In Illuminating the Way: Embracing the Wisdom of Monks and Mystics, Christine Valters Paintner applies the modern psychological concept of archetype, or “primordial blueprint” in human consciousness, to twelve famous and not-so-famous figures. She then leads readers on a gentle inward journey to hidden insights into their own psyches’ light and shadows. Her choice of monks and mystics is refreshing and unexpected at times: Francis of Assisi, King David, the Virgin Mary, Dorothy Day, Desert Mother Amma Syncletica, Brigid of Kildare, Brendan of Nursia, the Old Testament’s Miriam, Rainier Maria Rilke, Hildegard of Bingen, and Thomas Merton. Each of these provides a basis for an archetype: the Inner Fool, the Sovereign, the Mother, the Orphan, the Warrior, the Healer, the Pilgrim, the Sage, the Prophet, the Artist, the Visionary, and the Monk. She addresses each monk or mystic and his or her related archetype in a separate chapter in which she provides a reflection on the person in question, a discussion of the “light” and “shadow” aspects of each archetype, and a connection to a Gospel story. She then suggests a meditation and a mandala practice. Finally, she lists questions for reflection and includes a poem addressing that monk or mystic as a closing blessing.
Although raised in a Catholic home, I have never felt any real appreciation for long-dead monks, mystics or saints. I believe this is in part because many were rather eccentric and their lives were far removed from my experience of the world. However, Valters Paintner’s application of the concept of archetype to their lives suggested a new lens through which to view my own inner life that I found insightful. For this reason, I think this book has significant value for both personal introspection and for group study.
(Reviewed in exchange for a copy of book via Netgalley.)
In Seasons in My Garden, Sr. Elizabeth Wagner ponders through each season the grounds of her home at the Transfiguration Hermitage in Windsor, Maine to discover thought-provoking meditations and reflections. Sr. Elizabeth often starts with an unexpected observation then gently leads the reader to an equally unanticipated insight. A tree crashing in the road on Christmas Eve leads to questions about human vulnerability and peace. Liturgical ordinary time during summer induces a discovery of the extraordinary in less celebrated moments. Autumn with its final blaze of color provides an opportunity to look inward and see our true selves, or God, as the light begins to diminish. Furthermore, although she encourages readers to follow their own questions to mystery or their dreams, Sr. Elizabeth also provides an interesting account of the daily life and challenges of a contemplative in a semi-eremitical community. In sum, Seasons in My Garden is a lovely book with insights to be savored.
Dickinson in Her Own Times provides a fascinating, unique perspective into the life and work of Emily Dickinson. This book is a compilation of personal letters, interviews, and memoirs by those who knew Dickinson and her work including her family, friends and acquaintances, and her reviewers. These sources provide an almost eyewitness account of the transformation of Dickinson as the brilliant eccentric who broke poetic convention to her status as an almost mythic, literary legend. Beautifully organized, this book begins with documents elucidating Dickinson’s life from girlhood.
When the young daughter of Anna Pigeon’s friend, Heath, becomes the target of a vicious cyber stalker bent on destroying the young girl’s life, all three escape to Boar Island off of the Maine coast, where Anna fills in for an absent chief park ranger. Not long after they arrive, however, they realize the stalker has followed them. At the same time, Anna accidentally becomes the target of an exceedingly disturbed ranger named Denise, who murders the abusive husband of her newly discovered twin.
The Summer Guest is a beautiful novel which interweaves the stories of three women. In the summer of 1888, Zinaida Lintvaryova, a young doctor recently blinded by a terminal illness, begins a journal which records her new friendship with a summer guest on her family’s property in the Ukraine–Anton Chekhov. In London in 2014, Katya, a young Russian immigrant, places great hope in the publication of Zinaida’s journal as she struggles with mysterious marital difficulties and the impending failure of her publishing business. Finally a translator in a small French village becomes enthralled by the possibility of an undiscovered novel by Chekhov that she might translate.
Desiree Alvarez is a poet who imbues reality with the mythic and mystical to create striking imagery. Alvarez, who created the cover art for Devil’s Paintbrush with a flamethrower, is also an artist, which may partly explain her strong visual images. For example in Yours, In Snow, she writes, “Your eyes, smoked blue, are full of mountains / and something beyond that keep me.” In Chorus of Snow Quartz, “Lichen glows as if a place could be a lover.” In Indian Elephant, the speaker slips out at night to “watch the pearls of gulls string the abandoned pier.” In Familiar where the speaker mourns her dog, “the wind blew a hole right through me in the shape of a dog running on my first night without you.” Given the beauty of her words, it comes as no surprise that Alvarez has won numerous awards, fellowships and residences, including the 2015 May Sarton New Hampshire Poetry Prize for Devil’s Paintbrush. For those who seek a haunting line, Devil’s Paintbrush provides ample material to savor.
In Charlotte Bronte: A Fiery Heart, Claire Harman tackles the life of one of the most famous women writers in British history. In just under four-hundred pages, Harman relates Bronte’s life from birth until her untimely death from what Harman believes was hyperemesis gravidarum resulting from a pregnancy during her brief, but happy marriage to Arthur Nicholls. Along the way, Harman details Bronte’s isolated childhood, her difficult years as a teacher and governess, her yearning to return to her family, her unrequited passion for two men, her and her sisters’ struggles to become published, the death of her siblings, and the celebrity her work eventually engendered. Through this biography, Harman establishes Bronte as a surprisingly strong, at times difficult, but passionate woman who relied deeply on her own experiences to create her work. As a result of Bronte’s close ties to her sisters, Harman also provides interesting insights into Emily and Anne Bronte’s lives. For those intrigued by the woman behind Jane Eyre and Villette, this meticulously researched and detailed biography is sure to please.
In Death of an Alchemist, an old man—with a macaw and a cat as his only companions—is on the verge of publishing a recipe for immortality when he suddenly dies in his sleep. Given the year is 1543, fast-acting pestilence of many types abounds. Nevertheless, Bianca Goddard, daughter of an alchemist and maker of medicines, suspects he was murdered. Was it the physician whose daughter is gravely ill, the fellow alchemist, the usurer owed money, or the alchemist’s rogue son-in-law? As people begin dropping like flies, can Goddard, with the help of her old friend Meddybemps, solve the mystery? Can she understand the recipe in time to save her own husband imperiled by the sweat?
This novel is the story of Otto Laird, an elderly, physically- and mentally-failing architect who returns after a long absence to London to save one of his buildings marked for demolition. The once brilliant, now dilapidated building mirrors Laird’s own life. As a crew films Laird returning to and living in the building for several days, Laird reviews his life: his childhood hidden in a cellar during World War II, his early joy in meeting his first wife as a student in London and designing the building in question, their later troubled marriage and his troubled fatherhood as his career soared, his reconciliation with his wife, and finally his devastation by her death.