The Science of Witchcraft: The Truth Behind Sabrina, Maleficent, Glinda, and More of Your Favorite Fictional Witches by Meg Hafdahl
The Science of Witchcraft: The Truth Behind Sabrina, Maleficent, Glinda, and More of Your Favorite Fictional Witches
by Meg Hafdahl
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
My Ratings 4.4/5
Synopsis
A scientific discovery of witches in fiction—Chilled Adventures of Sabrina, Sleeping Beauty, Wicked and so many more!
Kelly Florence and Meg Hafdahl, authors of The Science of Women in Horror and co-hosts of the Horror Rewind podcast called “the best horror film podcast out there” by Film Daddy, present a guide to the history of witchcraft through the stories and characters we all know and love. Reveal the spellbinding science behind the legends and lore surrounding fiction’s most iconic witches, answering such questions as:
What is the science behind divination and spellcraft?
When did witchcraft begin to show up in literature and media?
Has science made it possible to uncover the truth behind the powers of necromancy and employing familiars?
How has witchcraft been thought of throughout the world?
Through interviews, film and literary analysis, and bone-chilling discoveries, join Kelly and Meg as they learn about the complicated and rich science of witchcraft throughout the centuries and discover why now is the season of the witch!
My Thoughts
This book is absolutely beautiful, and it's wonderfully put together. I'm still in the process of reading it, but it's very nice for beginners. Lots of valuable information if you are curious about following the The Science of Witchcraft path. It is entertaining, intelligent, horrific, informative and progressive: it is an astoundingly well balanced. The tactic, it turns out, is unnecessary. The book--the story--is stunning. It's stunning enough that the frustrating aspects of the telling are forgivable and actually retrospectively satisfying (which I suspect is what the author wanted). While the fractional digressions, on the one hand, can have you groping around for a lighter--they, on the other hand, work to accustom you to the novel's epically meandering pace. Also, they effectively allow you to feel a certain urgency near the end of the book, as the narrator "runs out of time."
It's no good for readers looking for a compact plot-line or a coherent narrative. Depending on how you approach it. The Science of Witchcraft: The Truth Behind Sabrina, Maleficent, Glinda, and More of Your Favorite Fictional Witches, is both speedy and slow, a laugh and a litany, obscure yet obvious, weird but wonderful.
What surprised me, however, is how much simple pleasure I was able to take from Meg Hafdahl's writing. I was overwhelmed by its zest and sparkle; the sheer joy in creation shown in every gleefully overloaded sentence, every authorial sleight of hand and every scatological joke.
The extraordinary alchemy of The Science of Witchcraft: The Truth Behind Sabrina, Maleficent, Glinda, and More of Your Favorite Fictional Witches was its miraculous fusion of the fantastical and the generational information.
Highly Recommended!
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