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Where Three Roads Meet (Canongate Myths)
 
 
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Where Three Roads Meet (Canongate Myths) (Paperback)

by Salley Vickers (Author)
4.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
RRP: £7.99
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Product details

  • Paperback: 200 pages
  • Publisher: Canongate Books Ltd (5 Jun 2008)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 1847670725
  • ISBN-13: 978-1847670724
  • Product Dimensions: 19.6 x 12.8 x 2 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 26,569 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Product Description

Review
"* 'The novel is a bright, hard, fine-cut gem' - The Sunday Times * 'Simply and strongly done, laying bare many of our mortal anxieties' - The Times * 'This is a book to dwell on, to ponder, and delight in' - Scotsman"

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Simply and strongly done, laying bare many of our mortal anxieties

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Average Customer Review
4.6 out of 5 stars (10 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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32 of 34 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Only Vickers could pull this off, 18 Nov 2007
By Brida "izumi" (Worcs) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)      
This review is from: Where Three Roads Meet: The Myth of Oedipus (Canongate Myths) (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.
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26 of 28 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Crackles with intelligence, 6 Nov 2007
By M. J. Rigby "ETR" (Oxford) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
This review is from: Where Three Roads Meet: The Myth of Oedipus (Canongate Myths) (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.
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20 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Mythos & metaphysics, 28 Oct 2007
This review is from: Where Three Roads Meet: The Myth of Oedipus (Canongate Myths) (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.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars 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 24 days ago by Sally G

5.0 out of 5 stars 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 8 months ago by Mrs. S. R. Wray

1.0 out of 5 stars 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 18 months ago by William

5.0 out of 5 stars 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 18 months ago by E. Ahern

5.0 out of 5 stars 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 19 months ago by D. Richards

5.0 out of 5 stars 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 19 months ago by Ralph Blumenau

5.0 out of 5 stars acute and moving
I have just finished this terrific re-telling of a great myth. Salley Vickers brilliantly brings Teiresias, the blind soothsayer of ancient myth, to meet Sigmund Freud as he is... Read more
Published 20 months ago by S. Boanswain

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