Becoming Laura Ingalls Wilder: The Woman Behind the Legend (Missouri Biography Series)

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Legends have attached themselves to Laura Ingalls Wilder, beloved author of the eight Little House novels, but what are the facts? Fans are familiar with her early pioneer years up to her marriage, at age 19, to Almanzo Wilder. But before this biography, little has been known about her adult years. This detail-packed biography amends that. John E. Miller has availed himself of myriad primary sources--Ingalls Wilder's unpublished autobiography, letters, her newspaper stories, and other documentary materials. Miller's approach is to track her evolution into one of American's most popular children's writers, a formidable challenge, because she left behind little in the way of personal revelation. Published between 1932 and 1943, the Little House novels were immediately seized upon; strangely, Ingalls Wilder did not begin her career as a novelist until she was in her mid-60s.

What happened between the adolescent years, dramatized in her novels, and the period between 1943 and 1957, when she was basking in the glow of her readers' affection? "To write her 'autobiographical' novels," Miller notes, "Wilder needed to undergo a process of becoming, which depended heavily upon the inheritance that she had received both from her family and, across the years, from the various environments in which she lived."

One minor flaw in this otherwise reverent biography is Miller's incredulity that such an ordinary, farm-town woman could become such a famous and sophisticated author. He strains to identify the extraordinary, formative moments--Wilder's various memberships in local political organizations; her apprenticeship as a farm-journal columnist; her relationship with her talented and precocious daughter, Rose. More interesting is his curiosity about how she came to be an independent career woman in a time of limited options for women, in a place (the Ozarks of Missouri) remote, isolated, and tradition bound.

Ingalls Wilder's daughter, the extraordinary Rose Wilder Lane (prominent in the American literary scenes in the 1920s and 1930s), had a major role in the production of her mother's novels. Indeed, the remarkable mother-daughter relationship itself makes the book well-worth reading. Laura would learn to write from her daughter; however Miller argues against the widely held belief that it was Rose Lane's sophisticated writing skills that transformed and polished her mother's novels.

Miller begins with the history of the Ingalls family and their first settlement, which was in Wisconsin along the banks of the Mississippi River. The history unfolds at a sprightly pace and paints the hardscrabble pioneer life in bright colors--the family's search for good farmland that drives them to Missouri; the physical challenges of the prairie; plagues of locusts; the fragile farm economy; and the burgeoning immigrant population. This biography will appeal to readers already hooked by the Little House series and hungry for the facts of Laura Ingalls Wilder's life independent of the myths that grew out of her fiction. --Hollis Giammatteo

Customer Reviews:

Wish it were a little more personal........2007-02-24

I found this to be a good book, although I wish the author would have personalized Laura a little more. The ongoing battle between mother and daughter might have been overemphasized, but one comes to learn that this probably worked for both of them. I found a lot of good information, but the statistics were a little much. I found myself reading between the lines and wanted to get back to the meat of the story...Laura.

I recommend this book to any Wilder fan, for it does give us a glimpse into the woman she really was. Like anyone else, Laura was only human, faults and all.

Meloni Cassidy
Author of Everlasting Journey

Want to read a colorful biography or a dry history book?.......2006-08-31

I purchased this book to read about how Laura Ingalls Wilder became the celebrated author of the Little House series of books. I was very disappointed, therefore, that this uninsightful, dry, fragmented, and repetitious tome read more like a bad history book with too many statistics, facts and figures, rather than character analysis, leaving me with no more knowledge of Laura's character than before I read it. For example, after describing ad nauseum all the organizations and activities one could possibly participate in their town, the author states that we do not know if Laura and her family enjoyed any of them. It was frustrating to constantly read the words "probably, maybe, if, we can presume ....." The author makes too many assumptions and repeatedly expresses his inability to accurately understand and relay Laura's personal feelings due to the unfortunate lack of diaries, letters, and journals left behind by Mrs. Wilder. Relying too much on her daughter, Rose's writings, he portrays Laura as an overprotective, condescending, controlling mother and a domineering wife who refused to vow to obey her husband during their wedding. Miller is not quite sure he even believes Rose's unflattering portrayal of her mother, because she was mentally ill and emotionally unstable herself. This book contains so much one-sided information about Laura's daughter that it should instead be titled Becoming Rose Wilder Lane.

