jessicaschafer's review
challenging
informative
reflective
medium-paced
3.5
This reads more like a series of individual essays rather than a coherent book, but I still found a lot of compelling and thought provoking ideas. The language was occasionally a little too dense for a non-academic work, but overall I enjoyed it.
nvblue's review
1.0
Rating: one star.
The Flowering Wand is a book that is desperately in need of an editor, not for spelling or grammatical mistakes, I didn’t find any, rather the author tried to deal with too many subjects and draw too many ties, and she failed in both her aims. The book is a slender tome, nominally reaching 200 pages, but the text of the book itself, devotes slightly less than 150 pages to the chapters themselves. This is an issue because there is a total of 33(!) chapters in the book, each attempting to deal with a different myth or a different aspect of a myth. Five pages is simply not enough room to explain the intricacies of a myth, let alone expound and extrapolate upon the myth effectively. With a bit of work, the length of this book could have been increased, or the number of myths decreased. Sadly, the topical handling of the myths by the author failed to be impactful or adequately explanatory.
Sophie has an excellent narrative voice, a wide vocabulary and engaging prose. Although I did not enjoy this book and found the prose to be a more than a tad too effluviant, with a little editing the author’s future works could be greatly improved. She has obviously done a lot of thinking and cursory research for this book, and her passion for fungi flows onto every page.
The title and introduction of the book is disconnected from the actual contents, and each chapter is more of a stand-alone essay rather than a part in a flowing narrative. The title and subtitle of the book The Flowering Wand: Rewilding the Sacred Masculine and the introduction, seem to imply that the iconography and conception of masculinity needs to be divorced from violence, social hierarchy and whatnot, and I agree with the author in her stance. She opens the book immediately with the contention that the wand is a better symbol for masculinity than the sword. This is hardly a new argument, but it is a good one. The sword, in spite of its modern romantic associations, is the ancient equivalent of a rifle. Mythically speaking, a wand is a more versatile representation of masculinity, because it has the power to heal and harm. The author briefly touches on these aspects and then moves on. Once we get into the book itself, the focus shifts and turns into more of a critique on the patriarchy, monotheism, and gender roles, which can all be well and good, but the change in focus left me jarred and disappointed.
The author is clearly very passionate about fungi and fungal networks, however, not every argument requires a fungal analogy, many of the analogies detracted and distracted from the actual myth. Throughout the course of reading the book, the incessant, and largely, unnecessarily infusion of fungal references became quite grating. Once again, if the analogies had been fleshed out, expounded upon and fully integrated into the narrative it would have been redundant but acceptable, rather they just detracted from the message of the chapters.
In addition to stylistic issues, there are some issues with content and logic that mar the book.
Jumping into the first chapter, the author states ‘The God of the Old Testament is, above all else, a storm god.’ And then proceeds to make comparisons between the ‘storm gods’ from other mythologies and cultures. The issue is that any nuanced investigation of myths, cannot make effective use of a category such as ‘storm or sky’ god. These categories did not exist in the minds of ancient worshipers, these are categories created by researchers and moderns to place myths into nice and tidy little boxes. Logic and argumentation built on generalizations of ‘sky gods’ or for that matter, any other category of divinity types, falls apart under close scrutiny. The author’s approach to the myths and her argumentation requires a nuance and detailed understanding of the subject that was not displayed.
I won’t address each chapter, but I would like to point out a couple of other issues. In Chapter 3 the author states “The creation of Genesis itself was a covert attempt by a new priestly class to prove the Jewish people’s right of origin, establish a new temple, concretize a code of law, and defend the right of the Jews to the land of Judea”. While this may be true of parts of Genesis, namely the Abrahamic Covenant and the adventures of Isaac and Jacob, the author misapplies the scholarly observation above, and insists that the act of Adam naming the animals is an example of establishing a right of origin. The author patently takes her source out of context, and what is worse, the above quote didn’t even need to be in the text. Within the paragraph, the sentences before and after this excerpt do not hinge in any way on the quote. In fact the passage reads much more smoothly if this is omitted. A firm editor should have pruned it and investigated the source of the material.
