Reviews for Modern magic

The average rating for Modern magic based on 2 reviews is 4 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2016-09-14 00:00:00 Jason Jung 3.5 Stars? 4.5 Stars? 10? It's hard to pin this one down, exactly. I'm of two minds, or maybe even three. I could try standing on my head, and in seeing the world topsy turvy, I just might have a bead on it . I'll start by saying this is the Louisa May that I never knew existed: the Louisa May who thrilled to thrillers and suspense novels; who lived a gothic existence in her dream life and brought it to the printed page. It occurs to me that this is also Jo brought to life: this is Jo, taking full expression of her flights of fancy and turning it into the book she was always meant to write, before interfering Professor Baer re-directs her to something which is more acceptable, in his world. In the end, one's own nature will out, and Jo/Louisa gets to write her thrillers/gothic mysteries/occultist's fancies after all. Hooray for Jo! Hooray for Louisa! There is an entire thesis in this little work -- (oh, if I had time and world enough) -- that could set me writing for hundreds of pages, for there are several worlds to be explored in this very slim volume of short stories. Amid the multiple levels of meaning, and quite apart from seeing Jo personified, what also occurs to me is that these stories were probably very cathartic for Alcott and may well have served as a sort of revenge-therapy against her wastrel of a dad, Bronson. The great writer, philosopher, reformer -- indeed the very essence of transcendentalism -- was nothing more than a deadbeat dad and husband, if viewed in a certain light. Abandoning his family for months, sometimes years, on end, to pursue his artistic sensibilities, all the hard work of keeping the Alcott family together fell on his wife Abby, and ultimately on Louisa herself as the inheritor of the wreckage that Bronson left in his wake. The absent father in Little Women is a benign entity who has gone off to war. So too, Louisa must have viewed her real-life father: fighting a war against ignorance, while all the little women stayed home and did the hard work. On the surface, it is a sacrifice they all willingly undertake. Scratch the surface, and there is nothing but anger and disappointment. The rage that builds up in Jo, and is never allowed full expression, finally emerges in Alcott's gothic romances: where the husband or lover turns into a sort of demon lover, who ends up ruining his beloved's life -- and ultimately his own. What Freud could have done with these little stories! The writing is entrancing, quite literally. You fall into a trance from the opening paragraph as you are forced to eerily creep around darkened hallways and peer into corners, watching and waiting. It makes the hair stand up and you don't want to be reading these on your own, late at night. Of course, it could be very easy to make light of these types of stories -- but not if you really think about the time and place, and the woman who carried these sensational thoughts in her mind and heart, in dark Victorian times. The writing truly is beautiful. A few stories have a Jamesian quality (reminiscent of Turn of The Screw, for instance) which makes the preternatural elements positively nightmarish. I do hope Alcott managed to exorcise all that she needed to in this work, for as a psychological study it is outstanding. As a literary one, truly inspired.

Review # 2 was written on 2013-05-23 00:00:00 Melissa Sheeley One would be surprised to discover that the author of these "blood and thunder" tales is the same woman who wrote the lovely, domestic, and tranquil story of Little Women. That being said, these stories filled with hypnotism, sexual politics, drug experimentation, and violent Eastern conspiracies are all written in a distinctly feminine and delicate hand. There is something about the way Alcott writes that drips with prettiness; there is something soft and lovely in her narrative voice that remains clear and pure throughout the dark subject matter into which she so boldly dives. It is an appropriate phenomenon that eerily manifests the themes of feminine power and control celebrated throughout her stories. I'd recommend this collection to anyone with a soft spot for feminist literature and/or thrillers.