Tag: magic

‘The Invisible Hour’ by Alice Hoffman

On By Malcolm R. CampbellIn reviews, writing

Quite likely, most readers know Alice Hoffman through her “Practical Magic” series as well as The Dove Keepers. There’s such a variety in her work, that one might wonder if there are multiple Alice Hoffmans out there crafting her thirty novels. If so, her latest book The Invisible Hour, released on August 15th, which may or may not come from yet “another” Hoffman is a tempting treat.

From the Publisher

“From the beloved New York Times bestselling author of The Marriage of Opposites and the Practical Magic series comes an enchanting novel about love, heartbreak, self-discovery, and the enduring magic of books.

“One brilliant June day when Mia Jacob can no longer see a way to survive, the power of words saves her. The Scarlet Letter was written almost two hundred years earlier, but it seems to tell the story of Mia’s mother, Ivy, and their life inside the Community—an oppressive cult in western Massachusetts where contact with the outside world is forbidden, and books are considered evil. But how could this be? How could Nathaniel Hawthorne have so perfectly captured the pain and loss that Mia carries inside her?

“Through a journey of heartbreak, love, and time, Mia must abandon the rules she was raised with at the Community. As she does, she realizes that reading can transport you to other worlds or bring them to you, and that readers and writers affect one another in mysterious ways. She learns that time is more fluid than she can imagine, and that love is stronger than any chains that bind you.

“As a girl Mia fell in love with a book. Now as a young woman she falls in love with a brilliant writer as she makes her way back in time. But what if Nathaniel Hawthorne never wrote The Scarlet Letter? And what if Mia Jacob never found it on the day she planned to die?

“Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote: “A single dream is more powerful than a thousand realities.”

“This is the story of one woman’s dream. For a little while it came true.”

Reviews

Kirkus says that it’s “Not one of Hoffman’s best, but it may spark a desire to reread Hawthorne.” The Washington Post writes, “Alice Hoffman’s ‘The Invisible Hour’ is the latest fervent tribute to the power of literature and libraries.” The New York Journal of Books says, “With a truly imaginative structure, Alice Hoffman delves into what has become her trademark theme of magic. The Invisible Hour asks a grand ‘What if?’ Not so much the question posed on the book’s jacket: What if Mia Jacob never found the library or The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne? The larger question the novel contemplates is whether a young woman can escape so deeply into a book, and fall so deeply in love with its author that she time travels to 1837 to be with him? “

Even though the reviews are a bit mixed, Hoffman fans care what they think, not what the critics think. Having read most of her work, that’s my approach to The Invisible Hour.

–Malcolm

 

Writing, my time machine

On By Malcolm R. CampbellIn writing

The road on the cover of Conjure Woman’s Cat is an artist’s conception of an unpaved piney woods road and yet, I have driven down that road hundreds of times.

For most children in my growing-up world, nothing of consequence happened inside a building. Play, and the imagination that fueled it, was our true reality. Authors and other artists tend to hold onto that belief longer than most, often for a lifetime.

So, when I write, I’m sitting in a time machine that takes me back, as all country roads do, to the roads of my coming-of-age reality, a world outside the claustrophobic confines of the house where I lived in a middle-class white neighborhood to the great freedom of the woods, rivers, swamps, and Gulf coast far away outside the front door.

Life actual, the consensus reality inside the buildings, featured me dutifully sitting in a classroom or church pew, doing homework and chores, taking tests, and in every way that mattered to the establishment, acting like a normal kid en route to becoming a drone when it came time to go off to war or go off to the office.

Life in truth,  where imagination is more important than cold, hard facts, is the fabric of my books, coming from a world where I camped and hiked in the piney woods, sailed between Florida’s barrier islands, and drove hundreds of miles a week along unpaved roads in my unreliable 1954 Chevy. In this world, I learned who I was as opposed to life actual where I didn’t want to be.

Writing the books in the Florida Folk Magic Series takes me back to the part of my childhood and young adult years where the “real me” lived and breathed and learned the magic that would sustain me (even inside buildings).

Some say you can’t go home again. What a crock. I go home every time I write. Home is like that picture with the egret in it. I knew every nook and cranny of the Florida Panhandle because I hiked, drove, and variously wandered through it when I escaped from my house and my schoolroom. The events in the stories are “fiction.” Nonetheless, I was there to the extent that even to this day I find the world of piney woods and conjure more real than my life in school, home, and church.