Another example is a line in Chapter 4 which says ‘the millions of women, femmes, and queer people who were murdered during the Inquisition for their pagan spiritual practices’. This statement, besides be categorically false and untrue, also didn’t need to be included. The paragraph was better off without it, it wasn’t tangential to any argument. I won’t get into the details of the historiography of the Inquisitions, but there is no reliable modern historian who would make such a ludicrous statement. Unfortunately, these kind of throw away, erroneous, non-tangential sentences and half arguments littered the book, and spoiled the appeal.
I hope that in the future, the author is able to narrow her focus and find a good editor capable of pruning her prose and argumentation. I could not, in good conscience, recommend this book to anyone.
Cross posted on my blog at https://adruidinthedesert.wordpress.com/2023/01/25/book-review-the-flowering-wand-rewilding-the-sacred-masculine/
The Flowering Wand is a book that is desperately in need of an editor, not for spelling or grammatical mistakes, I didn’t find any, rather the author tried to deal with too many subjects and draw too many ties, and she failed in both her aims. The book is a slender tome, nominally reaching 200 pages, but the text of the book itself, devotes slightly less than 150 pages to the chapters themselves. This is an issue because there is a total of 33(!) chapters in the book, each attempting to deal with a different myth or a different aspect of a myth. Five pages is simply not enough room to explain the intricacies of a myth, let alone expound and extrapolate upon the myth effectively. With a bit of work, the length of this book could have been increased, or the number of myths decreased. Sadly, the topical handling of the myths by the author failed to be impactful or adequately explanatory.
Sophie has an excellent narrative voice, a wide vocabulary and engaging prose. Although I did not enjoy this book and found the prose to be a more than a tad too effluviant, with a little editing the author’s future works could be greatly improved. She has obviously done a lot of thinking and cursory research for this book, and her passion for fungi flows onto every page.
The title and introduction of the book is disconnected from the actual contents, and each chapter is more of a stand-alone essay rather than a part in a flowing narrative. The title and subtitle of the book The Flowering Wand: Rewilding the Sacred Masculine and the introduction, seem to imply that the iconography and conception of masculinity needs to be divorced from violence, social hierarchy and whatnot, and I agree with the author in her stance. She opens the book immediately with the contention that the wand is a better symbol for masculinity than the sword. This is hardly a new argument, but it is a good one. The sword, in spite of its modern romantic associations, is the ancient equivalent of a rifle. Mythically speaking, a wand is a more versatile representation of masculinity, because it has the power to heal and harm. The author briefly touches on these aspects and then moves on. Once we get into the book itself, the focus shifts and turns into more of a critique on the patriarchy, monotheism, and gender roles, which can all be well and good, but the change in focus left me jarred and disappointed.
The author is clearly very passionate about fungi and fungal networks, however, not every argument requires a fungal analogy, many of the analogies detracted and distracted from the actual myth. Throughout the course of reading the book, the incessant, and largely, unnecessarily infusion of fungal references became quite grating. Once again, if the analogies had been fleshed out, expounded upon and fully integrated into the narrative it would have been redundant but acceptable, rather they just detracted from the message of the chapters.
In addition to stylistic issues, there are some issues with content and logic that mar the book.
Jumping into the first chapter, the author states ‘The God of the Old Testament is, above all else, a storm god.’ And then proceeds to make comparisons between the ‘storm gods’ from other mythologies and cultures. The issue is that any nuanced investigation of myths, cannot make effective use of a category such as ‘storm or sky’ god. These categories did not exist in the minds of ancient worshipers, these are categories created by researchers and moderns to place myths into nice and tidy little boxes. Logic and argumentation built on generalizations of ‘sky gods’ or for that matter, any other category of divinity types, falls apart under close scrutiny. The author’s approach to the myths and her argumentation requires a nuance and detailed understanding of the subject that was not displayed.
