Let's see, I've owned this book for exactly 20 years. I reckon this is at least the FOURTH time I've read it and I STILL don't really understand it, and I have this inner conviction that Miss Weston has actually made it all up, but. But. Something in it deeply appeals to me. The idea that the whole grail legend hearkens back to something more primitive and connected with the earth makes sense to me, in exactly the way it seems obvious to me that both Peredur and Perceval are springboard tellings of an older story.

I like rereading my marginalia in this book; obviously over the years I've had more than one reason for reading it, and the notes appear in layers. There are references to Eliot and then there are references to an unpublished novel of my own and then there are references to my current work of fiction, only a few transformations back. I must admit that, reading it this time, I am pretty sure Miss Weston is not going to tell me anything new.

It's comfort reading, in the way neat gin might be comfort food if you were a serious alcoholic and didn't mind the burn on the way down. Consider this excerpt (underlined, in the book):

"The Exoteric side of the cult gives us the Human, the Folk-lore, elements--the Suffering King; the Waste Land; the effect upon the Folk; the task that lies before the hero; the group of Grail symbols. The Esoteric side provides us with the Mystic Meal, the Food of Life, connected in some mysterious way with a Vessel which is the centre of the cult...a double initiation into the source of the lower and higher spheres of life; the ultimate proof of the successful issue of the final test in the restoration of the King."

GAWD. And I am trying to sublimate this into a KID'S BOOK. idiot idiot idiot

-----------------
ETA: Goodreads comments that "None of your friends have read From Ritual to Romance." geez, wot a surprise.