3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Everyday miracles, March 28, 2006
This review is from: Magick in the West End: Stories of the Occult (Paperback)
Magick in the West End, roller coasters
the reader from biography to fable to
universal wisdom. Author Kala Trobe
careens between fact and fiction
spinning eight bedazzling tales of a
"typical" occultist's life-viewing the
world from the Tarot reader's table of
our self-titled narrator, "Kala," in the
window of the occult bookshop,
Malynowsky's, in west London.
Upon entry into her world, its grandiose faults
and everyday miracles soon evidence.
She is at times cutting, witty, selfeffacing,
immodest and hilarious as the
stories weave together into a tapestry of
familiarity that makes one believe we
have visited this very bookshop. Is this a
character she writes of, or is it a
biography? Did the event really happen
just as she describes it... does it matter?
Kala weaves metaphors into precision
instruments of art, painting in broad
strokes of emotions that we easily
recognize within ourselves. Magickally
levitating the reader's window of disbelief,
Kala's book stands as a well constructed
set of tales, which are both vernacular
and mystic. Like the Temperance card,
she straddles both realms, the emotional
and material, the mundane and the
mystifying, blending into this book a
cup of unique and marvelous new vision
for us to scry.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Scintillating read..., January 7, 2006
This review is from: Magick in the West End: Stories of the Occult (Paperback)
Kala Trobe offers another thought provoking collection of tales set in modern-day London. She serves another collection of stories which illustrate the blurring of the line between the mundane and magickal worlds; a collection of stories which the reader will, most likely, feel might have happened, or could have happened, or might yet happen if the circumstances are just right.
This collection of seven short stories is, once again, an eclectic gathering - from Sadboy Sam (is he or isn't he connected with the Highgate Vampire?) to the Kali Furies (a self-admitted "Tale of Misanthropy").
How much of this book is autobiographical and how much is purely invention is impossible to sort out and, ultimately, is unimportant. The stories are entertaining and contain some truths which are passing along. The heroine is not a perfect member of the magickal community. She has her shortcomings, some of which are self-destructive and others of which are merely non-PC. She is not all sweetness-and-light, nor is she all gloom-and-doom. She is, in short, a living, breathing member of the human race and one that most of us can, at least partially, identify with.
As soon as I got this book I knew I was going to regret it. Kala writes so well, and her stories are so believable that I hate to come to the end of her books. I enjoyed her first fiction book (The Magick Bookshop) and found this collection just as enjoyable. I can't speak about her non-fiction, although I may have to dig up a copy or two of her books in that field just out of curiosity. What I can say, without reservation, is that her fiction is among the best I have read set in the real world. You have no doubt about the possibility of meeting her characters in the street, if you haven't already.
I've said it before, and I will say it again. Buy this book and enjoy the experience.
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3.0 out of 5 stars
Stopped short, February 9, 2008
This review is from: Magick in the West End: Stories of the Occult (Paperback)
While the prose was, indeed, well written, I felt as if the author had stopped short on the stories that made up this book. It dealt with different experiences she'd had, which was really interesting, BUT everytime I felt myself getting into it, the plot would shift directions I was left hanging. This is especially true concerning the part where a ghost from Louisiana leads her to something that has been hidden; I wanted to find out more about the ghost and the hidden object, but that didn't happen.
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