Secular Grail Paradigms of Perception-Signed

by Dewdney

Christopher Dewdney regards the modern world with fresh eyes. A collection of prose and thoughts on western culture, The Secular Grail investigates the nature of contemporary reality. Writing on everything from sexual variations to rock videos, memory and dreams to Eternal Return, this is a guidebook to the incredible changes the human race is undergoing.

Paperback

First published August 1, 1993

Reviews

[Dan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Short prose fragments speculating about the character and modifications of consciousness in a number of contexts—in the hyper-communicative environment of the city, in the intimacy of the social relationship, in the acts of dreaming or remembering, in neurosis.

There is an emphasis on the notion of strangeness in the work: Dewdney claims, for instance, that the city makes us strangers to the natural world, and that the fictions we tell about ourselves make us strangers to our real selves. Dewdney’s style reflects the theme of strangeness: he comments on familiar experiences, but makes them unfamiliar by conceptualizing them in a manner reminiscent of Roland Barthes or Marshall McLuhan; he employs technical language and analogies from science and psychoanalysis; and he discusses strange experiences—the hallucination, the ghost, the uncanny coincidence.

Acquired Mar 20, 1995
Double Hook Bookstore, Montreal, Quebec