Writers are often hard to get to know because of their split personalities, 10% based within consensual reality and 90% based within the realm of dreams. In general, we prefer the world of dreams, dreams that include our stories and the characters that appear in them.  We’re not easy to know or to live with because we’re always somewhere else and because we think consensual reality is an illusion.

–Malcolm

Frequently asked questions

On By Malcolm R. CampbellIn Malcolm R. Campbell

All the class websites have a FAQ section. I seldom look at these because I don’t have any questions and/or suspect the page will be a marketing ploy. So this post is for the bold, those willing to go where no one has gone before.

  • Since you write magical realism, do you really believe in magic?
  • Yes. In fact, I think that magic is often more true than realism.
  • Did you always want to be a writer?
  • Goodness no. I wanted to be a locomotive engineer, a national parks ranger, or a Jungian psychologist. However, I was tricked by the dark side into taking radio-TV writing and production, and journalism courses during the days when a liberal arts education could supposedly get you a job anywhere. It couldn’t.
  • Is it true that you went into the gigolo business?
  • On the advice of my attorney, I cannot answer that question other than to say “what do you think?”
  • If you had a choice between the devil and the deep blue sea, what would you choose?
  • The sea, always. I grew up on the Florida coast, so water is nearly sacred to me. I’ve crossed both the Atlantic and Pacific oceans by ship and am happy to say neither voyage was made on a so-called cruise ship, a ship that seems more like a floating Disney World than a way of experiencing the sea.
  • I read somewhere that you were brought up by alligators in the Everglades.
  • That was wishful thinking that might not have been true.
  • You were born in California, right?
  • In Berkeley, the center of rebellion against the establishment. However, my Facebook page says I’m from Florida partly because I am and partly because I think California has become everything we fought against at Berkeley. I left my heart in San Francisco, but I’m not going back for it.
  • Who are your favorite authors?
  • James Joyce, Michael Shaara, and Pat Conroy. Yes, I know they don’t exactly have a lot in common. Well, other than me.
  • Where do you stand politically?
  • My attorney, John Beresford Tipton, doesn’t want me to answer that question because such answers often lead to name-calling and threats rather than dialogue. I will say this: we have way too much government.
  • How in the hell do you work on such a cluttered desk?
  • Creativity comes from chaos. Actually, I think it’s important to create chaos rather than order.
  • Are you really a Scot?
  • According to my genealogy, very much so. But no, I wasn’t born there, not in this lifetime. I do favor all things Scottish over anything English. Queen Elizabeth I kidnapped and murdered our queen, Mary Queen of Scots, so I have little positive to say about England and its monarchy.  Plus, the English can’t cook.
  • Are you a dog person or a cat person?
  • A cat person. It’s my wife’s fault. We’ve probably “adopted” a hundred cats since we got married. Okay, maybe ten cats.
  • Are you happen being a writer?
  • Yes and no. Unless you’re James Patterson, it’s more of a hobby than a profession.

–Malcolm

Reading novels about magic seems to stir up magic

On By Malcolm R. CampbellIn writing

I’m reading Alice Hoffman’s novel The Book of Magic, unfortunately, the last in a four-book series that began in 1995. As I read, everything I know from studying magic comes to mind rather like hearing an old song brings to mind where you were and the people you were with when you first heard it.

I have no idea whether thoughts of magic are stirred up in the minds of most readers or just those who’ve studied magic. Maybe this happens with people who study other subjects. If you studied kings and queens in college courses, does reading novels about kings and queens remind you of what you learned in college and/or what you saw when you visited historic locations? Or is it just magic?

In Man in Search of Himself,” physicist Jean E. Charon wrote that works of art communicate via an innate knowledge shared by artist and viewer in a language that “awakens unconscious resonances in each of us.” At a deep level, I think, we recognize connections between what we know, think, and feel and the material we’re seeing on the page of a novel or nonfiction book.

