I have actually finished my Lent book in Lent (for a change) largely because my employer's hopeless IT department means that I can't actually do any work 😋
I am afraid that I don't really recommend the book, for two reasons:
1. Parsons lived in two very specialised worlds, Thelemic magic and rocket science and a huge amount of the book is spent explaining these two things. I can't speak for the rocket scientists, but for the specialist magical reader this means that what is explained is usually already familiar.
2. We learn next to nothing of Parsons' own inner journey to magic, and the book repeatedly says, if he made notes of this, they have not survived.
What does strike me is that even as a man in his thirties, people keep commenting that Parsons was relatively young and easily-influenced. I have a feeling there is this in a lot of magical people, because there is no natural niche for us we tend to try to find one and fail. On the other hand the magical person would surely benefit from a youthful ability to see anyone as possible?
I am about to be slightly hypocritical, but perhaps Parsons' was a bit of a ditherer (or "fart in a colander...", as my Grandma used to say) and couldn't choose between science and magic as he seems not to have been able to manage them both at the same time?
ReplyDeleteIn related matters, you might enjoy "All the Birds in the Sky" - a sci-fi/magic novel by Charlie Jane Anders. I've read it a couple of times, and really enjoy the science-vs-magic theme. Plus, there's some sex in it too.
He was actually too busy shagging his way through the typing pool!
ReplyDeleteI love your grandmother already.
I will keep an eye out for the book.