greetings from the Vivian Amberville fanclub of Canada!
5 December 03, 2020
As you can see in the title, I'm a member and fellow book reader of the Toronto fantasy bookclub. In our little fanclub, we hold Louise Blackwick's Vivian Amberville as something altogether original and special. You may already know from many reviews that Louise Blackwick is a pupil of Carl Jung and that her books deal with complex jungian themes, imagery and archetypes. This unusual "style" has consecrated Blackwick as an international author (she is originally from the Netherlands) around the same time a canadian household name - Jordan Peterson - a clinical psychologist with tenure has started popularizing Jungian ideas, making them more accessible to the youth. With Peterson and Blackwick emerged around the same time, through different mediums, I personally feel their work has indirectly helped millions of young people and continues to help them still. Still, unbeknown to either of them (Blackwick and Peterson are yet to meet), their common denominator remains the exploration of Jungian ideas. Shadow- work, synchronicity, individuation, archetypes, and many, many more sacred and profane ideas can be found in their work, which is what has drawn me to them.
Blackwick's Vivian Amberville series is an exploration of the subconscious, through layers of easy-to-digest metaphor and clever fiction. In this fictitious world, we are thrown in a seemingly wondrous universe where "history can be rewritten", "any event can be altered" and "thoughts can alter the substance of reality". But just like imagination is both a force of creation and of destruction alike, Blackwick's world is one of Chaos, or should I say order within chaos and chaos within order. Vivian's Young Adult journey is one of individuation, but unlike the typical hero's journey, she carries within her the Dark behind the eyes, the Chaos of reality and the Shadow of the human soul. This "tainting by evil" grants her powers above her peers (she is a Chaos Weaver), yet it also offers warning about corruption and how easily it is to be engulfed by the jungian shadow. The other characters thus become a study of archetype, if always inversed (the nurturing mother vs. the devouring mother - the Mother of Nations, the Wise Old man vs. the corrupt and crooked conniver etc.), and since Blackwick is also big on alchemy, the characters also designate the stages of alchemical transmutation.
In other words, expect a Harry Potter level of epic writing, but with deeply-ingrained and immensely clever jungian ideals that transcend the boundaries of fiction and find roots into the collective unconscious of all.
If you're a fan of Peterson as I am, you need to read Louise Blackwick - especially her other stories which are not YA and go that extra mileage in jungian psychology - THE UNDERWORLD RHAPSODY, REPROBATES and JUMP INTO THE ABYSS!. If you're not familiar with jungian archetypes, pick up VIVIAN AMBERVILLE - THE WEAVER OF ODDS or soon enough VIVIAN AMBERVILLE - THE BOOK OF CHAOS and you will be gripped by a story so original, clever, epic and inspiring, it deserves to live for all time on the shelves of literary history.
Seriously, buy this book on paperback. You will be enriched by the experience!
Blackwick's Vivian Amberville series is an exploration of the subconscious, through layers of easy-to-digest metaphor and clever fiction. In this fictitious world, we are thrown in a seemingly wondrous universe where "history can be rewritten", "any event can be altered" and "thoughts can alter the substance of reality". But just like imagination is both a force of creation and of destruction alike, Blackwick's world is one of Chaos, or should I say order within chaos and chaos within order. Vivian's Young Adult journey is one of individuation, but unlike the typical hero's journey, she carries within her the Dark behind the eyes, the Chaos of reality and the Shadow of the human soul. This "tainting by evil" grants her powers above her peers (she is a Chaos Weaver), yet it also offers warning about corruption and how easily it is to be engulfed by the jungian shadow. The other characters thus become a study of archetype, if always inversed (the nurturing mother vs. the devouring mother - the Mother of Nations, the Wise Old man vs. the corrupt and crooked conniver etc.), and since Blackwick is also big on alchemy, the characters also designate the stages of alchemical transmutation.
In other words, expect a Harry Potter level of epic writing, but with deeply-ingrained and immensely clever jungian ideals that transcend the boundaries of fiction and find roots into the collective unconscious of all.
If you're a fan of Peterson as I am, you need to read Louise Blackwick - especially her other stories which are not YA and go that extra mileage in jungian psychology - THE UNDERWORLD RHAPSODY, REPROBATES and JUMP INTO THE ABYSS!. If you're not familiar with jungian archetypes, pick up VIVIAN AMBERVILLE - THE WEAVER OF ODDS or soon enough VIVIAN AMBERVILLE - THE BOOK OF CHAOS and you will be gripped by a story so original, clever, epic and inspiring, it deserves to live for all time on the shelves of literary history.
Seriously, buy this book on paperback. You will be enriched by the experience!