the Caribbean Island of Puerta Sirena where the ragtag locals treated her as a Love Goddess. Anya returned to North Carolina high society, but has had trouble readjusting. Having run through a chain of tutors, governesses, and companions, she has earned the reputation as the Beast of Rose Hill. Her desperate grandmother wants Julian DeButy to "tame" and marry Anya.
Julian tries to teach the wild and spirited Anya how to behave in polite company. However, Anya plans to provide him special sexual lessons in her bed. As they battle for the role of teacher, they fall in love. However, Anya does not trust those feelings and Julian is bewildered by his needs for her that go contrary to his vow of celibacy.
DEBUTY & THE BEAST is an engaging early Americana romantic romp that will delight sub-genre fans with the antics of the lead female character. The story line is filled with plenty of humor, a bit of pathos, and some action. Julian is a wonderful protagonist struggling between his belief that celibacy equates to good health vs. his overwhelming desire to make love with Anya. The support cast provides a feel for the era, insight into the prime couple, and the impetus for the action. However, Linda Jones' tale belongs solely to the feral heroine who the audience will adopt as a favorite.
Harriet Klausner
Amazon.com
As if Garth Ennis's Preacher series weren't cool enough, Ennis (backed by the tight compositions of John McCrea) mixes it up again with his brilliantly depraved Hitman series. Cleverly written, expertly paced, plenty violent, and wildly funny, this particular arc pulls together issues 15 through 22 of Hitman. The set catches Tommy Monaghan just as he's dodging a beatdown at the hands of Hell-sent, badass Mawzir, a 10-foot-tall skeletal demon with a contract on Monaghan's head and enough ordnance to keep all six of his bony arms blazing through most of the story. A cross between Kurt Russell in Big Trouble in Little China and Chow Yun-Fat, Monaghan yet again bluffs, bumbles, and blasts his way from one frying pan into the next. Check out this installment to see the old gang, the Catwoman (Monaghan improvises a Cat Signal with a dead tabby), an extended appearance by Jason Blood/Etrigan, a "fistful of justice" from Section Eight (including the Dog Welder and the Defenestrator), and--but of course--unapologetically irresponsible amounts of gunfire. --Paul Hughes
Book Description
As if Garth Ennis's Preacher series weren't cool enough, Ennis (backed by the tight compositions of John McCrea) mixes it up again with his brilliantly depraved Hitman series. Cleverly written, expertly paced, plenty violent, and wildly funny, this particular arc pulls together issues 15 through 22 of Hitman. The set catches Tommy Monaghan just as he's dodging a beatdown at the hands of Hell-sent, badass Mawzir, a 10-foot-tall skeletal demon with a contract on Monaghan's head and enough ordnance to keep all six of his bony arms blazing through most of the story. A cross between Kurt Russell in Big Trouble in Little China and Chow Yun-Fat, Monaghan yet again bluffs, bumbles, and blasts his way from one frying pan into the next. Check out this installment to see the old gang, the Catwoman (Monaghan improvises a Cat Signal with a dead tabby), an extended appearance by Jason Blood/Etrigan, a "fistful of justice" from Section Eight (including the Dog Welder and the Defenestrator), and--but of course--unapologetically irresponsible amounts of gunfire. --Paul Hughes
Customer Reviews:
Graphic SF Reader.......2007-09-03
A certain demon wants Tommy Monaghan to do his bidding and be his agent. When Tommy tells him to do you know want, the demon sends a six gunned killer monster to get him.
There are encounters with other send up loser types, and even an established character. Hitman is still very entertaining.
One of the best comic series ever.......2005-08-11
With characters informed by what seems to be every guy movie ever made, from Fistful of Dollars to Pulp Fiction, Garth Ennis and Joel McCrea created a remarkably deep comic book world with characters that genuinely grew on you.
Set in the murkiest back alleys and tenements of Batman's Gotham City, drawn with such vivid detail I swear you can almost hear the sirens in the background, Hitman featured a host of weird losers and twisted dreamers, from the hilarious to the profane, all struggling to survive their miserable circumstances (situations into which they admit they've gotten themselves).
The action here (and there is plenty of it, great, bloody ungodly amounts of it) is actually secondary to the stories of the characters - from the smoothly confident Chow Yun Fat-inspired Johnny Ringo to the hilarious Six-Pack (THE funniest character I have ever seen), to Natt the Hat and Tommy "Hitman" Monaghan, each one of these people lives and breathes...there are times when the characters are talking and you can almost hear their voices, feel their emotions. On the occasion of a main character's death, and there were many of them, there was an actual fatal resonance. Usually a character dies and you find yourself wondering how long it'll be before they bring him back - here there's a terrible finality to it, a strange sense of loss, difficult to describe until you've actually gotten into the series a bit, but once hooked, I guarantee you'll know what I mean.
