Sirona Knight, Llewellyn, $14.95
Publisher, Rantin' Raven Pamphleteers
A book review is a personal opinion. At best, it's the opinion of someone knowledgeable on the topic, objective and (one can dream) a reasonably good writer themselves. But it's still just an opinion.
That having been said, I regretfully offer my review of one of the worst books I ever read.
I had high hopes. The erotic is a strong element in most pagans' visions of our gods, and certainly in mine. My reaction to the flyer I received offering Greenfire for review was "Yes! It's about time!" And when the book arrived, with that gorgeous cover, I was elated. Silly me.
Then I started reading it. The introductory material was fine. The idea of mediations on the erotic stations of the year is a good one, though I was unfamiliar with Ms. Knight's particular tradition or her Gaulish deities (I have since encountered her "Tarvos" in Morgan Llewellyn). And although I'd been expecting something, based on the flyer, that was a bit more Tantric, I was okay with guided meditations.
With the first chapter, I began to experience severe cognitive dissonance. What did this have to do with the seasons, with the experience of unity with nature? Nothing I could discern, much less relate to. What did this have to do with the Divine Passion of Goddess and God? Nothing I could resonate with. What did this even have to do with good writing? Nothing.
It went downhill from there. All that hokum about Atlantean priestesses and crystals and descriptions of scenery that could never happen in nature (strawberries, for instance, do not grow on bushes!) alienated me from the theology. That left only the erotica, and it flat turned me off. Does Ms. Knight have any idea how unequally she has painted her Goddess and God? I for one do not want my lover to come to me as a supplicant, and the idea of a god named Tarvos - the Bull - doing so is ludicrous. So, alas, were many of the scenarios she envisioned. Most disappointing was the utter lack of mutuality in what was supposedly a ritual. All I could see were some rather lame masturbatory fantasies.
I thought maybe it was just me; maybe I just didn't understand the genre. So I lent Greenfire to someone who reads more erotica than I do. When I asked what he thought, he said, "Well, if you took out all the Atlantean crystal-weenie stuff, you'd have some fairly standard soft-core porn." Yuck.
About 30 years ago, Fred Maclauren Adams, co-founder of the Feraferia tradition, wrote a masterpiece of sacred erotica called The Nine Royal Passions of the Year. If you really want to experience that particularly pagan blending of reverence and lust, of passion and devotion and oneness with the land, find that. It'll be well worth the quest and the cost.
But Greenfire isn't worth the paper it's printed on.
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