Well-Researched and Most Interesting.......2005-12-21

Becoming Laura Ingalls Wilder is a wonderfully written, detailed account of the real-life, complex woman that scores of American children grew to love through Wilder's award-winning "Little House" series of books. Author, John E. Miller is to be commended for his work, since his was no easy undertaking in telling the story of the celebrated author, who experienced more than a fair share of financial struggles and setbacks, as well as a stormy, difficult relationship with her only child, Rose Wilder Lane.

Faithful readers first got to know Laura and the Ingalls family through Wilder's charming, semi-autobiographical stories of the family's pioneering experiences, as they eked out an existence during the latter part of the 19th Century. John Miller's superbly researched biography brings to palpability the rather ordinary and unexceptional people who later became the characters in Laura's charming stories, elevated to their iconic status by the passage of time and the beauty of Laura's simplistic, unique brand of prose. Miller carefully crafts Laura's story with careful, concurrent attention to the rapidly changing world around Laura's "Little House" stories and the result provides for fascinating reading, steeped in American history. In so telling Laura's story, however, Miller also was confronted with the complicated task of exploring the rather unpleasant, antagonistic relationship shared between Laura and Rose in all the starkness and raw-nerve quality it probably is deserving of, since the information was derived primarily from journals of and correspondence between mother and daughter and not tempered by the author's personal contact, knowledge or emotional involvement with either person.

Miller (wisely) seems to side-step the loaded topic that Rose ghost-wrote her mother's novels. It appears, he himself does not personally subscribe to the idea, yet he handles the issues fairly in his presentation of some of the following facts: Rose typed and edited her mother's hand-written manuscripts, as well as converted the narrations of Laura's writings from first person (which was the style Laura was most comfortable with and therefore utilized in all of the first drafts of her books) to third person; she likewise assisted in the research of historic facts and cultural details that had long-escaped Laura's childhood memories (she was 63 years of age, when she wrote Little House in the Big Woods, the first book in the seven book series), as well as provided a good deal of encouragement and seasoned advice, that Laura most assuredly must have depended upon.

Rose's role in the complicated dynamics of her family was not an easy one. The tragic memories the Dakotas held for Laura and her husband, Almanzo, were no doubt instrumental in their final choice to move to the Ozarks and thereby place a formidable amount of distance between themselves and Laura's family, all of whom remained in various locations in South Dakota for the rest of their lives. Deprived of contact with and moral support from her tightly-knit family and partnered in a long marriage with a man who was old before his time, dour, taciturn and seemingly disappointed with life in general, Laura seemed compelled (by something almost akin to fear) to cling frantically to her only child. Rose, who by all accounts (including the observations recorded in the journal of Laura's youngest sister, Grace) was a precocious and unusually bright child; predictably she was destined to rebel against the smothering attentions her mother focused upon her.

After reading Becoming Laura Ingalls Wilder, in my opinion, it seems probable that Laura and Rose formed a symbiotic type of partnership as Laura penned her juvenile series, that has enjoyed decades of acclaim, was adapted for a long-running television series (that took considerable artistic liberties with the actual novels), and inspired a variety of low-budget movies focusing on various phases of Laura's life. Since Rose was a successful author in her own right, the mixed feelings and open resentment she apparently harbored for her mother and her mother's ensuing success as a writer, at times seems like matters of petty jealousy, but also peculiar and prompted by a quirky sense of competitiveness. In Rose's defense, however, the real-life Laura was considerably different (as an adult) than the spunky, "little half-pint" her readers were familiar with; she was seemingly quick-tempered, extremely high-strung, opinionated, nit-picky and with a propensity for nagging. Undoubtedly, much of Laura's anxiousness and over-dependency on the free-spirited Rose was in a large part prompted by the economic uncertainty that apparently plagued Laura and Almanzo for most of their lives. It would have seemed that the financial independence Laura's success as an author provided would have been welcomed by Rose; but, in fact, it appears Rose was rather indifferent to her mother's celebrity and blasé about the critical acclaim of Laura's books.

