Location: United Kingdom
Member Since: Jan. 13, 2015

CecBar

Smashwords book reviews by CecBar

  • Psyche's Garden on Jan. 22, 2015

    Psyche’s Garden is mythic fiction of a sophisticated literary variety, and mythology enthusiasts should be excited by this novel. Myfanwy Tilley successfully conveys the metaphysical elements of the ancient Psyche and Cupid myth into a contemporary Australian social and environmental landscape. This novel can indeed be read at many levels, but I particularly enjoyed the treatment of (Neo-) Platonic and Aristotelian philosophies (and several of their ‘philosophical descendants’), along which lines the story proceeds and the characters play their part, as well as illuminating ways of how we understand our world. But this novel delves deeper than purely a western cultural understanding of the world. There is reference - although never explicit - to Australian indigenous religion, reminding the reader that ways of viewing the world are culturally determined. The beginning of the novel is whimsical at times, but the reader is gradually drawn into a very sombre world filled with delusion, madness and violence. However, there is redemption, and the novel ends happily enough and with a promise of renewal. The author’s descriptions are evocative. The prose is often beautiful and, at other times, exquisitely poetic. This is a book I would very much like to have on my bookshelf.