An Alchymical Odyssey - by Michael Boughn (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

Following A Hyperbiographical User's Manual (The Book of Uncertain Book 1), An Alchymical Odyssey (The Book of Uncertain Book 2) dives deep into the processes of bios/zoe that constitute something called " a life" . The " journey" implied in the process leads back " home" even as it traverses a range of experience. That process can be identified with the Alchymical notion of the opus, a work of continual spiritual transformation (clarification), an ongoing ordeal that moves through different states, including nigredo (disintegration), albedo (purification) and rubedo (instauration) over and over until it eventually results in the chemical wedding that produces the philosopher's stone. It also echoes with a sense of Odysseus's long journey home through multiple dangers and temptations. As Alchymy imagines its central struggle in terms of the relation of male and female figures, the King and the Queen, and their eventual union, so too does Odysseus's eventual successful return to Penelope figure a union, or re-union, as the image of an achieved spiritual wholeness. The concern is with psyche, but psyche in James Hillman's sense as something beyond the person, something persons particip

Review Quotes

Michael Boughn is a cross between John Donne and Attila the Hun.

--Billie Chernicoff

About the Author

Michael Boughn is a writer and teacher whose published works include poetry, literary essays, short stories, and young adult non-fiction. He taught part-time at the University of Toronto for 23 years, covering courses in post-modern fiction, poetry, children's literature, American literature, detective fiction and science fiction, among others.