Any true fan of the "Little House" books will revel in Miller's book. "Becoming Laura Ingalls Wilder" provides its readers with a fascinating perspective as it explores the real-life characters Wilder brought to live on the pages of her stories which are rife with the sweet music of Pa's fiddle, swaying covered wagons making their way westward, the lonely howl of a wolf drifting across the dark, silent prairie and the tender comforts of a simpler life in an era long past, but (thankfully) not forgotten.

Fascinating, insightful........2005-11-28

Unlike many of the other reviewers of this book, I wasted no time looking for alleged flaws in this book. As someone who grew up with and was indelibly influenced by Laura's books, I really appreciated no end the look at the woman behind the legend, as the apt title suggests. Miller does a fantastic job of showing how he pieced through all the existing evidence, and of drawing logical conclusions. It must have been a significant challenge to have drawn those conclusions, given that all of the subjects are long dead: in other words, Miller has done our work for us, giving the reader an opportunity to have an absorbing look at the real woman and her family. For any admirer of Laura Ingalls Wilder's timeless, priceless chronicles, they will not want to pass up this invaluable, generously insightful study. I thank John Miller for an incredible job well done.

The Best Book Ever.......2005-04-29

This is by far the most wondeful book you will ever read about
Laura Ingalls. Why? You may ask. Because we finally see Laura for what she is , human. That's right Laura has faults like us all. One point that clearly brings this out is how she ruled the house as well as Almonza and that she did not like going to church. Laura was a very outspoken wonderful person, her books
will always have a special place in my heart. Give this book a try, you will see Laura in a whole new light.

Book Description

An introduction to a new way of looking at history, from a perspective that stretches from the beginning of time to the present day, Maps of Time is world history on an unprecedented scale. Beginning with the Big Bang, David Christian views the interaction of the natural world with the more recent arrivals in flora and fauna, including human beings.
Cosmology, geology, archeology, and population and environmental studies--all figure in David Christian's account, which is an ambitious overview of the emerging field of "Big History." Maps of Time opens with the origins of the universe, the stars and the galaxies, the sun and the solar system, including the earth, and conducts readers through the evolution of the planet before human habitation. It surveys the development of human society from the Paleolithic era through the transition to agriculture, the emergence of cities and states, and the birth of the modern, industrial period right up to intimations of possible futures. Sweeping in scope, finely focused in its minute detail, this riveting account of the known world, from the inception of space-time to the prospects of global warming, lays the groundwork for world history--and Big History--true as never before to its name.

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An introduction to a new way of looking at history, from a perspective that stretches from the beginning of time to the present day, Maps of Time is world history on an unprecedented scale. Beginning with the Big Bang, David Christian views the interaction of the natural world with the more recent arrivals in flora and fauna, including human beings. Cosmology, geology, archeology, and population and environmental studies--all figure in David Christian's account, which is an ambitious overview of the emerging field of "Big History." Maps of Time opens with the origins of the universe, the stars and the galaxies, the sun and the solar system, including the earth, and conducts readers through the evolution of the planet before human habitation. It surveys the development of human society from the Paleolithic era through the transition to agriculture, the emergence of cities and states, and the birth of the modern, industrial period right up to intimations of possible futures. Sweeping in scope, finely focused in its minute detail, this riveting account of the known world, from the inception of space-time to the prospects of global warming, lays the groundwork for world history--and Big History--true as never before to its name.