That's not to say that the book is solemn - it's actually one of the funniest titles you'll ever find. In addition to the aforementioned Six-Pack, you'll also find his superhero team-mates Section Eight, a group of super-losers which include The Defenestrator and Dog-Welder (who...well...welds dogs onto evil-doers). Then there's the hilarious fellow hitman Hacken (who has one of the funniest scenes in the entire series when he's bitten by a zombified seal) and Baytor, otherworldly bartender whose name you cannot forget, no matter how you try. Just remembering these characters makes me want to go back and reread the whole series. I think the generous laugh-out-loud humor is, oddly, what made the serious moments more meaningful - it provided an unsettling contrast, a feeling of "laugh now 'cause tomorrow we die" that seemed to always be on the periphery of these stories.
I'm speaking in the past tense here because, lamentably, Garth Ennis ended this series after only 60-some issues, a decision I've read that Ennis himself now regrets. Although he's received a lot more praise for such worthy titles as Preacher and The Punisher, I think this is the one title that he should be best remembered for. People who believe that Bendis is the best 'talking heads' writer in comics really need to check this out.
I hope that one day DC will give Hitman the Preacher treatment and release the entire series. It's a shame that more people can't read this brilliant, bizarre series.
great book.......2001-03-22
my first hitman TPB and it's a good one. not only is the main story is a great action/humor story, the second "the santa contract" story is one of the funniest comics story i ever read especially the grinch like riming. a good read for every comics fan.
Ennis and McCrea Strike Again.......2000-06-11
The always excellent Garth Ennis and John McCrea strike again with another fine addition to the Hitman storyline. As with most of Ennis' work, this piece is violent, over the top, and of course, hysterical. John McCrea also does a great job with the art, which provides a more comical flare to Ennis' already hysterical writing. The story picks up right after the Hitman: Local Heroes story and it would be advisable to read the previous Hitman trade paperbacks before picking up this one. If you are a fan of Garth Ennis, this offering will not dissapoint!
Book Description
A survey of five centuries of writings on the world's great shamans-the tricksters, sorcerers, conjurers, and healers who have fascinated observers for centuries.
This collection of essays traces Western civilization's struggle to interpret and understand the ancient knowledge of cultures that revere magic men and women-individuals with the power to summon spirits. As written by priests, explorers, adventurers, natural historians, and anthropologists, the pieces express the wonder of strangers in new worlds. Who were these extraordinary magic-makers who imitated the sounds of animals in the night, or drank tobacco juice through funnels, or wore collars filled with stinging ants?
Shamans Through Time is a rare chronicle of changing attitudes toward that which is strange and unfamiliar. With essays by such acclaimed thinkers as Claude Lévi-Strauss, Black Elk, Carlos Castaneda, and Frank Boas, it provides an awesome glimpse into the incredible shamanic practices of cultures around the world.
Customer Reviews:
Shamans Through Time by Narby/Huxley.......2007-09-16
I borrowed this book from the library and ended up buying my own copy. Gives great info on the topic of shamans. You could buy several of the books that are listed but there are parts from articles and journals that are not available. I am enjoying this book very much and plan to use it when I write my Ph.d on shamanism.
You will enjoy every article.
Interesting & Informative.......2005-07-05
I have been studying shamaic cultures for decades, and this was an unusual collection seeing through the eyes of Westerners over half a milenium. It gives me hope that we can rise above ethnocentricity to see that reality is mutable although by way of this book it took over 400 years.
Book Description
Readers of Kali's Odiyya will be thrilled to see Shambu, Sandhya, and Aunt Preema return in this new memoir in which we encounter the dark odiyyas, predatory sorcerers from realms below the conscious human realm. Aunt Preema and the agorhi (mystics) prepare Shambu (the author's name in his native land) and his mystical companion Sandhya for a descent into the underworld to rescue a disciple of their group. We learn with them about assimilating logical awareness into dream awareness in order to travel into the astral realm, working with herb awareness, and the miraculous healing that can be achieved in the astral realm and manifested in the physical one.
This exciting story contains information about incarnation, karma, the subtle body and the "cosmology" of consciousness. More than a New Age novel, Medicine of Light will make you want to read it in one sitting and come back again and again for its valuable teachings in consciousness.
