I am re-reading Robert Graves' "The White Goddess." I found a train ticket in the book, must have used it as a book mark, it's from 1996, so I figure that's about the time I first read it. It is a "head-scratcher." It is a poetic flight. It is a secret history, a confabulation. It is vexing. It is weird. It is beautiful.
I have no clue if it's based in any kind of reality. Probably there's a bit of reality in there, but it's an amazing book, with wild insights, and strange things on just about every page. It's an argument. A revelation. A treatise. A riddle. A fantastical text. Names, dates, tribes, peoples, gods, trees, languages, rituals, sacrifices, wars, battles, religious feasts and all things human conspire together.
It is a conjuring. It is madness. I like it very much. Often my eyes cloud over and it's puts me to sleep, but I always pick it back up. I am determined to finish it. Again. I think it's a spell. I have fallen under it. I am living in a cloud. And I like it.