Customer Reviews:

Surprisingly interesting.......2007-03-10

David Christian had a great ambition with this book: to write the history of everything there has ever been. In other words, it describes not only human history but also natural history from the very first beginning. Of course, I had read this on the cover but I had not quite anticipated how elaborate and detailedly the author would describe the formation of the cosmos from the moment of the big bang. I had expected the book to go rather briefly through this part of history and to move on quickly to human history. But I was pleasantly surprised because this first part of the book turned out to be the most fascinating part, as far as I am concerned. The rest of the book is quite interesting too, I must add. The plan and ambition of this book are great, the way the author has worked them out, too. If you liked THE HUMAN WEB by JR McNeill and William H. McNeill, you may like MAPS OF TIME even more. If you admired A BRIEF HISTORY OF TIME by Stephen Hawking, you may admire this book just as much.

mother of al books.......2006-10-12

The book is not always easy, but well worth reading. It debates the different theories about life, the Universe and everything, through zooming in. The first part is about the big bang en the formation of stars, than follows the geological processes that formed the earth, the evolution of live, humans and our history. It ends with the 20 th century and possible futures. What I liked most about this book, was that it did not present a clear story, but gave the facts, and the different theories (different stories) that might come with those facts.
It was for me the book at the center of my expending library, because it comes with a extensive bibliography from which I'm now selecting books about the different parts of the big everything to continue reading.
The best book I've read in years (and I read a lot of (non)fiction books, about a large variaty of subjects).

The modern model.......2005-08-06

Intellectually stimulating, rapid-fire journey, the "powers of 10" movie specialized for history buffs. Some of the material I found superficial/generalized to be of substance, but the author acknowledges that can be the nature of Big History. An ambitious book which talks directly to ideas that most historians only philosophically discuss. A charge of inductive reasoning would not be far fetched, ie. cherry picking of facts to support prefigured models. Excellent overview of Big History and World History ideas and methods and themes. Annotated bibliographies at the end of each chapter, and large one at the end of the book, are very good for further exploration, most book recommendations are recent (1990s and early 2000s). Despite criticisms learned some new and important perspectives and recommend it highly.

This book.......2005-02-24

I took his class last semester, and used the book. Fortunately it coincided with my views of the world, and I was able to finish the book and class with ease.
This book teaches you your spot in the universe. How people, matter, creatures and geography have lived and died, shaping the coils of history to bring you to where you stand today. This is the most scientific and coherent compilation of explanations we have today - Christian is able to see the bits and pieces of life that is around us, and put it together in a book. His theories that are scattered around the book are interesting in themselves.

Important book.......2004-10-12

This important book is so well written that, despite its broad sweep and intellectual distinction, it flows beautifully. The first chapters provide one of the simplest and clearest descriptions of cosmology I've ever read, perhaps even bettter than Neil deGrasse Tyson's in Natural History. Christian provides a marvellous theoretical framework for understanding history as playing out repetitive patterns, and the sweep of learning, while careful, is extraordinary.

Big history, the whole story, and nothing less?(Maps of Time: An Introduction to Big History)(After the Ice: A Global Human History, 20,000-5000 BC)(Book ... An article from: Canadian Journal of History

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Big history, the whole story, and nothing less?(Maps of Time: An Introduction to Big History)(After the Ice: A Global Human History, 20,000-5000 BC)(Book ... An article from: Canadian Journal of History
Wolf Schafer
Manufacturer: Thomson Gale
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital

Book Description

This digital document is an article from Canadian Journal of History, published by Thomson Gale on September 22, 2006. The length of the article is 5344 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Big history, the whole story, and nothing less?(Maps of Time: An Introduction to Big History)(After the Ice: A Global Human History, 20,000-5000 BC)(Book review)
Author: Wolf Schafer
Publication: Canadian Journal of History (Magazine/Journal)
Date: September 22, 2006
Publisher: Thomson Gale
Volume: 41 Issue: 2 Page: 317(12)

Article Type: Book review

Distributed by Thomson Gale

History writ large.(The Birth of the Modern World, 1780-1914: Global Connections and Comparisons)(Maps of Time: An Introduction to Big History)(Cultures ... Australian Journal of Politics and History

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History writ large.(The Birth of the Modern World, 1780-1914: Global Connections and Comparisons)(Maps of Time: An Introduction to Big History)(Cultures ... Australian Journal of Politics and History
Nicholas Doumanis
Manufacturer: University of Queensland Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital

