- Paperback: 528 pages
- Publisher: Picador; New edition edition (29 Aug 1990)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0330309684
- ISBN-13: 978-0330309684
- Product Dimensions: 20.3 x 15.2 x 3 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 60,331 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
The Chymical Wedding
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More About the Author
Product Description
Product Description
By the author of "Sunday Whiteman", this novel of intellectual obsession and passion concerns two groups of people who are united in their investigation into the "great experiment of nature" in a Norfolk village, but divided by a century of time.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
53 of 57 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
One of the best novels this reviewer (!) has ever,
This review is from: The Chymical Wedding (Picador Books) (Paperback)
If, as I was, you were put off by the synopsis of The Chymical Wedding, don't be. Normally I never read a book with the word "obsessive" in the blurb, and for those of you who don't either, I'd like to set the record straight. Lindsay Clarke's The Chymical Wedding is one of the best novels I have ever read. It may contain obessions, dark sides, self-centred fathers and tormented ministers but the mood of the novel is completely at odds with this description. It sits light to life. It's capable of encompassing all the vagaries of human existence in the way that the best nineteenth century novels did (I'm thinking particularly of Middlemarch). It deals with some very dark topics, true, but it's wistful, rather than tormented, and in a way that is very English. Of course it tells a story -- two stories, which are woven together compellingly. The characters in the present have to try to unravel what happened to people in the same place a hundred years ago. (If you liked Josephine Tey's The Daughter of Time, or are a fan of Penelope Lively, then you'll like this bit.) The Chymical Wedding has some pertinent things to say about the difficulties of being a man (or indeed human) in the late twentieth century. It looks at some aspects of the occult without the credulousness of the New Age movement, and finds them to occupy a very necessary, and long-forgotten place in our culture. They have been neglected to the detriment of our collective mental health. But, best of all, it has an effect at a very deep level. It tugs at you, as life tugs at Alex Darken, makes you sit up and take notice. The whole book is suffused with a greenish, golden light, which will stay with you long after you put it down.
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A masterly piece of work,
By
This review is from: The Chymical Wedding (Picador Books) (Paperback)
This is a wholly captivating piece of work. Whether you are in the slightest knowledgable about alchemy or the Hermetic tradition or not, you'll soon pick plenty up on your journey through this work, and journey it is. It is a work of erudition, often by no means simple and I would advise anyone to keep a dictionary handy since the vocabulary is glorious, rich and to the point, the whole structure of the book being superbly composed, some of it sits on the very thinnest edge of understanding - you don't get to coast through this work. I can quite see why John Fowles said of it that it excited him enormously. It is an exciting book on many levels; it sets you thinking; it reveals how the lead of humanity can be transcended into gold - at a price: do you tell or do you not tell? Is the Hermetic secret exactly what it says, ever to remain a secret? It seems it is - unless you are prepared to go and do a lot more work yourself. Yes, I liked this book a lot. I admire its integrity. I admire the intellectual capacity of its author. I very much admire the way he pieced this together. We have a lot to learn from alchemy and this is not a bad dip into it. Not bad at all.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
John Boorman tried to film this novel.,
By
This review is from: The Chymical Wedding (Paperback)
'The Chymical Wedding' is a fascinating, intelligent novel, I really liked it. In 'Bright Dreams and Hard Knocks: A Journal For 1991' - published in the first issue of 'Projections' (1992) - John Boorman reveals that he and Lindsay Clarke wrote a screenplay for 'The Chymical Wedding' but were then, frustratingly, unable to raise the finance for the film. In view of Boorman's interest in Jung, Alchemy and myth, not to mention his stunning cinematic gifts, it seems likely that we've been deprived of a masterpiece.
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