Where Three Roads Meet (Canongate Myths)
and over one million other books are available for Amazon Kindle .
Learn more
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||
Did you know you can trade in your old books for an Amazon.co.uk Gift Card to spend on the things you want? Plus, get an extra £5 Gift Certificate when you trade in books worth £10 or more before June 30, 2012. Visit the Books Trade-In Store for more details. |
Frequently Bought Together
Product details
|
More About the Author
Product Description
Review
"Gentleness of perception and sharpness of intellect... sustains you long after the last page." Bel Mooney, The Times "I am speechless with admiration." John Julius Norwich "Moving, utterly engrossing." Elena Seymenliyska, Guardian "She's a presence worth cherishing in the ranks of modern novelists." Philip Pullman"
The Times
'Full of insight and humour, offering a glimpse into the workings of a great mind.'
Inside This Book
(Learn More)
Tags Customers Associate with This Product(What's this?)Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
|
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
56 of 58 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
WHERE THREE ROADS MEET is a retelling of the Oedipus myth, famous within the world of literaure but also psychology and psychanalysis, thanks to Sigmund Freud who developed the 'Oedipus Complex' to explain early infantile sexuality.
Vickers takes the figure of Freud in his last years, when he is suffering from cancer, as one of the characters within this retelling. Freud is visited by a mysterious man who is blind and comes to him to recount a story about Oedipus. This mysterious visitor claims that he thinks Freud has missed something in his own Oedipus theory, and so he tells the story in order to help the famed psychoanalyst 'see' another point. For Vickers' retelling, the important point about the story is that Oedipus pushed and pushed for the knowledge that would be his downfall, despite being warned that there really are some things that should remain unsaid:
'"Events must be endured if they are to disclose their meaning."
"Or unfold untold meanings? And no one, even you, Doctor, has ever quite accounted for humankind's resistance to letting well alone."' (p173).
What makes this novel truely memorable is that Vickers plays around with language and words - as Freud and his visitor discuss the Oedipus story as well as Freud himself, they muse on the origins of words and how that may relate to the story they are discussing. This results in the book staying with you long after you have finished reading its lines. As any good psychoanalyst should, Vickers is able to make you stop and think and relfect on what has just been said, slowly showing you alternative perspectives or issues to consider.
This is a fantastic read - highly recommneded.
Vickers takes the figure of Freud in his last years, when he is suffering from cancer, as one of the characters within this retelling. Freud is visited by a mysterious man who is blind and comes to him to recount a story about Oedipus. This mysterious visitor claims that he thinks Freud has missed something in his own Oedipus theory, and so he tells the story in order to help the famed psychoanalyst 'see' another point. For Vickers' retelling, the important point about the story is that Oedipus pushed and pushed for the knowledge that would be his downfall, despite being warned that there really are some things that should remain unsaid:
'"Events must be endured if they are to disclose their meaning."
"Or unfold untold meanings? And no one, even you, Doctor, has ever quite accounted for humankind's resistance to letting well alone."' (p173).
What makes this novel truely memorable is that Vickers plays around with language and words - as Freud and his visitor discuss the Oedipus story as well as Freud himself, they muse on the origins of words and how that may relate to the story they are discussing. This results in the book staying with you long after you have finished reading its lines. As any good psychoanalyst should, Vickers is able to make you stop and think and relfect on what has just been said, slowly showing you alternative perspectives or issues to consider.
This is a fantastic read - highly recommneded.
37 of 39 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
I heard Ms Vickers on Start the Week and rushed out and bought this. I read a review which said it lacked emotion. Don't believe it. My guess is the reviewer didn't have time to read and absorb this book properly which, as all Vickers fans know, is essential where she is concerned. In an interview she claimed to be 'lazy'. My guess is this is extreme modesty. She's a deep thinker and a tough one, and as with her writing understates her own worth. This book crackles with emotional intelligence and her take on the Oedipus myth is highly original. Her main thesis is that human beings don't know what they think they know but do know what they think they don't know - and that this is an element in the myth which Freud recognised, but passed over in his eagerness to pursue his new theory of infantile sexuality. Having Tiresias, the blind seer, come to tell Freud what really happened as he is dying is a brilliant conception and as always with Vickers it is done with a straight forwardness which belies its bold originality. I especially liked her idea that Jocasta (whom she does wonderfully well) knew she was sleeping with her own son - and that she sought to do away with him the first place out of a fear of losing him later. This is a profoundly shocking idea but one that has a clear ring of truth. And the motif of the three roads is also brilliantly handled. I suspect Freud would have enjoyed Vickers take on his own life and work. A real 'novel' - ie truly original.
22 of 24 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
'Where Three Roads Meet' is a brilliant literary interpretation of the Oedipus myth, with as many layers as the proverbial onion, - haunting, subtly humorous, occasionally shocking in its surgically-precise skill. No one but Salley Vickers could have written with such psycho-analytic insight and yet retained the multiple mythopoeic threads that reach back to the Ancient Greeks' intuitive knowledge and understanding of both man's temporal existence and his interaction with, and conflict with, the 'divine'.
As with Vickers' previous novels, the story remains with you long after the last page has been read.
As with Vickers' previous novels, the story remains with you long after the last page has been read.
Would you like to see more reviews about this item?
Were these reviews helpful?
Let us know
Most Recent Customer Reviews
A fabulous book full of wit and wisdom - it may just change your...
I was recommended this book after studying Sophocles' 'Oedipus Tyrannos', and I'm heartily glad I took up the recommendation. Read more
Published 1 month ago by Meerkat
Disappointed
Not as good as other books by the author. This was a retelling of the Oedipus myth, by Oedipus himself to Freud. Quite clever but not very engaging.
Published 7 months ago by KAW
An Interesting & Compelling Retelling of a Classic Myth
`Where Three Roads Meet' is one of the Canongate Myth series a series in which modern authors take classic myths from around the world and retell them in their own way. Read more
Published on 22 Mar 2010 by Simon Savidge Reads
Not for someone who enjoys an easy read
Not as I expected it to be when I read the early part of the book before purchasing. It starts very slowly and I found the style challenging and hard to get in to. Read more
Published on 12 Sep 2009 by D. Perfect
More engrossing than it sounds
This book was recommended by a friend - I am so pleased that I took her advice. I remember the original reviews being less than enthusiastic and despite enjoying Salley Vickers'... Read more
Published on 10 Jun 2009 by Sally G
Very readable
I love Sally Vickers, especially the beautiful Miss Garnet's Angel. I bought this little book because I wanted to make my order up to the price needed for free super saver postage... Read more
Published on 19 Oct 2008 by Mrs. S. R. Wray
Dull
This is a dull book. It is about an imagined set of conversations between a dying Sigmund Freud and an Ancient Greek about Oedipus. Read more
Published on 5 Jan 2008 by William
Made me see ancient story in a new light
I had this for Christmas and read it in one sitting. Everyone believes they know the myth of Oedipus - but apart from the fact that the poor guy bumped off his dad and made it... Read more
Published on 26 Dec 2007 by E. Ahern
a zen masterpeiece
This elegant allusive stylish account of the meeting between the dying Sigmund Freud and the prophet Teiresias is simply the best thing Salley Vickers has done. Read more
Published on 28 Nov 2007 by D. Richards
The seer and the analyst
This book is another volume in that excellent undertaking by Canongate to have ancient myths retold in a contemporary re-imagining. Read more
Published on 15 Nov 2007 by Ralph Blumenau
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
|
|
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
|