Australia | Australia & Oceania | History | Subjects | Books

General | Politics | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

Book Description

This digital document is an article from The Australian Journal of Politics and History, published by University of Queensland Press on March 1, 2005. The length of the article is 6754 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: History writ large.(The Birth of the Modern World, 1780-1914: Global Connections and Comparisons)(Maps of Time: An Introduction to Big History)(Cultures in Contact: Worm Migrations in the Second Millennium)(The Three Waves of Globalization: A History of a Developing Global Consciousness)(Book Review)
Author: Nicholas Doumanis
Publication: The Australian Journal of Politics and History (Refereed)
Date: March 1, 2005
Publisher: University of Queensland Press
Volume: 51 Issue: 1 Page: 114(11)

Article Type: Book Review

Distributed by Thomson Gale

Life, the universe and everything.(Scientists' Bookshelf)(Book Review): An article from: American Scientist

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Life, the universe and everything.(Scientists' Bookshelf)(Book Review): An article from: American Scientist

Manufacturer: Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Society
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital

General | Science | Subjects | Books

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Book Description

Richard TarnasÂ's The Passion of the Western MindÂ—acclaimed by leading voices in philosophy, religion, psychology, and historyÂ—sets the stage for this major work, thirty years in the making, that dramatically reframes our understanding of the universe in the light of extraordinary new evidence.

Cosmos and Psyche is the first book by a widely respected scholar to demonstrate the existence of a consistent correspondence between planetary movements and the unfolding drama of human history. A vast and impressive body of evidence illuminates patterns of meaning and precise correlations between the universe and the world of human endeavor. With meticulous detail, Richard Tarnas takes us on a journey that begins with the ancient Greeks and culminates in our own era and its transformative potential, putting into perspective these chaotic, tumultuous timesÂ—from the sixties to September 11, 2001Â—and pointing the way towards the future.

In terms of planetary cycles, our present moment in history is most comparable to the period five hundred years agoÂ—that era of Â“extraordinary turbulence and creativity,Â” the High Renaissance. Not since Copernicus conceived the heliocentric theory has the human community faced such a profound realignment of the way we think. Readers of every persuasion will be impressed by the vast canvas here, the wealth of research and analysis, and the profound conclusions that may be drawnÂ—conclusions that reunite religion and science, and restore a transcendent dimension to the universe.

Customer Reviews:

hard to see.......2007-10-03

Poor quality printing. Content material seemed fasinating but I could not read this book. I had trouble reading this print since there was not enough contrast between page and ink.

Sweeping societal/cultural insights by astrological events. And happening now. .......2007-09-28

Insightful and dense read on the significance of astrological events noting the timing of sweeping social and cultural upheaval, revolutions, renaissance and change. And 2007 marks the beginning of another great opportunity to be part of bringing the best of change that can happen to make the world better. A must read for astrologers and those who wish to be inspired to be part of our own renaissance.

on the far side..........2007-07-23

GNPR 69b: The Real Blockbuster Book!
As well as the Harry Potter book is selling, I think the real Blockbuster book of the summer is Paul Tarnas' new book, "Cosmos and Psyche." If you, one of your children, or one or more of your grandchildren has taken a "History of Civilization" course in College in the last fifteen years, chances are the text for the course was Tarnas' remarkable book, "The Passion of the Western Mind." Having taught various such courses over the years, I was bowled over a few years ago when Joe McGrath used the book for a year-long course I took at the U. of Arizona SAGE program. The book does a brilliant job of highlighting how the two streams of modern western civilization, Hebraic religion and Greek rationalism, met, and cross-fertilized each other, and in some real sense gave rise to what has become modern western culture. The book sold more than 300,000 copies, and in an age of abundant new text books, has managed to outsell all its rivals.
All the more stunning is Paul Tarnas' long-awaited new book, "Cosmos and Psyche." It is not merely a follow-up to the previous book, it is the summary of Tarnas' own work over the past thirty years on the interaction between the external world, the cosmos, and the internal world, the psyche. Tarnas accurately describes the aftermath of the Copernican revolution as generating a "disenchantment" of the world, as the world was seen as mechanical instead of animated, impersonal and material, instead of inhabited by some kind of spirit.

