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Where Three Roads Meet (Canongate Myths #10)
At the end of his life, an old man waits in his office for a stranger to arrive. Over the next few weeks, Teiresias will visit again, making his way across the heath to relate the story of his life. As these two men sit together, a remarkable tale unfolds. The compelling story of Oedipus, who, unknowingly, kills his father and marries his mother, is probably the most influ...more
Paperback, 200 pages
Published
June 5th 2008
by Canongate Books Ltd
(first published November 1st 2005)
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Freud is dying of cancer, and he is hallucinating Tieresias, who wants to tell him the Oedipus myth. It's a brilliant idea, but the actual book gets a little tedious, because the myth is so familiar, and Freud's reaction is so predictable. Vickers doesn't really seem to get inside Freud's head or tell us anything new. Maybe that's too much to expect, but why write the book if there's nothing new to say?
I am a sucker for the revisitation of old myths in new ways. Whether “God’s Behaving Badly” which put the Greek Gods in a London flat, “The Minotaur Takes a Cigarette Break” where we find the monster is still alive and working as a short order cook, or Atwood’s retelling of the Iliad and Odyssey from the perspective of Odysseus’s wife in the wonderful “Penelopiad,” I love reading authors riffs on these stories of my youth. With that disclosure, I cannot help but recommend “Where Three Roads Meet...more
Jul 07, 2012
Susan Rose
rated it
4 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
anyone who likes mythic retellings, or are interested in Freud
Shelves:
adaptations-parodies-sequels
This is another book in the canongate myth series, this one is a adaptation of the oedipus myth told to Freud during his last days by Tiresias.
First off I would say unlike some of the other canongate myth series it helps with this book to have some degree of knowledge of Oedipus. Also I would recommend everyone to read the short introduction in the book which talks about Freud's illness, which is valuable to know during the book.
Right this is a really quick read which is written in a conversat...more
First off I would say unlike some of the other canongate myth series it helps with this book to have some degree of knowledge of Oedipus. Also I would recommend everyone to read the short introduction in the book which talks about Freud's illness, which is valuable to know during the book.
Right this is a really quick read which is written in a conversat...more
The Canongate Myth series is an interesting publishing idea and I have enjoyed seeing what different authors I know have done with it. It's a bit like a massive themed anthology, of longer stories rather than short. It's a while since I read any Salley Vickers' but this seems quite different in style - although the difference was for me very much like the difference between Alexander McCall Smith's No 1 Ladies' Detective and his Dream Angus Canongate Myth.
I wonder if I might have got more out of...more
I wonder if I might have got more out of...more
Vickers is not the first person to offer a rebuttal to Freud's theory of the Oedipus Complex, nor does she say anything revolutionary. More attention is paid to Jocasta's point of view, which is not hard because Freud basically forgot women existed when he first formulated his psychoanalytic theories. The book is primarily an engaging way to read the Oedipus story without having to bother with the play.
Both an illuminating retelling of the story of Oedipus (making him seem more real to me than his being a character in a play did, though granted I did read Sophocles in high school); and Vickers' (she's also a psychoanalyst), at times humorous, but ultimately respectful rebuttal to Freud's theory of the Oedipus Complex.
The second in the Canongate Myth Series I have read and I found it very moving and thought-provoking. In the Sophocles version Teiresias was always the character who interested me most - the blind seer, and although I know little of Freud's theories I liked the human story of his illness and death. Sally Vickers, whose books I really like, has explored in a very short and apparently straightforward re-working of the Oedipus story, some profound ideas about reality, the divine and human strugglin...more
The concept of the book is interesting- Tiresias visits Freud while Freud is on pain killers, and they strike up a friendship...real or a hallucination doesn't really matter...and over the years of visits Tiresias retells the story of Oedipus from his own perspective. Unfortunately, for most of the novel, Tiresias's telling is not much different from the original. I did find the idea that perhaps Tiresias was directly involved with the various prophecies at Delphi interesting, and I also enjoyed...more
You need to have some knowledge of Greek mythology to enjoy this book I think. Salley Vickers' retelling of the Oedipus myth seems a bit pedestrian at first, but it grows on you, especially when you get to the scene where Oedipus discovers the truth.
It's a lovely touch to have the ghost of Tiresias tell the story to the dying Freud and point out the aspects Freud missed due to his focus on sex, and his lack of interest in Jocasta's experience. Vickers explores other aspects of the myth with subt...more
It's a lovely touch to have the ghost of Tiresias tell the story to the dying Freud and point out the aspects Freud missed due to his focus on sex, and his lack of interest in Jocasta's experience. Vickers explores other aspects of the myth with subt...more
Not one of my favourite novels by Salley Vickers. She draws on her earlier training as a psychoanalyst and her knowledge of Greek mythology to create a modern day series of mythological meetings between a dying Sigmund Freud (now living in Hampstead) and Tiresius. The two men discuss the story of Oedipus from the viewpoint and knowledge of the blind man and reflect on the solving of the riddle of the Sphinx and the ways in which Oedipus's parents tried to thwart the Oracle's prophecy.
