| Criticism, Interpretation |
|
|  |
| Customer Reviews: | | Average Customer Review: ( 4 customer reviews )
Write an online review and share your thoughts with other customers.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
1 of 1 found the following review helpful:
 Informative and Entertaining Jan 19, 2009
By Angela
This book was one of the most interesting books I have ever read. It makes it clear that the stories from the Bible are just as mythological as any stories or legends from other religions, as it portrays God in an entirely different manor. The book is also very entertaining, as it is basically compiled into a bunch of short stories.
I definitely recommend this book to anyone with an open mind. If you are very strict to your Christian beliefs, then this book will not be for you.
 interesting read, but not a "biography" Nov 01, 2010
By sagan09
This is a fiction novel, not strictly speaking a biography. I was expecting non-fiction based biography, based on various religious and folk texts from numerous different cultures and times.
This novel uses a number of historical/religious texts and stories to create a mix of science fiction and philosophy. It is a story of Lucifer as he goes through aeons of time, placing him in several historical places and events. Lucifer is not presented as a god-like creature with unlimitted power, but rather a flawed creature, whose powers are very much human.
It is very well written and most certainly presents a different story of Lucifer, from most of us are accustomed to. For anyone looking for a good interesting intelectual read, try it. Anyone expecting a biography of Lucifer, from a historical or religious perspective, skip it.
6 of 11 found the following review helpful:
Fingerpost to the future points backwards Oct 31, 2005
By no card on file
"emily"
Clements takes the DNA of the ancient texts and reconstitutes a flesh and blood saga that brings sense to a tale embedded in our cultural heritage.
Readers without particular interest in texts mythologic or religious can enjoy the book as pure science fiction, but anyone exposed to Western culture has been impregnated by the ubiquity of Christian ideas and will recognise the back story here. This provacative exposure of events and character is certain to offend some of those wedded to the cannon of King James, but results in a perspective that makes many events recounted there resolve into coherance. (finally)
Like Diamont's 'The Red Tent' did for events of the old testament, Clements 'Flights of Seraphs,' allows the reader to fully imagine a past that existed, rather than one concocted. Like Brown's 'Davinci Code,' offers conspiracy rear of puzzling recent history. The audiences of those best sellers are wide. Unless their individual tastes are also wide, this book is no doubt too particular for that entire segment. You, dear reader, should like the fringe at both ends of the carpet
Clements takes the ancients at their word, with respect for the reporting abilities of those people, often dismissed as credulous. The book will have you meaning to buy copies of The Book of Enoch and The Dead Sea Scrolls, while you pine for foot notes. Alas, witted one, the book is for the sensual pleasures of intelligent story telling, not pedagogy. Those of you of academic persuasion are referred by Clements to her web site for the scholarly treatment from her textbook 'The Tenth Order.' (As an aside, if you like reading footnotes, try 'Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrel'-you'll be orgasmic for days.)
The Big Questions are an unlisted ingrediant in Clements stew of sex, blood, cloning, political treachery, lust and betrayel. Offering an updated vocabulary to interpret our past,and new questions to ask of the present, reading, one muses: What does it mean to be an ethical being? Who controls the definition of what it means to be human? Who else should we admitt to the club and favor with our ethics?
At a time when the Christian myth is shown thin in the light of gnosis, human need for a narrative which respects the maturity of society is dire and near absent from mass consciousness. You will have to seek it for yourselves. Clements has, with a mind scientific, philosophic, historic, and, yes- folkloric.
2 of 7 found the following review helpful:
Finally a glimpse of the real human religious story Mar 05, 2006
By William Smyth
"Bill"
In Flights of Seraphs, Colleen Clements provides a provacative, yet highly defendable, account of the old texts and the distortion of the history of Lucifer, the fallen Seraphim. With engaging prose and brilliant weaving of the old texts and characters in her book, Clements presents a rich tapestry that keeps the reader in anticipation of the next revelation. Although not designed as an academic text per se, the use of ancient texts with fictional materials to present a more balanced account of Lucifer, than traditionally found in Judeo-Christian sources poses serious issues and questions for historiographic, philosophic, and religious analysis that researches, or perhaps Clements herself, must explore.
For readers interested in religiously based fiction, such as "The Da Vinci Code" or "The Historian" this is essential reading that they will find hard to put down once they begin. In purely literary terms Flight of the Seraphs is well written, has characters that the reader finds believable and full of depth of character.
For academics interested in the ancient texts and how the characters and accounts eluded to within them have been often subverted for political and religious reasons this book is also an essential read. As Clements has examined the old texts and religious suppression in the Tenth Order, found on her website, and eludes to a more academic book on the "Other history" to be released soon the avenues for serious academic debate that Flight of the Seraphs creates should not be shut down, but embraced.
Overall, this is a fascinating read and an essential addition to the collections of any reader that is interested in history, religion, and the story of mankinds' relation to the cosmos.
|
| | |
|
|