Now, as one might expect, Tarnas offers a remedy for overcoming that disenchantment, that distancing of self and world, that the scientific revolution brought about. But prepare yourself for a shock. This scholar, with outstanding credentials and a huge following, claims the way to overcome this breach between self and world, can take place only by rehabilitating the much disgraced science of astrology. Not the newspaper or fortune teller version of astrology, he says, but the real astrology, that which was subscribed to by the likes of Plato, Aristotle, Ptolemy, Plotinus, Thomas Aquinas, Dante, Kepler, Goethe, Yeats, and Jung. Yes, C.G. Jung, the founder of that "depth psychology" that Tarnas says is the one true royal road into understanding the subconscious.

Tarnas' opening quotation, in the attempt to document his case, comes from Jung: "Our psyche is set up in accord with the structure of the universe, and what happens in the macrocosm likewise happens in the infinitesimal and most objective reaches of the psyche." Tarnas claims the works of Jung alone give us an acceptable alternative to the blunt materialism proclaimed by the likes of the physicist Steven Weinberg: "The more the universe seems comprehensible, the more it also seems pointless." What Jung and the astrological tradition offers is the antithesis to the godless theme of the materialistic evolutionists like Jacques Monod: "Man knows at last that he is alone in the universe's unfeeling immensity, out of which he emerged only by chance."

Unless we return to the wisdom of the astrological tradition, Tarnas claims we risk negating the spiritual dimension of the empirical universe, and thereby lose "any publicly affirmable ground for moral wisdom and restraint." Tarnas again turns to Jung for support: "We have not understood yet that the discovery of the unconscious means an enormous spiritual task, which must be accomplished if we wish to preserve our civilization." No mean task this, but the very preservation of our civilization!

A central tenet of Jung's depth psychology is the experience of synchronicity, those apparently incredibly unlikely simultaneous events, that had less than a one in a million chance of happening at the same time, --like meeting your long-lost lover at the train station, or having your lucky number show up when you really need the money. It is the experience of such synchronicities that turn skeptics into true believers, as happens with physicist Victor Mansfield: "I have encountered too many synchronistic experiences to ignore them. Yet these surprisingly common experiences pose tremendous psychological and philosophical challenges for our worldview. They are especially troubling experiences for me as a physicist trained within the culture of scientific materialism."

Even the committed skeptic would be brought up short by the journal entry of C.G. Jung: "My evenings are taken up very largely with astrology. I make horoscopic calculations in order to find a clue to the core of psychological truth. Some remarkable things have turned up..."

Given this background, Tarnas says he turned to the study of the astrology practiced by the likes of Kepler and Newton, which brought him to this conclusion: "The coincidence between planetary positions and appropriate biographical and psychological phenomena was in general so precise and consistent as to make it altogether impossible for me to regard the intricate patterning as merely the product of chance."

So what conclusions does Tarnas reach? "Together with many colleagues and students, I have now steadily pursued this research for three decades. What I have found far surpassed my expectations. I have become convinced that there does in fact exist a highly significant--indeed a pervasive--correspondence between planetary movements and human affairs, and that the modern assumption to the contrary has been erroneous."

Personally, I am left speechless. When I picked up this book, the last thing I expected was an ardent defense of astrology, however far removed from the newspaper horoscopes, and however authoritatively documented with quotations from Plato and Aristotle, Plotinus and Aquinas, Galileo and Kepler. So I pose this question to you: are you open-minded enough to want to read the "evidence" that Tarnas offers, or do you dismiss such reflections as simply beyond the pale of the possible? Would you regard as credible someone who told you your birth chart could predict the climactic events of your life, or that planetary conjunctions decisively influence your most important decisions?

