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Modern Enchantments: The Cultural Power of Secular Magic
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Product Description
Review
Simon During's book shows deep, wide reading in an awe-inspiring range of disciplines, including urban history, German Romantic philosophy, and modern cultural critiques of consumption...Modern Enchantments is a richly informed, warmly argued addition to the growing number of books in which writers worry at the pervasive blurring of distinctions between act and appearance, organic consciousness and artificial intelligence, imagination and empirical experience, illusion and thought, reality TV and real life, dreams and money. -- Marina Warner Financial Times 20020511 During documents the extent to which magic and magical thinking have pervaded, and continue to pervade, secular life...the author examines 19th- and 20th-century theatrical magic and "commercial conjuring" with great sensitivity to the social and cultural context in the Western world. Equally fascinating is the analysis of magic and early film. -- R. Sugarman Choice 20021201 [This] is the first comprehensive academic history of stage magic, the product of vast research, and rewarding to read. -- Fred Nadis Technology and Culture
The Guardian Review 28 September 2002
His history and analysis is certainly thorough and compelling.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This is by no means a bad book - but it is one likely to disappoint readers interested in the history of magic rather than in critical theory.
During's subject is not magic itself, but what he describes as "the magical assemblage [by which] I mean that motley of shows in the public space where magic was performed". The author goes on to define magic as "a province in the domain of fictionality which fictionalizes by simulating reality rather than truth". The distinction between reality and truth suggests the unique reasoning which enables During to describe anything he wishes to discuss as magic. Cinema - magic. The novel - magic. Fine art - magic. Photography - magic. The bewildered reader is served essays on George Eliot's "Daniel Deronda", Fox Talbot and early photography, The writings of E.T.A Hoffmann and Raymond Roussel, Shaftesbury's views on humour in religion and the history of London's Lyceum - to name a few.
Much of this material is undeniably fascinating and when During does discuss stage magic, the subject alone guarantees interest. There is real pleasure and information here. But... to quote just one example: A 6-page discussion of Spinoza's views on the magic lantern begins "Spinoza never refers to the magic lantern", then after three sentences cheerfully asserts that "to Spinoza the magic lantern was a threat to his philosophy" and proceeds accordingly. "Modern Enchantments" bursts with similar straw men, and the reason for their presence, as far as I can see, is simply to allow the author to write about what interests him, because magic clearly does not. To me, the book often seemed focussed on rhetoric not content.
Perhaps this explains why the text often lapses into a near-parody of "academic" American. Typically, when the author suggests that the history of a theatre illuminates changing tastes and attitudes, he writes "mapping diachronic changes within a genre of place allows historians to catch history close to the ground, and to write microhistories of the magic assemblage stabilized by material continuity. By positing such topographical genres we also gain access to an occluded logic of cultural equivalence". I wonder if he sometimes even understands himself: I cannot begin to imagine what a sentence like "magic is split not simply between aura and nullity" means.
In short, Modern Enchantments is a book to plug shelves in university libraries and possibly a gap in Prof. During's CV - but serious students of magical history probably need not need trouble their wallets.
During's subject is not magic itself, but what he describes as "the magical assemblage [by which] I mean that motley of shows in the public space where magic was performed". The author goes on to define magic as "a province in the domain of fictionality which fictionalizes by simulating reality rather than truth". The distinction between reality and truth suggests the unique reasoning which enables During to describe anything he wishes to discuss as magic. Cinema - magic. The novel - magic. Fine art - magic. Photography - magic. The bewildered reader is served essays on George Eliot's "Daniel Deronda", Fox Talbot and early photography, The writings of E.T.A Hoffmann and Raymond Roussel, Shaftesbury's views on humour in religion and the history of London's Lyceum - to name a few.
Much of this material is undeniably fascinating and when During does discuss stage magic, the subject alone guarantees interest. There is real pleasure and information here. But... to quote just one example: A 6-page discussion of Spinoza's views on the magic lantern begins "Spinoza never refers to the magic lantern", then after three sentences cheerfully asserts that "to Spinoza the magic lantern was a threat to his philosophy" and proceeds accordingly. "Modern Enchantments" bursts with similar straw men, and the reason for their presence, as far as I can see, is simply to allow the author to write about what interests him, because magic clearly does not. To me, the book often seemed focussed on rhetoric not content.
Perhaps this explains why the text often lapses into a near-parody of "academic" American. Typically, when the author suggests that the history of a theatre illuminates changing tastes and attitudes, he writes "mapping diachronic changes within a genre of place allows historians to catch history close to the ground, and to write microhistories of the magic assemblage stabilized by material continuity. By positing such topographical genres we also gain access to an occluded logic of cultural equivalence". I wonder if he sometimes even understands himself: I cannot begin to imagine what a sentence like "magic is split not simply between aura and nullity" means.
In short, Modern Enchantments is a book to plug shelves in university libraries and possibly a gap in Prof. During's CV - but serious students of magical history probably need not need trouble their wallets.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
1 review
12 of 14 people found the following review helpful
Magic: a serious business?
28 April 2004
Format:Paperback
Apparently this is the first overview of stage magic from an academic perspective. But it's not just about magic tricks: it deals with magic and literature, magic and film, the theory of popular culture and a helluva lot else besides. Sometimes requires real concentration (the chapters on magic history are easiest), but I learnt a lot. This is one of the best books in cultural history I have read over the past few year: after reading it you wont think about popular culture history the same way again. Highly recommended.
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