A Voyage to Arcturus discussion

This is alternately a highly stimulating, more-than-you-bargained-for book and a frustrating excursion into psychedelic-like pseudo-wisdom. Probably Lindsay would have done well to have made this into a series (I suspect if he was writing today it would have been at least a trilogy)--sometimes the action moves so fast that neither the reader nor the character(s) can digest what has just happened. I know it is considered a great but it strains the writer's gifts. Perhaps the writer lacked some understanding of Christian story-myth that would have helped (for me, anyhow) or just a group like the Inklings who could have helped it mature in places. Well, it's a book that most should read--some of the images will last a lifetime and there are plenty of places to stop ask yourself, either "What does that mean?" or just "What was that?"

See my review
http://paulkieniewicz.co.uk/?page_id=349

This may be the book that has influenced me the most.

No book has had a more profound influence on my world view. Who among us would have the audacity to suggest that God himself is a rank pretender?

There is a section in "The Strange Genius of David Lindsay" by Pick, etc. that explains the plot in detail, an explanation I certainly needed after reading the book for the first time.

Glad to see so many people love this book; read it several times and each time I feel more and more uncomfortable and last time I could barely finish it- but that is all good because it fills my mind with wonder so unreal it hurts - I lost my first copy must have lent it couldn't rest until I found a replacement and it wasn't easy then.

I never understood, nor do I especially care, what it all means. It is a euphoric nightmare, a sensual excursion that you feel and experience rather than read.

It is - writing doesn't have to mean something - but like a painting suggest your own interpretation of what you experience in many ways but the most obvious, where the written word has reached the next level of existence...

Angela wrote: "It is - writing doesn't have to mean something - but like a painting suggest your own interpretation of what you experience in many ways but the most obvious, where the written word has reached the..."
Angela, well said of something so hard to describe. I am comforted, I'm not the only one so strongly moved and yet disturbed by this strange book.

you are amongst the lucky ones who can imagine more than mere words can portray