Rupert Owen reviewed Moon-Eyed People by Peter Stevenson
Review of 'Moon-Eyed People' on 'GoodReads'
2 stars
At first this seemed like a good idea. However, by the end I found myself in a blur of anecdotal, sometimes mythological, other times authorial passages which, although having chaptered themes, began to lose its pep. The author dips in and out of elucidation and sometimes I felt a bit disconcerted as how much the author had contributed to the telling of each piece and how much was "verbatim" from the sources from whence they came. In that I didn't want to read Welsh Folk Tales as told by Peter Stevenson, I wanted some background on who told the story and where it came from.
To be honest, the book for me was less a folk compendium and more a periodical assortment of loose tales. Having said that, it is still worth a read if you have an interest on the subject as it may introduce many myths and folktales …
At first this seemed like a good idea. However, by the end I found myself in a blur of anecdotal, sometimes mythological, other times authorial passages which, although having chaptered themes, began to lose its pep. The author dips in and out of elucidation and sometimes I felt a bit disconcerted as how much the author had contributed to the telling of each piece and how much was "verbatim" from the sources from whence they came. In that I didn't want to read Welsh Folk Tales as told by Peter Stevenson, I wanted some background on who told the story and where it came from.
To be honest, the book for me was less a folk compendium and more a periodical assortment of loose tales. Having said that, it is still worth a read if you have an interest on the subject as it may introduce many myths and folktales that may otherwise remain unknown.