The Uncommon Reader

* * * * (4 stars)
Alan Bennett
Faber and Faber Limited, Great Britain,
and Farrar, Straus and Giroux, U.S., 2007
Hardback
ISBN 0374280967

First, I have to admit that I do not read much fiction because the blend of reality confuses me. I cannot always tell fact from fiction. The Uncommon Reader is a case in point because it seems to use real people in a fictional plot. Or, is the plot fictional? I’m pretty sure the queen of England is real as are some of the other prominent figures mentioned throughout the novella.

I suppose one brings to any book one’s own projections. While another person might have found this story about the joy of reading, I saw a more subversiive story. The Uncommon Reader is about addiction. The queen’s new found discovery seems insatiable as she progresses to more and more stimulating material. Her duties become a nuisance and her staff resentful of the substance that has changed her predictable scripts. The queen’s staff is so angry, they begin to hide her stash and do away with her supplier. However, those measures do not stop the queen from obtaining her next fix because she is the queen afterall. When the staff cannot beat the queen’s addiction for her, even after an intervetion or two, they resort to the only behavior a codependent can. They enable her.

I find myself wondering if the authori’s purpose was to promote literacy and if he received permission from the queen to utilize her for his purpose. Does he hit the mark? I am inclined to read the books mentioned in the story, but I am afraid of addiction myself. My understanding is that fiction does instill compassion in its readers. Who can’t use a little, or lot, of compassion? If you are not a reader of fiction, I D.A.R.E. you to read this book.

Reviewed by Kelli Frankenberg

True Magick, A Beginner's Guide

* * * * (4 stars)
AmberK
Llewellyn Publications, 1994
Paperback
ISBN 0-87542-003-6

It's 15 years old, it's not very big, it's been reviewed or recommended countless times. It's likely to be on any magic-practicing Pagan's “must-have” booklist. Lately, my copy's been calling out to me.

Rereading it takes me back 15 years, to a time when I took classes from AmberK. What struck me then was her encyclopedic knowledge of Wicca. In those days, I didn't know enough to understand how much of Wicca was based in ceremonial magic, but I knew I wasn't much interested in aspergers, athames, and bollines.

My bias: I know more now, and I'm even less interested in ceremonial magic and ritual (are they indistinguishable?), no matter which Pagan tradition I find them in. They have little to do with my spiritual practice or spiritual worldview. I do believe in “magic” (several kinds), but too often the practice of “Magick” doesn't live up to its potential for being a useful tool for personal or planetary transformation.

In AmberK's last chapter, “Your Magickal Education Continues,” she talks of Nature as teacher, and recounts several of her magickal experiences of Self and Mother Earth. She recounts the wisdom a tree-teacher shared – the use of its branch-shadows for divination:

“Keep your heart open, and your mind quiet, and I will lead you to the right choice for you.”

It's in this chapter that my experience most resonates with hers. And yet, when I look back to my early days as a Pagan (and back then, “Pagan” wasn't my primary identification), I acknowledge that AmberK's book was an important introduction to a worldview that informed me of many things, some of which I eventually rejected.

Useful material for anyone:

• Evaluating Teachers (from ch. 2): traits to look for (positive and negative)
• How Magick Works (ch. 4): the Laws of Magick boiled down to four components, along with a discussion of the three-part model of the self (High Self, Middle Self, Younger Self)
• Preparing Yourself for Magick (ch. 5): she begins at the beginning – the mundane must not be neglected in pursuit of the metaphysical (though she falls into an unfortunate new-age pitfall when, in her exhortation to magickal practitioners to take responsibility for themselves, she states that “everything in your life … is there because you chose it”)
• The Pyramid of Magick (from ch. 7): this 6-dimensional model of personal power could be used by anyone interested in spiritual practice (the base of the pyramid: knowledge; its 4-sides: creative imagination, will of steel, living faith, ability to keep silent; it's inner space/structure: love)
• Ethics and Hazards (ch. 12): the ethics section is minimal, but the author does a good job, in a few pages, of discussing one of the most overlooked, undertaught realities of undertaking a conscious magic(k)al practice: there are risks involved across the realms, magical and mundane. It is these seven pages, in fact, that decide my 4-star rating.

Reviewed by Sage