Customer Reviews:
With all Modesty - a True Master in an Ancient Matrilinear Tradtition.......2007-05-28
This book ("by popular request" really) contains the teachings in response to the kind of questions one asks only after one stops being afraid of the answers.
Amarananda Bhairavan is the conduit for his aunt Preema's unadulterated wisdom. There is no fashionable or slick feel-good stuff, nothing one could tweak into a foundation for a (pseudo-) spiritual empire.
I guess, when you read this review/opinion, you must have been led here and probably are ready to receive the gifts and blessings offered in this rare source of knowledge and inspiration.
Beyond Expectations.......2007-04-28
Being an avid lover of Kali's Odiyya by Amarananda Bhairavan, the bar was held high as I dove into his second book Medicine of Light. It was beyond my expectations. For the second time, I have found incredible engagement and excitement from the story line and heart-opening gratitude for the body of knowledge embedded in this story. This is the kind of knowledge that is not offered in seminars or weekend courses. Even if you set out to look for it, it is a rare find. This book along with Kali's Odiyya will be my most turned to for reference on Karma, herb medicine, Goddess worship and devotion. But beyond all that, it carries the medicine we all need. Deep humility and Love.
Average customer rating:
- A Wonderful Ontogenic Purview
- Interesting Idea
- Shaman Regrets
- A marvellous book
- Great Must-Have Anthology
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Shamans Through Time: 500 Years on the Path to Knowledge
Manufacturer: Tarcher
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Intelligence in Nature
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The Cosmic Serpent
ASIN: 1585420913
Release Date: 2001-04-19 |
Book Description
A survey of five hundred years of writings on the world's great shamans-the tricksters, sorcerers, conjurers, and healers who have fascinated observers for centuries.
This collection of essays traces Western civilization's struggle to interpret and understand the ancient knowledge of cultures that revere magic men and women-individuals with the power to summon spirits. These writings by priests, explorers, adventurers, natural historians, and anthropologists express the wonder of strangers in new worlds. Who were these extraordinary people, men who imitated the sounds of animals in the night, or drank tobacco juice through funnels, or wore collars filled with stinging ants?
Shamans Through Time is a rare chronicle of changing attitudes toward that which is strange and unfamiliar. With essays by such acclaimed thinkers as Claude LŽvi-Strauss, Black Elk, Carlos Castaneda, and Franz Boas, it provides an awesome glimpse into the incredible shamanic practices of cultures around the world. Bibliography. Index.
Customer Reviews:
A Wonderful Ontogenic Purview.......2006-03-14
Shamans Through Time is not simply another long-winded dissertation, it is a collection of short anecdotes and ethnographic observations made between 1535 and 1995 by mostly western missionaries, anthropologists, and other observers with ulterior agenda, on what are these days commonly called shaman. As another reviewer pointed out, the writings are centered around the Americas, North and South, and Siberia, where the term shaman originated.
Although I picked up my copy from a used bookstore shelf labeled "New Age", there is really nothing new age about this book. It should more rightly have been shelved in the Anthropology section. Even where it discusses Castaneda, which may properly be categorized as New Age, the Castaneda phenomenon is so important as the impetus for further immersion and the defacto introduction to shamanism, that it would be remiss, even prejudiced to have not included an overview of Castaneda. And while there are many Native Americans who positively hate and slander Castaneda, as they feel he had no doubt lampooned NatAm culture, he served a very important purpose as the stepping stone to a more academic and mature understanding of what shamanism is about.
The subject is out of the bag, and western civilization will proceed to accrete shamanic practice into the traditional religious medical bag, perhaps even improving upon it, in the same way that Japan has taken the American automobile and improved upon it in most ways. Neither wishing it will just go away, nor vandalizing the reputation of those who wish to deepen their understanding will effectively irradicate the concept of shamanism from modern culture. Just as original Jewish Christians of antiquity may have been repulsed by the idea that a Roman pope would be so audacious as to presume an original and monolithic authority over an invention of Palestine, and that later European Christian movements would pervert the Old Testament to justify their own adaptation of an essentially Middle Eastern religion, all the while forgetting their own indigenous spiritual heritage, the time is now for amateur or lay students, such as myself, to remember where and how shamanism came to be incorporated into modern ecclectic spirituality. I recently watched a Tuvan throatsinging ("khoomei") group perform in front of an astounded audience. This is first hand ethnographic experience, as was the late Paul Peña's documentary foray "Ghengis Blues". The more dimensions of alien culture we explore, the less alien they become, and the more we find ourselves accepting of strange and foreign ways. A review written on Tuvan throatsinging in 2006 will appear naive and ethnocentric when reread 500 years from now. Antoine Biet's 1664 "Evoking The Devil: Fasting With Tobacco To Learn How To Cure" must be read, tonuge-in-cheek, with a certain forgiveness as a product of the culture in which he was immersed.
