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Ogres and giants, bogeymen and bugaboos embody some of our deepest fears, dominating popular fiction, from tales such as 'Jack the Giant Killer' to the cannibal monster Hannibal Lecter, from the Titans of Greek mythology to the dinosaurs of JURASSIC PARK, from Frankenstein to MEN IN BLACK. Following her brilliant study of fairy tales, FROM THE BEAST TO THE BLONDE, Marina Warner's enthralling new book explores the ever increasing presence of such figures of male terror, and the stratagems we invent to allay the monsters we conjure up. From ogres to cradle songs, from bananas to cannibals, Warner traces the roots of our commonest anxieties, unravelling with vigorous intelligence, originality and relish, the myths and fears which define our sensibilities. Illustrated with a wealth of images - from the beautiful and the bizarre to the downright scary - this is a tour de force of scholarship and imagination.… (more)
Rubbah: Everything I've read by Warner has been excellent, but 'No Go' and 'Beast to the Blonde' are my favourites and if you like one, read the other.
Why do we love being scared? What purpose does the bogeyman serve in our societies? This study of the bogeyman and other beasts who go bump in the night is fascinating, highly readable, and erudite. ( )
Futile - the Winds - / to a Heart in Port - / Done with the Compass - / Done with the Chart -Emily Dickenson
As rational metaphysics teaches that man becomes all things by understanding them (homo non intelligentia fit omnia), this imaginative metaphysics shows that man becomes all things by not understanding them (homo non intelligendo fit omnia). Perhaps the latter proposition is true than the former, for when man understands he extends his mind and comprehends all things, but when he does not understand, he makes things out of himself and becomes them by transforming himself into them. -Giambattista Vico, Principles of New Science
When children, frightened of the wolf at the window, were asked what did it want to do, the little boy replied, "Gobble me up." The little girl said, "Let's ask it." -Darrian Leader, Why Do Women Write More Letters Than They Post?
Dedication
For Nick Groom
First words
This book began with the problem on men. -Preface
Think of a time near the beginning; not at the start of history, but beyond it, in that outer circles of retrospection where dates turn into foam towers of bubble-like zeros. -Prologue
No Go the Bogeyman is about fear; it faces one of the most everyday yet least examined of human feelings, and it describes three of the principal methods of coping with anxieties grounded in common experience, as well as the nameless terrors that come in the dark and assail the mind. -Introduction
In a poem written in Germany in 1782, the pot Goethe evoked the Erlking, or the King of the Alders, wooing a boy who was riding with his father through a dark forest: "You sweet child, come, come with me!" he calls out, "we shall play lovely games together, there are flowers of many colours by the water's edge, my mother has many garments of gold." -Chapter 1, 'Here Comes the Bogeyman!'
Ogres and giants, bogeymen and bugaboos embody some of our deepest fears, dominating popular fiction, from tales such as 'Jack the Giant Killer' to the cannibal monster Hannibal Lecter, from the Titans of Greek mythology to the dinosaurs of JURASSIC PARK, from Frankenstein to MEN IN BLACK. Following her brilliant study of fairy tales, FROM THE BEAST TO THE BLONDE, Marina Warner's enthralling new book explores the ever increasing presence of such figures of male terror, and the stratagems we invent to allay the monsters we conjure up. From ogres to cradle songs, from bananas to cannibals, Warner traces the roots of our commonest anxieties, unravelling with vigorous intelligence, originality and relish, the myths and fears which define our sensibilities. Illustrated with a wealth of images - from the beautiful and the bizarre to the downright scary - this is a tour de force of scholarship and imagination.
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