I had a vaguely disappointing book club meeting last night. Nothing I could really put my finger on; it�s just that we�ve been trying to do this book for two years, and I somehow expected more. Perhaps I was missing a more Joseph Campbell-esque discussion, as Paze suggested on the way home. Mythago Wood is so rich in the concept of myth and man�s mind that there exist weeks of discussion material tucked away in it, and instead we talked abut how the wood functioned. Ironically, we illustrated one of the very issues we were arguing about: the scientific, rational, logical modern mind attempting to explain things, as opposed to the mythological mind, which feels, plain and simple, and creates meaning out of emotion and instinct. Myth is story, pure and simple; story, and theme, and archetype. Science may just be another myth man has created to explain the world around him, but at least we might have discussed that as myth-making rather than attempting to pin down the mechanics of the fantastic element that enables the story to exist in the first place. Do you try to explain how Aslan is resurrected in the Chronicles of Narnia � or, say, how Christ �rose from the dead� (to side-step into another mythology)? Do you try to explain how you can go through a wardrobe made of Narnian wood in our world, and end up in Narnia itself? Explaining how the magic works may satisfy our panicked twenty-first century minds, using rational parameters to truss the poor thing up so it can�t move and we can label it with a neat toe-tag� but in the long run, why do it? The very wildness and inexplicability of it all is part of the attraction. There�s a reason why the concept of magic still exists in our contemporary mythos.

Bah. I am so grumpy this morning, goodness me. I should go re-read The Power of Myth. Perhaps that would help.