Where Three Roads Meet by Sally Vickers is another of the revamped myths in the series that includes The Penelopiad and Dream Angus. In this story, Freud, slowly dying of cancer, is retold the Oedipus story by Tireseas, the blind soothsayer. Freud is asked to reconsider his take on the myth, now that he has the true story. There are some interesting exchanges between the men. Short, and relatively easy to read, this story just missed the mark for me. Written as a dialogue between the two men, it is not always easy to tell who is speaking and I found myself mixing up who was who several times. However, as a series, these works are fascinating retellings and I’m glad I took the time. ( )

Sally Vickers joins the Canongate Myth series taking the tale of Oedipus. She matches him up with Psychologist Sigmund Freud who came up with his famous theory of mother loving and father hating Oedipus complex and his theory of Psychoanalysis. Sally comes up with the genius idea of having the Oracle who fortold that Oedipus would kill his father and that he would sleep with his mother appearing to Freud in his later life and telling his side of events.

Freud is ill. He has a painful cancer growing in his mouth which led to much of his jaw being removed and many painful operations. He was given his oral prothesis he nicknamed "the monster" to aid his speaking and it is during this illness that the Oracle first begins to appear. We learn of his life growing up in Delphi being dedicated to Apollo but also working with Athena who causes his blindness and Dionysis. There are some great moments of dialogue between him and Freud who cannot help trying to analyse him at intervals.

This was such a fun and interesting novel. I didn't know much about Freud's life and was interested to read about his crippling illness and his time fleeing the Nazi's against his will (his sisters were killed in concentration camps). It so ironic that Freud who needed his powers of speech so much lost them in later life. A great addition to an excellent and thought provoking series. ( )

A little book about the last days of Freud. He discusses the Oedipus myth with Tiresias, the Ancient Greek seer. A more delicious set up I could scarcely imagine.

I've seen this trivia on the road to Delphi, where Oedipus unwittingly killed his own father and sealed his fate: An atmospheric place, an intelligent metaphor, a lovely book. ( )

Perhaps Three Roads was doomed from the start, as an adaptation of a myth I’ve never particularly cared for—that of Oedipus. But of all my complaints about the book, the storyline is the least of them.
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One issue is that Tiresias’ life and experiences are much more interesting than the traditional story of Oedipus. But a much bigger issue is that the dialogue format makes the whole book seem too didactic. Certainly the dialogue was chosen to mimic ancient Greek dialogues like those of Plato, and this one is constructed, I believe, to teach in a similar way. Tiresias, here, is teaching Freud…what? I am not completely sure. Reference is made many times to the fact that the psychoanalyst has made his career on the Oedipus story, and Tiresias is now here to tell him how things really went down. But it’s still not clear to me how successful this is.
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In sum, this is probably worth a read if you are interested in the Oedipus myth or have a better liking for the dialogue format than I do (it is a style that irks me somewhat even traditionally). I’ve never read anything else by Salley Vickers, so perhaps it is also simply her prose style I didn’t take to; if you love her, you may well love this too. But I found it generally too didactic and too repetitive for too little reward.
(more at http://www.bibliographing.com/2008/07... ) ( )

This was disappointing. I enjoyed the retelling of the Greek myth, which I did not remember well beforehand, and I found the Freud story interesting. However, it did not work for me combining the two stories. I usually really enjoy Salley Vickers, but this felt like a failed experiment. I really wanted to like it too, as I have enjoyed the other boks in the Myth series. ( )