As I always say, tell me what your first principles are, and I will tell you what your most logical conclusions should be. My mind is simply boggled by the fact that a scholar of Tarnas' eminence should propose astrology as a legitimate science, or that he should conclude this remarkable book with a chapter entitled: "Observations on Future Planetary Alignments." I take this to be one of the most paradigm-breaking books I have ever read, for I take the basic thesis to be completely nuts. And yet, that a scholar of this eminence would appear to be so completely convinced....

Where do these concepts come from?.......2007-05-21

For an astrologer, a new book on mundane astrology is already an event. The use of planetary cycles in mundane astrology is traditional, the astrologers of the past used especially the Jupiter Saturn cycle and the zodiacal sites of their conjunction.
On the other hand, the use of planetary cycles of transsaturnian planets has been extensively used and developed since 1970 by the french astrologer André Barbault, who reintroduced also the astrology of Morin de Villefranche in France (published by AFA) . Certainly, Richard Tarnas has written a best seller with the passion of the Western mind: he published also an interesting booklet on Uranus.
Unfortunately, this document doesn't hit again the target. Good references to the work of Barbault are lacking, altough Barbault developed the theory of planetary cycles in a deeper and more convincing way. Did Richard Tarnas really ignore this work? Does Richard Tarnas has a real good understanding of mundane Astrology? Not sure... Furthermore, the number of pages could be reduced by half. There are too many repetitions in the book, they hamper a good undertanding of the key concepts. Written for non astrologers, Richard could now extend his study and deliver a real and usable book of mundane astrology for propfessionals...

Wordmongering.......2007-05-15

After carefully reading about the first hundred pages of Cosmos and Psyche, I concluded that an in-depth reading wouldn't repay the time invested, and began to skim. There are several reasons for this.

One reason is that Richard Tarnas is a wordmonger, in several senses. First, he uses words impressionistically, so that many of his sentences do not yield a precise meaning even when closely analyzed. Second, he is extremely fond of stringing together clause after clause. An example (p. 77): "The range of correspondences between planetary positions and human existence is just too vast and multidimensional -- too manifestly ordered by structures of meaning, too suggestive of creative intelligence, too vividly informed by aesthetic patterning, too metaphorically multivalent, too experientially complex and nuanced, and too responsive to human participatory inflection -- to be explained by straightforward material factors alone." Others may consider such prose "lucid", but I don't.

However, if I had felt that Tarnas had something important to say, I would have plowed through his vast tome. And so we come to the main reason that I largely gave up on the book: his attempt to rehabilitate astrology for the modern mind is preposterous. Of course, given his vague writing style, it isn't clear exactly what he is claiming, and he hedges his bets with numerous qualifying phrases. He admits that astrology cannot be used to predict specific, concrete events; instead, one has to interpret history in terms of archetypes. And don't forget that archetypes can manifest themselves in numerous ways (p. 132): "Many diverse factors appear to play determining roles in shaping how an archetypal complex is concretely embodied: cultural, historical, ancestral, familial, circumstantial. To these must be added such factors as individual choice and degree of self-awareness, as well as, perhaps, karma, grace, chance, and other unmeasurables." In short, anything can happen.

In the end, Tarnas's correlation of historical events with astrological archetypes is purely semantic, and therefore highly subjective. Although Tarnas claims that an archetypal interpretation can provide a "wealth of insight" (p. 168) or help historical events become "intelligible" (p. 169), any attempt to impose an archetypal pattern on historical data will in fact narrow, not broaden, one's receptivity to different interpretations. And is it really to be believed that researchers could never understand a grouping of historical events and the connections between them without having an archetypal pattern to work from? How could knowing a single astronomical datum (e.g., Uranus and Pluto are aligned) make the connections more intelligible?

There are some reviewers who believe that, decades from now, Tarnas's book will be heralded as a watershed in human thought. I believe that his book is representative of the superstitious thinking that still lingers on. Is Tarnas really any different from those who pore over the quatrains of Nostradamus or delve into Bible prophecy?

