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Rating: 
Summary: Please Chop Off My Head
Review: Things I like about this book that have nothing whatsoever to do with it's content: Nifty shade of red on the cover, it's not too big and in my recent aquisition of a crippled mental state not too intimidating, Marie Louise von Franz's name, the charming and magnetic ugliness shared by both MLVF and Flannery O' Conner that I find endearing and fasncinating and which makes me want to call them both up (I know I know they're dead) and invite them over for fresh bread and tea, the fact that it has the word "meaning" in the title something which I would desperately like in my life in some form at the present moment,and the fact that in my purchasing of it I got two, count em', two stamps on my card at Tidal Wave Books and am that much closer to my ten bucks worth of book credit at that aforementioned establishment.Things I like about this book that have specifically to do with it's content: Von Franz is amazingly to the point. (Unfortunately for those of us looking to BE redeemed, often the point is that there is no set way to do that. [A formula, a formula, my kingdom for a formula] But, I won't hold that against her.) There's a ton of stuff behind what she's saying and she lets you know that without getting bogged down in it. She edits herself well. What amazes me is that this book is basically transcribed notes from a series of lectures, so she's doing all this editing verbally. That's cool. The subject is also cool. What she's looking at is 1) which events in fairy tales indicate themes of redemption (beating, chopping off body parts, bathing, burning, and the tossing on and off of animal skins) and 2)what the heck that might mean to me. Here's the amazing thing: she actually does make it mean something to me. Slight Digression: I have a German father and I was read all those gruesome little Grimm fairy tales as a child. I loved them, but I wasn't in the habit of thinking that they were particularly applicable to my personal life. I mean, there's not a whole bunch of talking animals and evil stepmothers chopping my sisters up into itty bitty pieces in my life. But, low and behold, I read Von Franz, and I see "Oh, maybe I have been walking around in a donkey-skin after all." Back to the Book content Bit: VF intersperses her commentary with dreams and case histories of her patients, quotes from Konrad Lorenz about animal behavior, and stories about her dog. She makes it all work. She doesn't give us any set format for how we should go about being redeemed, but rather, gives us a sort of verbal map of the great territory such a subject covers. She lets us peek through the door at the force behind the symbols that manifest themselves in dreams and fairytales that points us to our individual "right way". Right On. Last Digression: Oh, I wish I could have her to tea.
Rating:
Summary: Please Chop Off My Head
Review: Things I like about this book that have nothing whatsoever to do with it's content: Nifty shade of red on the cover, it's not too big and in my recent aquisition of a crippled mental state not too intimidating, Marie Louise von Franz's name, the charming and magnetic ugliness shared by both MLVF and Flannery O' Conner that I find endearing and fasncinating and which makes me want to call them both up (I know I know they're dead) and invite them over for fresh bread and tea, the fact that it has the word "meaning" in the title something which I would desperately like in my life in some form at the present moment,and the fact that in my purchasing of it I got two, count em', two stamps on my card at Tidal Wave Books and am that much closer to my ten bucks worth of book credit at that aforementioned establishment. Things I like about this book that have specifically to do with it's content: Von Franz is amazingly to the point. (Unfortunately for those of us looking to BE redeemed, often the point is that there is no set way to do that. [A formula, a formula, my kingdom for a formula] But, I won't hold that against her.) There's a ton of stuff behind what she's saying and she lets you know that without getting bogged down in it. She edits herself well. What amazes me is that this book is basically transcribed notes from a series of lectures, so she's doing all this editing verbally. That's cool. The subject is also cool. What she's looking at is 1) which events in fairy tales indicate themes of redemption (beating, chopping off body parts, bathing, burning, and the tossing on and off of animal skins) and 2)what the heck that might mean to me. Here's the amazing thing: she actually does make it mean something to me. Slight Digression: I have a German father and I was read all those gruesome little Grimm fairy tales as a child. I loved them, but I wasn't in the habit of thinking that they were particularly applicable to my personal life. I mean, there's not a whole bunch of talking animals and evil stepmothers chopping my sisters up into itty bitty pieces in my life. But, low and behold, I read Von Franz, and I see "Oh, maybe I have been walking around in a donkey-skin after all." Back to the Book content Bit: VF intersperses her commentary with dreams and case histories of her patients, quotes from Konrad Lorenz about animal behavior, and stories about her dog. She makes it all work. She doesn't give us any set format for how we should go about being redeemed, but rather, gives us a sort of verbal map of the great territory such a subject covers. She lets us peek through the door at the force behind the symbols that manifest themselves in dreams and fairytales that points us to our individual "right way". Right On. Last Digression: Oh, I wish I could have her to tea.
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