Finished 20 July, 2026. Let me start by saying I did enjoy this book. I read it as part of a 'book club' with my father (something I will never agree to do again) and it was, at the very least, an interesting experience to discuss a book like this with someone else reading along.

Ultimately I think that House of Leave's esoteric reputation is not fully deserved. At the risk of potentially spoiling something, this book is a masterclass in exegesis. While it is easy to get wrapped up in the physical format, the bobbing and weaving of chronology, the hodge-podge scavenger hunt of footnotes, it was the layering of the narrative that was most interesting: three nested stories all about the agonizing and terrifying idea of working through what haunts you. There is no way to re-write or change the past and attempting to do so can only ever lead to one of two roads: madness or death. At the core is the Navidson myth, a myth because it is an impossible story that explains the actions of the rest of the characters, and because it takes place in mythic time and space—outside of our own. Then there is the scholarly, academic analysis of the myth (the Zampano layer). After that is the main story, a story about a man who finds the myth, the book, and it changes his life. Lastly there is me, reading it, scrying through the mess what psychic instructions the other is trying to convey: let a book change your life. Have you ever had a book change your life? Its scary, isn't it, when it feels like the floor falls out from underneath you?

Finished 28 June, 2026. Its a nice book. Unfortunately I think that at a certain point I’ve gotten everything I can from Campbell (which has been a lot) and his catalogue becomes a bit repetitive especially with the earlier works before he really solidified his thesis and ideas. I think if you have limited exposure to Campbell this book could have a big impact. The Power of Myth really rocked my world a few years ago, so now this just feels too familiar.

Finished 17 June, 2026. Immaculate, engaging, touching. This is exactly the kind of matieral that drew me into this field in the first place: the passion, the vivacity of language, the depth of the descriptions of Plotkin's experience, his friends, the jungle, the villages, the many plants. I spent a lot of time contemplating the nature of such a well-written "technical" book, yes, even one written for mass consumption, and wrote about it further at length here.

Finished 14 June, 2026. I really wanted to like this book, and unfortunately I didn't. Von Franz is actually kind of grating; constantly making snide and derisive comments at the expense of anthropologists, ethnographers, and folklorists in a way that actually detracts from the potency of her argument. This tone pretty quickly came off as close-minded stubbornness, frequently contradicting herself by complaining that certain mystic elements were excluded from modern folkloristic analysis, while at the same time dismissing every supernatural/paranormal encounter as "mass-hallucinations" experienced by "peasants" or "primitive people". As psychologists and psychoanalysts are wont to do, the framework of interpretation offered within this book is so painfully individualistic that it becomes useless. By insisting that fairytales must come only from the realm of dreams or subconscious psychological archetypes, the complex cultural webs that develop and allow for these archetypes are completely cut out. The "collective" of the so-called "collective unconscious" is ignored, rendering the strength of the whole theory quite pathetic. I usually really enjoy Jungian perspectives, but the biting defensiveness of this work overshadowed anything of value Von Franz might have been able to write about, had she let her theory speak for itself.

Finished 12 June, 2026. Written by an anonymous ascetic in the 14th century, the Cloud of Unknowing is the earliest known work of mystic contemplation written in English (though not modern). Obviously coming from a time and place in which Christianity was not only dominant, but ubiquitous, it not only provides an interesting glimpse into the worldview of late-medieval working Christian mystics, but also a lot of information on meditation and mystic contemplation that would not be out of place in a modern book on the same topics. I think the worth of books like these come not in the specific religion they use as their foundational framework, but rather from the skills and tools they advocate for. Less than 150 pages if you exclude the Book of Privy Council, and I think definitely worth a read.

Finished 10 June, 2026. Wow this book is so gorgeous but it made me so emotional...it reminds me of home, it reminds me of why I do the things I do and love the things I love, it reminds me of my place on this earth and my connection to physical space and the passage of time. I recieved it as a gift from a family friend for winter holidays a year or two ago, and never got around to opening it until now. Maybe I need to stop doing that.

Finished 7 June, 2026. I haven't read the Iliad since high school, and after prowling around Greece a year ago returning to the poem I discovered it transformed. Perhaps it was the theatre of memory, of physical place, or perhaps it was the glory of Wilson's translation. This book is brutal; the descriptions of violence actually made me grimace, and the horror of the battlefield in all its frantic, noisy, bloody, terrible power was electric to read (even where I usually get bored by "dots-on-maps" battle sagas). I read this right on the hills of finishing Herbert Mason's translation of the Gilgamesh, and I was struck by how similar these stories are in their themes of male grief and homoerotic love. Where the Gilgamesh is tender and tragic, agonizingly painful, the Iliad is violent, its raging, its the kind of sadness that makes you want to rip your hair out. And yet, I think, the most powerful statement of the poem is how much of it is dedicated to the countless horrible deaths suffered at the hands of an ultimately petty and useless conflict.