Forgotten Beatitudes

4 Comments

1. superdave524

   Posted December 26, 2009 at 10:56 am | Permalink

   What’re some of his projects?

2. Quakerjono

   Posted December 26, 2009 at 12:50 pm | Permalink

   His masterwork is probably the Mythago Wood series, which can be hard to find. There are four main books: Mythago Wood, Lavondyss, The Hollowing and Avilion, plus several other short stories and novellas amounting to about seven books total. It’s a deep dive into the the nature of myth drawing heavily on sources like Joseph Campbell and Carl Jung to mix them with Bronze Age British Isles archetypes. I can not recommend it highly enough if you have ANY interest in modern interpretations of mythology and the very essence of myth.

   He also has another cycle, the Merlin Codex, consisting of three books. Again, drawing heavily on mythological archetypes, but breathing life into them, he retells the Arthurian legends, but through the eyes of Merlin. Don’t ask me how, exactly, but he draws Greek myths of Medea and Jason into Arthurian legends using Merlin as the crossing point. It’s very…creative, but perhaps not my favorite retelling of Arthur and that time. Paradoxically, it gives it a probably much more accurate portrayal than many other attempts, though.

   His books aren’t “pretty”. They’re gritty and they grub around in the collective subconscious like a maniacal pig rooting out a golden truffle, but they’re also some of the most brilliantly conceived and freshly imagined fantasy out there. I rarely read that genre anymore, but these books had me holding out hope.

3. superdave524

   Posted December 29, 2009 at 11:57 am | Permalink

   I’ll give one a whirl.

4. Jim

   Posted March 13, 2010 at 2:30 pm | Permalink

   Nice comments about Rob…