Reviews and Comments

The bottom line is stated early in the book: almost all we know about the pre-Christian Irish was written down by Christians, and the original cultural context of those surviving (and distorted) details is lost. For a historian there is no way around these facts.

The author here uses a lot of linguistic evidence, looking at cognates between Irish names/places and their possible Celtic or Indo-European roots. When necessary, he discusses beliefs and practices from Gaul (roughly France) or Wales instead, because they are better-sourced and presumably similar because of the shared Celtic origin.

There is plenty more to say, but overall I'm glad I read it. Reasonable and convincing claims are mixed with pretty tenuous inferences. That's probably the best that can be done with this topic.

An American epic. Shorter than The Amazing Adventures Kavalier & Clay, but no less successful in creating an original hero.

The passage where they travel through a burned-out version of Tennessee will stay with me for a long time.

Published in 1999. I'm not an archaeologist or anthropologist, but the Introduction's reference to "primitive" cultures is a sign that terminology has changed in the meantime; but that doesn't mean its whole analysis is outdated. We'll see. I'm expecting 95% speculation that may be well reasoned.

I was skeptical after the first few pages, because I thought the author was yet another Californian writer who'd "discovered" mindfulness ideas that are 2,500 years old. But there were several passages and at least one chapter that made me put-the-book-down and reflect. I even wrote a couple pages myself just to think through her concept of "maintenance" before I could continue reading.

Some sections could have been trimmed, but there are enough convincing - and extremely relevant / applicable - ideas in this volume that I'm very glad to have read it.

I need to think of another word to substitute for "icebreaker". People in my profession have all developed an allergy to that word, even if the activity itself is fine at a party to facilitate connections.

Excellent, just like the first Thursday Night Murder Club.