This is a somewhat weird project. It's not so much a novel as an imagined deathbed dialogue between Tiresias and Freud in which Tiresias explains what REALLY happened to Oedipus and argues for the power of the old gods over Freud's rational materialism. I'm not a huge Freud fan, but his final days must have been pretty horrific, and that was movingly depicted here.
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I read about 70 pages of this and then stopped because I wasn’t getting much out of the book. But because I like this author and others appeared to have enjoyed the book very much I picked it up again and finished it. I might not have persevered if it had been longer. It’s very different from Salley Vickers’ other books. In a dialogue between Freud, who is dying from cancer, and the seer Tiresias, one of the participants in the Oedipus myth, the story is reexamined and reinterpreted. The part I...more
this was a bit hard work but the the story of the end of freuds life is quite interesting. There was something lacking to the retelling of this myth. I really think the author forgot that not all the readers would have such an in depth knowledge of the original myth as she and freud had. and so I got lost at times!!
Annoyed with myself that I have commenced reading this book three or four times and not been able to finish it!! It's a short book too!!!! Must try harder!!!!! ;-)
Interesting - my knowledge of myths and of Freud very limited before this. Both myth and 'the couch' better understood afterwards
I'm not into Mythology, but I do like psychological books. This was interesting more for the knowlege of Dr. Freud with his health. I thought it was imaginative and informative.
This book is a retelling of Oedipus with Freud on hand and it is more clever than wonderful but it is very very clever.
Three cheers for the masterly Vickers, who finds that a different point can be made by the Oedipus story.
This story is an acquired taste. A little morbid but well-told.
This moving portrait of Freud's death and his connection with the perhaps-imaginary seer Tiresias retells the Oedipus myth through the eyes of one who was there. Delicate and tragic, the story is told with sensitivity and makes the historical characters into relatable human figures without demeaning them or patronising the ancient story. While there are no surprises as such - the ending is of course a foregone conclusion - as a study and a philosophical narration, it is beautiful and emotionally...more
25.7 Greek/ Roman gods
Tiresome
Too many psychoanalytic theory classes in grad school have made me a jaded reader of the Oedipus myth, so I didn't enjoy this one quite as much as the other Cannongate Myths books I've read so far. Still, the structure was engaging enough that I finished it it two sittings, and there are some noteworthy observations about truth and language, translation, and interpretation. I'll probably be seeing crossroads in every corner for a while.
The Myths can go either way, and this fell just on the wrong side of so-so. I didn't know much about the last days of Freud so that was quite informative but it felt like it dragged on for quite a while saying not very much. I don't know how much deviation there was from the original Oedipus story but it felt a bit like a lengthy retelling without much surprise.
Sep 03, 2008
Alice
rated it
5 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Recommends it for:
those unafraid to challenge their prejudices.
Shelves:
escape
Enchanting! Vickers reweaves this myth with beauty, wisdom and imagination. Its powerful message is cradled in breathtaking imagery and revealed so gently you discover your attitudes toward sex, violence, betrayal and love shifting imperceptably so you arrive at the end of the book in a different place than you began.
Jan 02, 2012
Gabrielle Carolina
rated it
1 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
didn-t-finish
Did not finish.
Oh, the pretentious quality of the writing. Oh, the spending a huge fraction of the small book detailing Frued's ailment without any particular feeling of voice. Oh, the dash marks, oh, the dash-marks.
Oh, the pretentious quality of the writing. Oh, the spending a huge fraction of the small book detailing Frued's ailment without any particular feeling of voice. Oh, the dash marks, oh, the dash-marks.
I didn't see this as a new slant on the old Oedipus myth , just a rather tedious retelling with Freud puttin in obvious comments as he suffers from cancer of the mouth and is hallucinating.
Though the story is interesting, this was at times annoying to read. The author's style is often too predictable. An interesting plot that deserved more attention...
3 1/2. Interesting and very gracefully written, but looses momentum near the end when the dialogue form loses its edge, and the whole begins to feel somewhat hollow.
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Salley Vickers was born in Liverpool, the home of her mother, and grew up as the child of parents in the British Communist Party. She won a state scholarship to St Paul’s Girl’s School and went on to read English at Newnham College Cambridge.
She has worked, variously, as a cleaner, a dancer, an artist’s model, a teacher of children with special needs, a university teacher of literature, and a psy...more
More about Salley Vickers...
She has worked, variously, as a cleaner, a dancer, an artist’s model, a teacher of children with special needs, a university teacher of literature, and a psy...more
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Jan 13, 2008 11:57am