The editors are splendidly responsbile, and to avoid problems of being perceived as biased toward unfettered promotion of shamanism, they illuminate the movement as it currently exists in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where adherents and practitioners buy wholesale a sanitized version of the techniques, which are removed and isolated from their original social and cultural context, where shamanism is inherently dangerous, with grave implications for both the shaman, who may be killed for accusing sorcerers in another village, or for just plain being wrong in his predictions, and his patient, who may likewise die in the process of trying to be healed. The editors rightly confront the absurdity of popular shamanism-lite, while acknowledging that if modern civilization wants to keep it, we must redefine our relationship with the shaman of the past, and examine the progressive devlopment toward a wholesome western understanding. As drugs have become systematically outlawed (as tobacco is also at that intermediate evolutionary state, followed, no doubt, by coffee and tea), and the government has finally shackled our minds so that the only danger in our will to explore is the danger of incarceration and defamation, hedonistic expositions such as Woodstock can no longer be experienced in an authentic, unpasteurized, unhomogenized form, the legal and socially acceptable forms of shamanism will become necessarily more sedate, quiet, behind closed doors. Perhaps shamanic techniques will become so suppressed as to become unrecognizable, even when the neo-shaman is practicing the technique right before our very eyes.
This is the launch point for Shamans Through Time, and the unique purpose of this book--to read what Russians, Spaniards, French and Englishmen have observed over the last 500 years, allowing us to be the judge. We witnesses our own collective understanding as moving from infancy to maturity. Hopefullly, the shaman will not extinguish by the time we have arrived at cultural adulthood in our relationship with this primal religious form.
B.T.W., I find it very suspicious that there is one review out of the four prior reviews which is conspicuously negative, and has achieved an astonishing 10 votes (3 of which are "not helpful"), and while that one review is not the first review, all of the others have only three to four votes. You can't tell me there isn't something a little bit fishy about the 7 "helpful" votes for that one particular review...
Interesting Idea.......2003-06-01
I really liked this book. Edited (in part) by the author of "The Cosmic Serpent", it gives a sweeping five-hundred year look at how outsiders have percieved Shamanism, from early missionaries and explorers who viewed it as the "work of the devil" to early anthropologists to modern seekers who want to experience Shamanism for themselves. The focus of this book is Siberia and the Americas (which is soemwhat disappointing, as they could have included Hokkaido, Micronesia, South Africa, Indonesia and elsewhere) and the whole purpose of the book is to tell about how outsiders have viewed (and expierenced) Shamanism. As such, its not always clear what the realities of the practice are or were. In addition, there were a few glaring omissions, such as Frazer. Nonetheless, the sheer scope of this overview (both in terms of times and geography) and the amount of information within make it an excellent source for study. If you are seriously interested in the historical practices of Shamanism, or perhaps the changing attitudes toward Shamanism in the west, then you really should seek this book out.
Shaman Regrets.......2002-07-22
Francis Huxley attached his name to this project, which explains the fair reviews the book has received and the log-rolling on its back cover. Shamans Through Time, a compendium of weakly-selected excerpts from the work of other authors, and spanning a 500-year period, poses as an intellectual and scholarly book, but is neither. Poorly contextualized by its editors, the pieces in Shamans Through Time pass the reader by like small tasteless hors d'oeuvres from a better era's garden party.
Although editors Jeremy Narby and Huxley admit he faked much of his material, Carlos Castaneda is included, but of currently frowned-upon James Frazer nothing is seen. Watery passages from esteemed writers Alfred Métraux and Mircea Eliade appear in dribbles.
To illustrate the vacuity of the volume and the limits of its reach, consider the following: anthropologist Michael Harner (founder of The Foundation for Shamanic Studies), while living among the Jivaro Indians of the Peruvian Amazon, joins in a shamanic ceremony and hallucinates wildy. The subject of his extensive vision is the revelation that a frightening reptilian race resides in the human spinal column, from where it controls the evolution and doings of mankind. Coming to his senses, Harner meets a husband and wife team of Christian evangelists traveling in the region and shares his experience. The evangelists explain that 'serpent' is synonymous in the Bible with 'dragon' and 'Satan,' and Harner, educated man and Westerner that he is, is awestruck at this news.
