Bizarre is the only word to describe this book. I thought it had been recommended by my sisters but now doubt that. I guess you could call it an autobiography, but there are few details except for the etherial overpowering and all pervasive sense of not belonging of the author. I became more and more concerned about the mental state of the author, a Montreal Sufi and Jungian as I read on. The overwhelming self analysis and vagueness made this not only useless advice for this concrete thinker, but I wondered if anyone could make sense of it. There are not just a few but hundreds of meaningless sentences such as “When we go inwards at night, we are restoring ourselves to the multiplicity of our coherence.” At one point, she describes herself as a “unique weirdo” and that seems to fit. I gather that she works as a psychotherapist and dream interpreter on a small island off the coast of British Columbia, but I have no idea what her qualifications are. Dreams and short nonsense poems are liberally interspersed within.
I/10
I foolishly persisted to the end, hoping it would improve. It did add some interesting history of relatives who survived the Holocaust and hints of a Jewish background, but there is also a distinctly non-rational flavour, a hint of anti-science and more admonitions to do this or that nebulous something. And in the final few chapters, there is a bit more autobiography that goes a little way in explaining her emphasis on community, but it remains very vague with impractical suggestions. While I do not doubt the author’s intelligence and good motives, the cultural chasm between her world and mine is just too great for me to get anything meaningful from this book.
The Passionate Reader 