Postscript

In the early part of the twentieth century, a Russian by the name of Alexander Chizhevsky worked up an elaborate theory on the causation of many human phenomena, including wars, revolutions, epidemics of disease, and so on. He amassed an enormous corpus of material in support of his theory that solar activity is the primary influence, and attempted to show correlation with the eleven-year solar cycle. I have a copy of one of his books (in Russian), and it is replete with tables of historical events, charts of epidemics, etc. Thus Chizhevsky and Tarnas have put forward incompatible theories, while each claims to have persuasive evidence. I wasn't persuaded by either one.

Book Description

Dead Fish and Fats Cats is a lively, no holds barred account of the experiences and entanglements of Eric Wickham, a commercial fisherman who fished for salmon, halibut and sablefish for over fifty years. It describes the unpredictable life of independent commercial fishermen and chastises the fishing bureaucrats for their mismanagement of the fishing industry. Dead Fish and Fat Cats provides a first hand look at the world of coastal fishing, describing everything from electronic fishing gadgets and fishing boats to fish farms. The book also answers the question: "Where have all the salmon gone?" and explains how we have moved from fish in abundance to scarcity and barrenness. The author proposes some innovative methods of dealing with some of the problems that plague the fishing industry.

Customer Reviews:

Even a novice will like this one!.......2003-02-10

Well, I have never picked up a fishing rod before in my life and was quite dubious when someone gave me a copy of this book for my birthday.

However, I am interested in how we go about managing our natural resources. Dead Fish and Fat Cats is an amazing journey that examines how Canada has mis managed its fisheries, surely one of its most precious natural resources.

It is interesting, thou not suprising to take a journey through the bureaucracy that seems to plague the Department of Fisheries in Canada.

It seems that Eric Wickham, while clearly a professional fisherman, not a professional writer has a passion for the preservation of this resource. His passion while evident is not over stated and it is this that makes the book very readable. It left this reader shaking his head and saying "how could they do that".

Additionally, Wickham unlike so many of us who complain about the state of things actually proposes a solution and gives us a great example of how the fisheries should be managed. The success of the Black Cod fishery is evidence that brain wins over braun.

Read it, I am sure that you will enjoy it.

Cheers

Steve

Finally... the truth!.......2003-01-17

This is a book we have been waiting for. It is not action packed and sensationalized like the `Perfect Storm', but that is not what Eric Wickham's book is about. It is very well written and thought out, and makes for an easy read in it's story book style. Only it's not just a story... this book shows the true picture of what really has happened to the once prolific commercial fisheries along the North West Coast of the United States and Canada. Eric Wickham is not afraid to call it like it is, and lay blame where blame is due. He recounts events about bureaucratic decisions and practices that led to the demise of these fisheries and aptly calls it "drastically dysfunctional" management. With 50 years of commercial fishing experience his knowledge is factual and enlightening. The only fault that I could find in this book is the author's narrow-mindedness towards the small dragger boats. He needs to research this fishery more before he makes the statements he made about their effects on the fishery. These small boats are capable of fishing with minimal environmental impact while keeping the fishery viable and sustainable, just the same as the fisheries that Mr. Wickham participated in. Many of these smaller boats work in the same manner as Mr. Wickham... near shore, supporting the local communities, and providing fresh caught seafood for stores and restaurants. I hope that Mr. Wickham enjoys his well earned retirement in Australia and considers writing more books about his life experiences as a commercial fisherman along the North Eastern Pacific Ocean. With 25 years of experience in the commercial fishing industry myself, I am grateful for Eric Wickham's book and I would like to personally thank him for writing it and getting the truth out there for everyone to read. It has been a sad and frustrating ordeal for us to watch our livelihoods taken away by bureaucracy that is based on politics and has nothing to do with factual data. Before Eric Wickham's book only those of us in the industry have experienced the havoc that this mismanagement has produced, now maybe many others will read and understand. It is truly the end of an era and a lifestyle. I highly recommend this book to everyone... it is engaging reading, enlightening, and thought provoking.

Lee Ann Hightower
F/V Sea Otter

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