It appears nobody wanted to spend much time or thought on this book, including its editors; there is, for example, no index. Though Huxley himself titled one of his own works 'Affable Savages: An Anthropologist Among the Urubu Indians of Brazil,' the use of words 'primitives' and 'savages' is decried in the brief politically-correct introduction, especially in regard to all those awful elitist scientists of the 18th and 19th centuries.
Shamans Through Time is, at best, a short exercise in pseudo-intellectualism.
A marvellous book.......2002-04-18
`Shamans Through Time'
What is a shaman? How does he practice? Jeremy Narby and Francis Huxley, anthropologists of the mind and much else beside, deftly guide us through five hundred years of literature - from the 16th century Christian view (Ministers of the Devil), through the coming of anthropologists, to contemporary accounts by shamans themselves. The selected writings are richly varied, each reflecting its time and place; and they are short, which makes the reading easy. Here's Diderot in 1765, Franz Boas in 1887, Alfred Metraux and Levi Strauss in the 1940s, Carlos Castaneda in `68, Maria Sabena in 1977 -- sixty four in all, a significant number, you might think: Huxley is a conjurer of numbers no less than letters (see the Raven and the Writing Desk). His own contribution to the collection is a gem, `Smoking Huge Cigars', about an Urubu shamanic ceremony in which vast quantities of tobacco are smoked. Narby also tells a good story, `Shamans and Scientists'(2000), about an encounter between three molecular scientists and a Peruvian ayahuascero.
The entire collection is divided into seven chronological sections, each with a short, bright introduction by the editors. The result is a map by which to navigate this otherwise quite bewildering terrain. There's also a topical index, with surprising and helpful categories, like `Varieties of Shaman'' (diviners, healers, jugglers, tricksters and magicians...), `Creatures' (anaconda, ant, antelope, caterpiller...) and `Magic Substances' (arrows, cords, crystals, darts, ectoplasm, viruses and DNA!).
`Shamans Through Time' is not only skillfully put together and easy to read: it offers deep understanding. This is important, because shamanism is serious stuff. A shaman - `one who maintains by profession, and in the interest of the community, an intermittent commerce with spirits...' (using Metraux's definition) -- is gifted with access to major power, for healing and for harm. In an age when many profess to this calling, we need a deeply reliable voice on the matter. This is it.
Milhaly Hoppal, Director of the European Folklore Institute, says `Shamans Through Time' is "the most comprehensive survey on shamanism ever. It will be a classic in its field." I'm sure he's right. It's a marvellous book.
Michael Schwab, Doctor of Public Health
Berkeley, CA
Great Must-Have Anthology.......2001-11-27
This volume is a must-have collection of writings on indigenous shamanism since the conquest; Edited by
Jeremy Narby (The Cosmic Serpent) and Francis Huxley (The Way of the Sacred). Beyond the
superlative selection of dozens of first hand records over the centuries and up through modern times, we
also see the mirrored portrait of our own evolving delusions, as our framework for understanding
shamanism progresses from considering shamans worshippers, then imposters and lunatics, and on to the participatory anthropology in the post-Wasson era .
There are some really amazing stories in here... it's the real stuff.
Books:
- The Ugly Dachshund
- The Ultimates 2, Vol. 1: Gods and Monsters
- The Virgin and the Gipsy
- The Warmest December
- The Water Dancers: A Novel
- The Whale Caller: A Novel
- The Wicked Pavilion
- The Witches of Eastwick
- To the Last Man I Slept with and All the Jerks Just Like Him
- Too Beautiful for Words
Books Index
Books Home
Recommended Books
- The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying: The Spiritual Classic & International Bestseller; Revised
- Tamales 101: A Beginner's Guide to Making Traditional Tamales
- Lost Laysen
- History: Fiction or Science
- Lilly's Big Day
- Many Particle Physics
- NYSTCE CST Students with Disabilities 060
- Morgan the Magnificent The Life of J Pierpont Morgan 1837 - 1913
- History: Fiction or Science
- The Sport of Debating: Winning Skills and Strategies
Collected Poems 1943-2004
Whitsun Weddings (Faber Poetry)
Look, Stranger!
The Poetry of Robert Frost: The Collected Poems, Complete and Unabridged
The Poetry of Robert Frost: The Collected Poems, Complete and Unabridged (Owl Book)
