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发表于 2024-7-9 14:52:47
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我在别的论坛上找到了一个人对此书的 comment，复制粘贴来这里
This is Tyl's magnum opus, of which he is, I presume, quite proud. And I don't know if this observation applies to just this book, or if it's also true of a number of his other recent books, but, to my surprise, the publisher (Llewellyn) has kept them in print longer than any of Tyl's previous books. Given the size & price of this book, as well as the publisher's known habits, when it was no longer available in 2007-ish, I presumed we would see it no more. I was wrong. It's back.
Myself, I've never known quite what to make of this book. It weighs just over four pounds (1.8 kg), it has very nearly 900 pages. Clearly, this is a definitive statement, and if you read it, word for word, line by line, page by page, you will learn a great deal. About astrology, for the most part, but much else besides.
Because, I hate to say it, the book rambles. I've got a 3rd house Leo Moon, just like the author, I can be, and most likely am, as much a pompous twit as he is, but I do prefer my writing taut, and I try to avoid going on & on about myself. I think it was Garrison Keillor who pointed out the dangers of the early word processors (Kaypro, anyone?), that they made writing so easy that one could get lost & go on & on uncontrollably. But Keillor's warning came a quarter-century ago. Tyl seems to have become more verbose over the years.
Again, you will learn a lot about astrology, things you won't ever learn anywhere else, but, my god! you have to fight through a lot. Here, as an example, is a paragraph-by-paragraph summation of three consecutive pages, chosen at random. I literally opened the book:
Page 628:
Catholic basketball players praying before a game.
Praying that our horoscope will work
Why God permits evil
We are to experience life, both good & bad
God understands suffering
Does God intervene, or no?
We need to blame
Pain warns us of danger
Page 629:
Childbirth as creative pain, passing a kidney stone as pointless suffering
Pain may have no cause
Mankind as an evolutionary product
Modern medicine rescues sickly infants that previously died, thus upsetting the order of things
The astrologer is asked if the horoscope under discussion is "good"
Finding a significant transit around age 11, the astrologer asks, "was it meant to be?"
Page 630:
Should the astrologer be happy when he's right, or worry that he's been fatalistic?
It is all part of the Order
The astrologer is subordinate to the human being, who is part of God's creation
People go to astrologers for the same reason they are religious: So as not to be alone
Group prayer is comforting, and can be compared to being in the crowd at a Super Bowl
These three pages give the erroneous impression that Tyl drones on about God & religion. He does not. But he does get caught up in all manner of distracting details & he does drone on & on. And while there is a great deal that's great about this book, there is such overwhelming blather that one is constantly tempted to skip whole pages. One would think that, well, you can't skip everything, since there is always the mandatory cookbook sections, onerous to write, where the reader is sure to look up his own chart. But no. In the entire 873 pages of main text, there are but three cookbook sections: Moon through the houses, Sun & Moon sign pairings, and the midpoints in the back. The rest of the book is discursive. You just have to buckle down & read it. I should mention there are a total of 122 chart examples in the book, both of notable events & people, as well as the author's private clients.
For reasons that are unclear, the author felt the necessity to include a rump ephemeris, as well as a rump version of Ebertin's Combination of Stellar Influences as appendices. And it's not just that Ebertin does it a bit better (well, Ebertin practically invented it, after all), but that Tyl's book is already so massive that "handy tables" in the back merely make the result even more massive & unwieldy. The back of your hardbound college dictionary has all manner of interesting tables in it, too, but when was the last time you took it off the shelf & looked back there? I thought so.
I daresay I could edit one hundred pages out of this book, a word here, a phrase there, & not even the author would notice. Sometimes I think I missed my calling. I should have gone to New York & sold myself as a copy editor. I feel badly that I've gone on & on about how wordy this book is, but dang it all, it just is.
Llewellyn, 873 pages. |
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