lory_enterenchanted's reviews
530 reviews

I can’t wait to get to work with this book. I’ve been doing some of these things haphazardly and by instinct but it helps to have a path laid out so clearly. Particularly the physical movements to change nervous system states. I’ve spent ages trying to heal my mind with my mind and it just makes things worse.  This refreshing and hopeful new paradigm could truly change the world. Let’s heal!

Reflections on characters and stories from the Bible, from Genesis to Acts. Gave me some food for thought, but I couldn't say I found it amazingly insightful and revelatory. A few gems in there, plus some conclusions I would contest.

I went into this expecting to find reasons to dislike Edward Halloran, because of his role in the excessive medication of children, but he came across as sincere and caring and curious, and I could sympathize with him as he described a difficult family that was yet full of love. I think it's a case of how people persist in going into caring professions who are in need of care themselves. He certainly doesn't ever seem to have experienced really effective therapy for his serious childhood trauma. But what are we to do when (as Halloran himself says) the mind itself is a mystery we still don't understand?  Trying to pin it down with machine models and tame it with drugs will not work. How can a sick mind heal itself, without merely spreading more illness? We have to keep searching ... 

I came to this book because a podcast I sometimes listen to discussed Naomi Wolf's Jesus experience. I was curious to learn more, and boy, did I -- between this book and a number of other sources. It's a helluva weird story, and I still don't know what to think about that vision of Jesus, nor about the podcasters I used to respect but seemed to have no idea what a Pandora's box they had gotten into.

Naomi Klein does not particularly go into that experience, but she does grapple (from a rationalist point of view) with the current crisis of alternative realities springing up. She's frustrated, angry, and disturbed by the confusion spread at her "double," but is also trying to be both logical and fair,  including her own feelings and personal experience along with research. She makes excellent points about the cruelty and selfishness that underlies much "wellness" culture, and in general helps to pull the curtain aside from a lot of things we don't want to know about. 

It's not easy to read, but there is a gleam of hope at the end when Klein offers an image of caring for a "disabled" planet. I thought of the amazing, unsung caregivers I know and thought, "Yes, we human beings do know how to do that." Even if we often fail at our task.

One thing I would note is that Klein seems reluctant to engage directly with those on the other side of the "mirror", drawing her conclusions from observing them in their online spaces and in brief encounters, but not from extended conversation or relationship. I don't know whether she tried and they refused (as Wolf did). But I find it a weakness that she didn't manage to meet them as humans.

I am still thinking about doubles and mirroring and how we can see through the confusion to the reality that unites us, somewhere behind the shadows. It will be a long journey.

At first I found the storytelling a bit awkward and didactic, but by the end I was caught up in what became a fantastical fable of self-discovery and moral growth. The nod to George MacDonald was apt, and though the writing style remained clunky, it did have some nice lyrical moments. 

I got 2/3 of the way through, but then I read the ending on Wikipedia and decided I did not need to bother with the rest. 

I do not get on with time travel novels which are just about watching the past like virtual reality TV and not actually interacting with it. On top of that, the story in the past was dull, and the people in the present day were unpleasant. Absolutely no idea what Dick and Vita ever saw in each other, and I would not want to be married to either of them.

And finally, how dumb do you have to be to take a drug that will cause you to roam all over the place, mind elsewhere, body doing who knows what? It's remarkable it took so many "trips" before a fatal accident occurred. 

(If this is meant to be a cautionary tale about getting caught up in a fictional story and losing touch with the real world, at least reading books does not involve such obvious physical dangers. Geez.)

I loved 95% of this book, the characters, their retreat into a strange twilight land, their meeting each other, initially as antagonists, and the inevitable rapprochement ... but the "sex as redemption" scene turned me off completely. Le Guin has pulled this card elsewhere, in Tehanu and in the first story of Five Ways to Forgiveness, for example, and it can be done tastefully, but here it just seemed to come out of nowhere, and to be crassly allegorical. The man, after slaying the hideous symbol of his evil mother, has to come back to life by "mounting" (!!!) his female companion. She, meanwhile, seems to have lost all of the voice and agency she had formerly in the story, mutely acquiescing to this role as a sex object (in her "real life" plot thread she's been abused by her stepfather; she appears to be falling into this pattern again, as is all too common). I only wish this aspect of the relationship had been more carried and filled out, and had not been so one-sided. 

There were some magical moments, particularly the revealing of a lost Lipizzaner, but the dated gender roles and glorification of he-man violence somewhat spoiled my enjoyment. 

Beautifully written and translated, a moving story of love and loss with mythological overtones. I loved learning about the Norwegian stave churches and local lore.