Planets in Synastry: Astrological Patterns of Relationships (The Planet Series)

Rating:
Summary: Fresh insights
Review: E.W. Neville (no clues as to whether the author is 'he' or 'she'!) has written an excellent and thoughtful book that covers not only direct chart comparison techniques, but also aspects in the composite chart.

Written, one feels, with much experience in the field of both synastry and orthodox relationship counselling/analysis, the book is compassionate and offers telling insights into to the dynamics that drive human beings to try and form relationships in the first place.

It is a delightful book and, even with almost 10 years experience as a consultant astrologer, I still rate as one of the best books about synastry on teh market - bar none.

Quibbles? A few! The author fails, for some unknown reason, to include same-planet combinations, e.g. Mercury-Mercury, Sun-Sun, etc, etc.

Important planet-angle aspects, too, appear to be excluded from the text. And the text is, very occasionally, disconcertingly blunt, along the lines of, "with this tricky aspect in the composite chart, the relationship is unlikely to survive". Such blunt pronouncements about discreet placements goes against the experience of the professional astrologer, who very often does see couples whose relationship has survived, even thrived, one irritating synastric aspect notwithstanding! Perhaps later editions will tone down these often jarring statements, which tend to veer from the tone of humane understanding that the author displays elsewhere.

As you can guess, I am a big fan of this book. It outshines other texts on the same subject, partly because of its highly literate style - sadly, something that is too often missing in most astrological literature. Both the intermediate astrologer, as well as more advanced ones, should find plenty of golden nuggets to mine in this unique book. And no, I neither know nor am related to the author!!

John Little B.Sc Consultant Astrologer

Rating:
Summary: Useful but idiosyncratic view of astrological relationships
Review: If this book is likely to be useful to you, you'll understand what I mean when I say that E.W. Neville is a highly Uranian individual. Though one can tell he's making an effort to rein in his hobbyhorses, this book is still heavily colored (too heavily, in my opinion) by his personal experiences and prejudices.

This can be seen, for example, in his upgrading of Uranus to basically equal importance in relationships with Venus and Mars--a judgment I suspect few astrologers would concur with. It's also reflected in some odd, unexplained choices--for example, leaving out relationships between identical planets (Sun/Sun, Moon/Moon, etc.) and omitting aspects between Mercury and all the planets from Jupiter outward. Isn't communication a key part of relationships?

But most basically, his idiosyncracy is shown by the elaborate scripts he lays out with virtually each aspect he delineates. "Venus will do this, while Pluto will do that"--leaving aside the very important concept of free will, there's insufficient recognition that any single aspect is just one of a few dozen astrological influences on a relationship.

The book does cover the quincunx aspect, which is often left out by other books, though the readings of this aspect are almost always highly negative--often worse than the square, which makes little sense to me. Neville does thoroughly cover composite chart reading as well as synastric comparison.

I don't want to discourage people too much from buying this book--there is much insight into astrological symbolism here, and for that it is useful. But one could wish it in a more open-ended and less dogmatic form.

Rating:
Summary: Fresh insights
Review: Neville's work is a good text to add your astrology library. This book's one outstanding characteristic is that it periodically departs from traditional interpretations to give some thought provoking insights into the dynamics of relationship analysis. Neville is also one of the few astrologers to address the quincunx in synastry and composite chart analysis. However, his interpretations are almost always negative for this aspect, and I have not found this aspect to be as horrible as he frequently suggests.

Neville's book has an interesting structure to it. It begins with a thought provoking discussion on relationship dynamics. When we get to the actual interpretations, he provides a brief synopsis (often humorous) for the conjunction, trine, sextile, square, opposition and quincunx aspects in both the synastry and composite charts (and presents them on the same page). At the end of the book he presents a case study.

However, there are a few problems with his book. First, he periodically pontificates and his tone can be quite jarring. For example, for the aspect "Mars opposite Saturn" in the composite chart he says, "Only if one sees marriage or other intimate commitments as an indoor form of bullfighting would this be a useful aspect in a partnership. Even then, the mortality rate would be high and the life expectancy of the relationship short" (242). This sounds very heavy handed. In fact, in one of the longest running Hollywood marriages, the marriage between Sophia Loren and Carlo Ponti, there is a T square with Mars opposite Saturn and both squared to Pluto. It may sound ominous, but they made it work! Here is a great example of the power of free will.

Additionally, His primary focus is on chart aspects between Sun, Moon, Venus, Mars and Uranus. Mercury, Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune and Pluto are treated as "secondary planets," which suggests a negligible influence. This goes against my experience. Mercury, Jupiter and Saturn are very important in synastry and composite chart analysis. He also omits examining cross aspects between like planets, such as Sun to Sun, Moon to Moon, Venus to Venus, etc. He totally omits Ascendant and Midheaven aspects. He is also very fond of the planet Uranus and seems a bit too generous in proclaiming its great qualities.

Neville examines the planets through the houses in both the composite and synastry charts, and frequently his examples are quite good. For example, for the synastry placement of "Mars in the eighth house," he says, "This overlay is responsible for most 'double takes:' that neck wrenching response when another person reaches across a room or crosswalk and hits us right in our procreative urges" (117). His candidness is humorous. Although I don't always agree with him, he does offer stimulating analysis that's worth considering.

If you need information on how to construct charts by hand, then this book will not be enough. This book focuses on relationship dynamics and aspects. However, there is quite a bit of free software available for beginners who do not know how to construct a chart. Astrologer Allen Edwall created software that generates synastry, composite and relationship charts that you can download for free. The program is called MatchMkr. Type his name in your favorite search engine to get to his website. Also you might want to browse zdnet and tucows download center to see what other software is available. Just type "astrology" in their download section search box.

At times this book was exasperating. But overall, it is useful and provocative. It's nice to see fresh interpretations for aspects, and Neville does that with ease.

Rating:
Summary: Too negative and often questionable
Review: While there is some merit in this book, especially inclusion of the composite chart, I am becoming more and more reluctant to pick it up when examining synastry charts. I approach this book with caution and brace myself for negative responses.

Neville does try to give a best and worst case scenario, however both of these views tend to be too final and often smug in my opinion, without, for instance, showing any sensitivity to other factors that may have influence.

Some of the interpretations are down right negative with little to back them up. For example, Moon falling in the 4th house is completely unworkable for a committed relationship, as is Venus in the 6th. He obviously favours Uranus and especially 11th house placements above all else, while excluding the incredible importance of Jupiter and Saturn. He shows a definite bias towards certain houses and planets.

I now take most of what he says with a grain of salt. There is not enough consideration of subtle psychological forces at play in synastry, in my opinion, and I have come across many workable relationships that prove his insights wrong.