I won’t address each chapter, but I would like to point out a couple of other issues. In Chapter 3 the author states “The creation of Genesis itself was a covert attempt by a new priestly class to prove the Jewish people’s right of origin, establish a new temple, concretize a code of law, and defend the right of the Jews to the land of Judea”. While this may be true of parts of Genesis, namely the Abrahamic Covenant and the adventures of Isaac and Jacob, the author misapplies the scholarly observation above, and insists that the act of Adam naming the animals is an example of establishing a right of origin. The author patently takes her source out of context, and what is worse, the above quote didn’t even need to be in the text. Within the paragraph, the sentences before and after this excerpt do not hinge in any way on the quote. In fact the passage reads much more smoothly if this is omitted. A firm editor should have pruned it and investigated the source of the material.
Another example is a line in Chapter 4 which says ‘the millions of women, femmes, and queer people who were murdered during the Inquisition for their pagan spiritual practices’. This statement, besides be categorically false and untrue, also didn’t need to be included. The paragraph was better off without it, it wasn’t tangential to any argument. I won’t get into the details of the historiography of the Inquisitions, but there is no reliable modern historian who would make such a ludicrous statement. Unfortunately, these kind of throw away, erroneous, non-tangential sentences and half arguments littered the book, and spoiled the appeal.
I hope that in the future, the author is able to narrow her focus and find a good editor capable of pruning her prose and argumentation. I could not, in good conscience, recommend this book to anyone.
Cross posted on my blog at https://adruidinthedesert.wordpress.com/2023/01/25/book-review-the-flowering-wand-rewilding-the-sacred-masculine/
serian's review
mysterious
fast-paced
2.5
Full acknowledgment that I don't think I'm the target audience for this book - I think Strand assumes her readers are very familiar with myths and tarot. I'm interested in a lot of the themes it covers, but it's a step away from my usual entry point.
There are some really interesting ideas in this book and there were odd paragraphs that I thought were insightful. But overall, I don't think it holds together. I don't think Strand had quite worked out what she was trying to do with the book and so the structure is weak. She rushes from point to point, without giving herself space to get into her argument and sit there. She's referencing a host of religions and myths from varied cultures, Tolkein, modern life, health, environment, indigeneity, connection, community, masculinity, etc. She quotes and references a very wide range of authors. And while these things are linked, the speed at which she does it doesn't give space for her conclusions to come out.
There are some really interesting ideas in this book and there were odd paragraphs that I thought were insightful. But overall, I don't think it holds together. I don't think Strand had quite worked out what she was trying to do with the book and so the structure is weak. She rushes from point to point, without giving herself space to get into her argument and sit there. She's referencing a host of religions and myths from varied cultures, Tolkein, modern life, health, environment, indigeneity, connection, community, masculinity, etc. She quotes and references a very wide range of authors. And while these things are linked, the speed at which she does it doesn't give space for her conclusions to come out.
sofinch's review
can we ever have a good spirituality book that is not Instantly Weird About Judaism ™ ??? Protip stop using the King James Bible, the translation probably most far-removed from the actual text and meaning of the Torah, as your translation if you want to do textual analysis with any kind of contextual accuracy or validity
dnf’d at the phrase “women, femmes, and queers” in reference to people killed in…the inquisition?? hey you know who else was killed in the inquisition-
dnf’d at the phrase “women, femmes, and queers” in reference to people killed in…the inquisition?? hey you know who else was killed in the inquisition-
asylveriara's review
5.0
Sophie Strand's writing is a balm for our frayed nervous systems and weakened guts, in a time where our collective imagination has atrophied to polarized belief systems with supremacist mythological underpinnings. "The Flowering Wand" replants our thinking into the animate earth, and shows us multiplicity and possibility for all humans, those who identify as men and those who don't, to radically care for our human and non-human kin and to listen to our different, yet interwoven, stories.