Reviews for Early modern European witchcraft

The average rating for Early modern European witchcraft based on 2 reviews is 4 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2019-08-12 00:00:00 J Ignacio Catala Like the scads of other similar volumes, these are mostly rewarding, even if a little well-trod and familiar to the devotee of the subject. This one stands out in particular because it has excellent chapters on peripheral areas (hence the subtitle), like Hungary, Estonia, and Scandinavia, among others. There is a lot of good comparative stuff (interEuropean, but thankfully not outside of that since arguments grow weak) and a fresh take on the pre-Christian roots of what eventually came to be known as "witchcraft", via Ginzburg and Henningsen, especially. An obligatory opening trio of essays on theology and inquisitorial law (yawn!) give way to strident moves forward in teasing out the folk roots of the phenomenon, especially cross-European parallels. Yet, for all that, there is a lot of missed opportunity here, especially since a lot of historians from disparate and far-removed parts of Europe are basically giving us evidence of things that are very, very, very much alike, making the arguments for some pre-Christian shamanic/fertility goddess shifazzle much more stronger.

Review # 2 was written on 2009-03-27 00:00:00 Stephen Reames In 2014, I read Joyce Maynard’s novel Labor Day, and really enjoyed her ability to weave a story. In 2017, after winning a goodreads “giveaway,” I read her Under the Influence, and shortly thereafter her memoir The Best of Us. Sometime along the way, I read something about this earlier memoir, At Home in the World: A Memoir, and wanted to read it, but had somewhat conflicted feelings. So much had been said about this being a “tell-all” memoir of her relationship with J.D. Salinger, and al lot of what was said made this sound somewhat salacious. The truth is that this memoir is about her. Her experiences, her life, her childhood, and yes, some of her relationships, including the one with J.D. Salinger, her children, her flaws and more on display. Salinger is included for a relatively short period, with brief mentions in other points in this, her story about her life. In the Preface to the 2013 edition, Maynard begins by saying: ”I was getting off a plane when I learned the news: J.D. Salinger was dead.” Their relationship lasted eleven months, had been over for around forty years, but she was, in part, the woman he had tried to mold her into. She was already an author when he began writing to her; he courted her in the manner of his generation. ”I fell in love with words on a page, and transferred my affection easily and utterly to the man who wrote them.” His need for her escalated quickly to a desperation for all of her time, he couldn’t bear the time they were apart. And so she left college to move in with him. When Joyce was growing up in Durham, New Hampshire, her mother wrote for Good Housekeeping magazine, and her father was an artist. Both were ”dazzlingly articulate parents who can talk in fully formed paragraphs about any aspect of English literature, religion, art, or politics” but her mother never talks about, or writes about her husband’s alcoholism. Seen through the eyes of today, that seems strange, after all it is something talked about now, but then it would have cast a shadow of shame over the whole family, and it would probably have made them outcasts. As it was, it fell to Joyce to take care of him when he was ‘in his cups,’ or, as Joyce refers to it ”stormy.” ”I have friends, growing up, but my chief companion is my father.” ”In the fall of 1965, just before my twelfth birthday, I start keeping a diary. I write in it every night—entries that sometimes go on for five or six pages.” Of course in the tradition of diaries, it holds all her deepest, darkest secrets. ”OCT. 11 …People are always such a disappointment… “ On December 8th, she writes candidly in her diary about her father’s drinking, without euphemisms for his drinking. When she goes to record her next entry she finds a letter, written by her mother, stuck inside the pages, in which she encourages her she must ”not even acknowledge my feelings to myself. She requires me to support her denial.” There are many references to the era, old television shows, and the political goings on of the times, the music, the fashions that added a bit more to the aura, and having been to most of the places she talks about in this book, I could picture it all so easily. There’s more, much more, but read this for its own sake, and not for the ties to Salinger. She has a story to tell and it’s worth reading, but it’s her story.