Fortnightly Book, May 12

This next fortnight is also a double feature. I will be continuing with Charles Williams, reading his Shadows of Ecstasy and The Greater Trumps.

Shadows of Ecstasy was written in the 1920s, but it wasn't until Williams had published several other books that it became publishable, so it was eventually published, after some rewriting, in 1933. It is in some ways Williams's most occultish work, one that is not so much concerned with higher things but with the nature of power: power in itself, power unfettered, power to change the world, and its ability to sweep people along regardless of any questions of morality.

The Greater Trumps, while written later, was published first, in 1832; one might say that it is about order, the order of the universe understood as a Great Dance, with the images of tarot cards serving as its primary gimmick.