Tag Archives: literature

Disasters and Their Symbolic Dimensions

Posted on July 13, 2025 by Symbol Reader

“In the beginning, there was nothing at all that anyone could have discerned – only a yawning gap that stretched in all directions – featureless, indefinite, without orientation.” Sarah Iles Johnston, Gods and Mortals: Ancient Greek Myths for Modern Reader … Continue reading →

Posted in Disasters | Tagged alchemy, archetypes, Blatten, C.G. Jung, calamities, catastrophe, depth psychology, Derborence, disaster, Enkidu, enlightenment, Gilgamesh, hope, landslide, literature, mountain, nature, Pandora, Piuro, psyche, Ragnarok, Ramuz, Switzerland, unconscious | Leave a comment

Kafka’s Book of Images – Part 2

Posted on January 25, 2025 by Symbol Reader

SATURN’S SHADOW Reiner Stach published the second volume of Kafka’s biography in 2013 under the title Kafka: The Decisive Years. The volume covers the years 1910 (Kafka’s 27th birthday) till 1915. This period, spanning Kafka’s late twenties to early thirties, … Continue reading →

Posted in Franz Kafka | Tagged archetypes, astrology, biography, C.G. Jung, death, devouring, father, Franz Kafka, Judgement, Kafka, Kafkaesque, libido, literature, metamorphosis, Reiner Stach, Saturn return, symbolism, symbols, transformation | 4 Comments

The War in the Psyche

Posted on August 1, 2024 by Symbol Reader

You might recall that in the film The Pianist, Władysław Szpilman is depicted hiding in the ruins of apartments, witnessing both the Ghetto Uprising in 1943 and the Warsaw Uprising in 1944. Today marks the 80th anniversary of the latter. … Continue reading →

Posted in Psyche, War | Tagged archetypes, C.G. Jung, conflict, depth psychology, harmony, history, literature, opposites, Paul Lynch, Poland, Prophet Song, psyche, Soul, symbolism, symbols, Szpilman, The Pianist, War, Warsaw, Warsaw Uprising | 2 Comments

Gentleman Overboard: Existential Loneliness

Posted on May 1, 2023 by Symbol Reader

“‘Where is it,’ thought Raskolnikov. ‘Where is it I’ve read that someone condemned to death says or thinks, an hour before his death, that if he had to live on some high rock, on such a narrow ledge that he’d … Continue reading →

Posted in Gentleman Overboard | Tagged archetypes, death, For Whom the Bell Tolls, Gentleman Overboard, Hemingway, Herbert Clyde Lewis, John Donne, literature, Marie Louise von Franz, psyche, Soul, symbolism, symbols | 6 Comments

Prague: A Threshold

Posted on March 12, 2023 by Symbol Reader

You may have heard of two magical triangles, one of black, the other of white magic. The origins of that legend are impossible to fathom. The white magic triangle is said to include Lyon, Prague and Turin, while the black … Continue reading →

Posted in Prague | Tagged alchemy, Alphonse Mucha, archetypes, art, Art Nouveau, astrology, Black Madonna, C.G. Jung, Cancer, city, Don Giovanni, Edward Kelley, goddess, Il Commendatore, Jaroslaw Rona, John Dee, Kafka, Kepler, literature, magic, magic triangle, Mother, mystery, Prague, Rudolf II, Secession, Soul, symbolism, symbols, Tycho Brahe | 7 Comments

Annie Ernaux

Posted on November 3, 2022 by Symbol Reader

“There is this need I have to write something that puts me in danger, like a cellar door that opens and must be entered, come what may.” Annie Ernaux, Getting Lost Annie Ernaux has won the Nobel prize in literature … Continue reading →

Posted in Annie Ernaux | Tagged Annie Ernaux, candidness, Dostoevsky, literature, memoir, Nobel, truthfulness | 2 Comments

Hamnet and Tutankhamun

Posted on October 13, 2020 by Symbol Reader

Shakespeare’s life is a great mystery but we do know that he had a son, Hamnet, who died at the age 11, possibly from the plague. Four years after his son’s death, Shakespeare wrote Hamlet, maybe his greatest masterpiece. In … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged afterlife, ancient Egypt, archetypes, art, burial, death, fiction, grave, Hamnet, Howard Carter, literature, Maggie O'Farrell, mask, Osiris, Shakespeare, symbolism, symbols, tomb, truth, Tutankhamun, Tutankhamun's mask | 4 Comments

The Innocent Weaving of Stories

Posted on May 31, 2020 by Symbol Reader

“To begin with, it is not true that the Gods dwell only in the Heavens, for all things are full of the Gods.” Iamblichus In this current season of Venus retrograde in Gemini I have been feeling a deep desire … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged archetypes, Arundhati Roy, Borges, collections, forty, Franz Schubert, Iamblichus, Istanbul, Jorge Luis Borges, literature, museums, novels, Orhan Pamuk, Osvaldo Ferrari, quarantine, songs, stories, storytelling, sunthemata, symbolism, symbols, the Museum of Innocence, Venus retrograde | 6 Comments

Little Women 2019: A Short Review

Posted on February 6, 2020 by Symbol Reader

Louisa May Alcott, author of Little Women, experienced both enchantment and wretched poverty in her early years. Her father was an intellectual and member of the Transcendentalist movement, which meant that little Louisa met Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo … Continue reading →

Posted in The Little Women by Louisa May Alcott, Uncategorized | Tagged cinema, classicism, feminism, film, Greta Gerwig, literature, Little Women, Louisa May Alcott, movie, narrative, narrator, patriarchy, postmodernism, review, storytelling, suffrage | 8 Comments

“Blessed is he who leaves” – “Flights” by Olga Tokarczuk

Posted on July 8, 2018 by Symbol Reader

This year’s Man Booker international prize went to a Polish author, Olga Tokarczuk for Flights. It is an absorbing tale, or rather a collection of tales, devoted to the nomad in everyone of us. More than that, a large part … Continue reading →