My reading list has begun to pick up as of the last few weeks and I'm glad its the case. I haven't had any dedicated reading time since the last Harry Potter book which is actually pretty damn pathetic. Besides the wrapping up of an era for me, it really had no substance in terms of bettering myself.
I didn't even think much about the damn Harry Potter book. It was what it was, and it was good to wrap up and finish, but as for literary merit? Not very much, I don't think...
Either way, I've begun to really stop trying to judge a book by its cover, at least in the "Metaphysical" aisle of the Borders I frequent. For the longest time whenever I walked through the aisle that stored books about Past Life Regression, Animal Spirits, and Candle Magick, I wrinkled my nose and said "no thanks." My mother made a comment to me about it one day when I walked by there- that she said I'm too skeptical and cynical about the books I pick up. It's not that I don't think they don't have some sort of merit... it's just I don't want to buy or read a bullshit book. It's a pretty understandable feeling, isn't it?
So in my attempt to break out of my stereotyping bull shit books, I decided to go ahead and buy a book about Italian Witchcraft. Five or six chapters in, I feel nauseated and just a little bit irritated. No doubt it's not all bullshit- but the book reads like a college essay with long excepts from 19th century books as filler space by authors who's histories aren't explained nor their motivations for writing what they did. Needless to say, I'm aggravated at my purchase but will continue trucking through until the end of the book.
I think besides saying it all reads like BS, I have complaints in the lack of organization in writing... it jumps around and the labeled chapters seem to be disregarded completely. The author's main preoccupation seems to be proving that Italian Witchcraft is older than the Celtic and Northern European traditions as well as claiming that Italian Witchcraft has been handed down in hereditary traditions in an unbroken line.
And who the hell is Charles Leland and why should I believe anything he wrote? In the same tangent, why should I believe the author of this book when Leland is her only real source of written evidence besides trial transcripts from the times of the Inquisition?
Needless to say, I'm extremely skeptical of the historical background Raven Grimassi is presenting and liable to roll my eyes for the other 3/4 of the book I still have yet to read. I think this is going to influence me into buying more history books than Witchcraft books in the long run and read up on Etruscan and Ancient Roman history instead. And as for the Italian Witchcraft workshop I was planning on attending in a few weeks? I'm not quite so sure yet. I might go but no doubt will not be able to stamp out the cynical part of myself that might disregard the entire lecture and is all ready thinking the workshop will be a waste of 20$.
Well, maybe I won't be so severe about the topics covered in the book. I'll be taking notes from now on and plan to do some research about everything I'm skeptical about until I can come to my own well rounded conclusions about both the merit of the book and the merit of the sources.
[this is good]
Posted by: Ned | 02/09/2009 at 08:02 AM
[this is good]
Posted by: petia | 03/12/2009 at 01:54 PM
[this is good]
Posted by: peltonin | 04/11/2009 at 12:32 PM