RAVENS IN THE LIBRARY: Magic in the Bard's Name (A Review, Part I)

You guys remember Ravens in the Library, right? If you're not sure what I'm talking about, allow me to sum up: S.J. Tucker, traveling musician and fire-spinner extraordinaire, became terribly ill this past winter and had to undergo several very expensive medical procedures. Unfortunately, she did not have health insurance (which is the lamentable lot of many, many people in this country); what she did have, however, were amazing friends (writers, editors, and artists among them) and fans who created and bought a benefit anthology to assist her in paying off her medical debt.

Ravens in the Library is that anthology. It is a limited edition collection edited by SatyrPhil Brucato and Sandra Buskirk, available only until Tucker's medical expenses have been covered.

I eagerly awaited this anthology. It arrived on March 30th, and I bravely resisted reading it until I could squeeze some downtime out of my semester, shoehorning Ravens in the Library in among Thomas Hardy ("Hap," "Neutral Tones," "A Broken Appointment"...) and John Keats ("The Eve of St. Agnes," "La Belle Dame Sans Merci"...) poetry. I finished it in less than a week, and then had to wait several weeks before I could find some more free time to share a review with you all.

Well, the time for review has come! In assembling my thoughts today, I discovered that this informal review was definitely going to run long. To that end, I have determined to break it up into two posts. Today, you get the first half of the stories on the TOC (with the musical pieces excluded). Tomorrow, you get the rest of the TOC, as well as my thoughts on the introduction, the lyrics included, and the art. Without further ado:

"Forbidden Brides of the Faceless Slaves in the Nameless House of the Night of Dread Desire," by Neil Gaiman.

From its ridiculously over-wrought title to its amusing inversion of reality, this story by Neil Gaiman leaves me feeling delighted and giggly. It's not a particularly deep meditation on the nature of writing and self-parody and the relationship of reality to fiction, but it's thought-provoking enough to leave one in a state of (perhaps slightly giddy, definitely bemused) musing at the close of the tale. However, most fans of Neil Gaiman will have already read this story in the collection Fragile Things.

( Read the rest of the reviews behind the cut... )

Return tomorrow for the rest of the review! You'll find talk of killer unicorns, Lost children, ever-changing semi-conscious houses, the Descent of Inanna in Vegas, and more!


Other reviews of Ravens in the Library:
k_crow 's review blurbs.
thewronghands' thoughts.
maverick_weirdo's write-up.
jennifer_brozek's preliminary thoughts.
(Anyone know of any other reviews? Let me know and I'll add them here!)

On Balance Cards and Self-Divination

I am fond of decks of cards: there's something powerful, to me, about a trim stack of stiff paper pieces bearing images, whether those images be spades and diamonds, illustrations drawn by Pamela Colman Smith, depictions of fairy tales, etc. Cards are things of chance and story, community and danger. Since I was a child, I have been especially drawn to cards of divination. Here's the thing, though: I don't believe that divinatory cards reveal the future. I believe that these cards have the power to reveal ourselves.

Many people find it difficult to quiet their minds and just listen to the wisdom they usually possess beneath all the bullshit our everyday monkey minds throw at us. I know I've definitely been guilty of this: making personal decisions dramatic and confusing rather than trusting the decision I've already made but didn't want to face. I've asked the Tarot about my future because I was afraid, when all I needed to do was look at my past and my present to know what I should be doing.

And that's exactly what the Tarot and other decks helped me do: look inside, not to the future. The conjunction of cards, a random symbolic image: these things can have the same effect on our minds as an intuitively grasped Zen koan, shocking us into a new sense of understanding.

Several years ago, I encountered M.C.A. Hogarth's Balance Cards. Amazingly, this woman had developed her own deck of cards that perfectly meshed with my personal concepts of these things. From her website:

While similar in style to Tarot Cards and other forms of card divination, the Balance Cards™ are not used for fortune-telling. Instead, these cards help you explore your psyche and uncover the roadblocks in your life that prevent you from flourishing. They provide inspiration for meditation, warn you of self-destructive behaviors, and allow you to identify the strengths and weaknesses in yourself, your actions, your relationships and your attitudes.

Well, the Balance Cards are certainly My Kind of Thing. However, they're not a deck of cards I can possess; rather, all of haikujaguar 's cards in the one deck of Balance Cards that exists are blank. When she reads, she pulls the labeled card and lets an image form in her mind for each person. The resulting readings can be startling and are always thought-provoking. And, if you desire to commission your card, she will paint you your specific ideological card.

As you can deduce, this method of reading can be exhausting. Yet haikujaguar  offers a monthly One Card Draw, where anyone can request one card for free through her Livejournal. You can even customize the question you want answered. While this monthly draw is usually sponsored by several people from the community, there is still an intense amount of generosity that goes into these One Card Draws. I am truly impressed and humbled each time haikujaguar  holds one.

I have benefited from her readings on several occasions. I have even commissioned a couple of cards, one of which is pictured with this entry. Both cards have proven very inspirational to me, helping me to hear myself when I needed it the most.

If you're interested in divination or just need a little help quieting your monkey mind, give M.C.A. Hogarth's Balance Cards a try. You can commission a private reading for a nominal fee or simply participate in the One Card Draw she's hosting tomorrow.

I'll see you there.