If an author is writing the truth, the reader intuits that truth even in fiction and that awakens many memories. In a 2021 interview in The Writer, Hoffman said, “I don’t purposely pursue magic – it’s just part of the prose that I write. I grew up reading fairy tales and myths. For me, magic has always been a part of literature as a reader and as a writer. Magic doesn’t have so much to do with plot as it does with voice. For instance, you can tell a story in a realistic way, and if you’re Hemingway, it’s great, and it works. For me, magic is about the way the story is told rather than the story itself. It’s not a hocus-pocus influence in the plot. It’s more the tone of the story, the way the story tries to draw you in and create a fictional world. I’d like to add that I think the most important thing for beginning writers is to find their own voice.”

I agree with that. Since I do, Hoffman’s work resonates with me more than a novel that sets out with an overt plot involving magic rather than a story in which magic is one part of the characters’ lives. Those of us who write magical realism see magic as a normal part of life, a life that might otherwise be just as logical and rational as most of the people we meet.

For me, the shared knowledge with an author, as Charon sees it is strong when the subject is magic and less strong–to nonexistent–when the subject is black ops and police procedurals.

Like influences like, people say. They may be right.

—Malcolm

Malcolm R. Campbell is the author of the Florida Folk Magic Series that begins with “Conjure Woman’s Cat.” The audiobook, narrated by Wanda J. Dixon, received an Earphones Award from AudioFile Magazine.

Gift ideas for your smart, discerning friends and family

On By Malcolm R. CampbellIn Audio Books, books, writing

Books Make Great Gifts

My family makes Christmas lists because we live so far apart, it’s hard to keep up with what we’re reading. So, we go out to Amazon or Barnes and Noble and find suggestions for each other. In addition to that, here are a few ideas:

My books are published by traditional publisher Thomas-Jacob and are all available in paperback, hard cover, e-book, (Kindle and Nook) and audiobook. Ingram tells us that supply chain problems may impact the delivery of hard cover editions, so if you want those, order them earlie rather than later.

Satire

  • Special Investigative Reporter. For your friends who like satire, puns, and who may be a little bit weird. Reporter Jock Stewart doesn’t respect authority, especially when it’s inept, so he says and writes what most of us wish we could get away with.  He writes all the news that’s fit to print–and some that isn’t.
  • A riveting great read from first page to last, “Special Investigative Reporter” showcases author Malcom R. Campbell’s impressive narrative storytelling talents. Certain to be an immediate and enduringly popular addition to community library Contemporary General Fiction collections. – Midwest Book Review

Mystery

  • Fate's Arrows (Florida Folk Magic Stories Book 4) by [Malcolm R. Campbell]Fate’s Arrows. For your friends who like mystery/thrillers. Pollyanna is a bookkeeper at the mercantile in a small Florida town in the 1950s. Quite possibly, she’s more than she seems. The KKK has been a problem in this town for years. Now, somebody is fighting back with one calling card: an arrow with a hunting head.
  • The plot moves at a nice pace and the twists and turns pack lots of surprise. Tension runs high as the Klan exerts their power over the town of Torreya. The archer is an unknown entity fighting the good fight but never killing. Pollyanna is a different story, she can be deadly when pushed to her limits. – Big Al’s Books and Pals

Magic

  • Conjure Woman's CatConjure Woman’s Cat. For your friends who like magic and sneaky–and often deadly–ways of teaching the bad guys a lesson. A conjure woman and her cat in this small Florida Panhandle town in the 1950s represent two forces to be reckoned with, especially for the Klan and its supporters. When they set a spell, they don’t look back.
  • Wanda J. Dixon’s warmth and gorgeous singing voice are superb in this story about Conjure Woman Eulalie, which is told through the voice of her cat and spirit companion, Lena. Dixon zestfully portrays Eulalie, who is “older than dirt” and is kept busy casting spells, mixing potions, and advising people–that is, when the “sleeping” sign is removed from her door. – AudioFile Magazine earphones award winner.

See my page in the Thomas-Jacob catalogue for more ideas.

Resource for those interested in magic

On By Malcolm R. CampbellIn magic, writing

“Ley lines (/leɪ/) refer to straight alignments drawn between various historic structures and prominent landmarks. The idea was developed in early 20th-century Europe, with ley line believers arguing that these alignments were recognised by ancient societies that deliberately erected structures along them. Since the 1960s, members of the Earth Mysteries movement and other esoteric traditions have commonly believed that such ley lines demarcate “earth energies” and serve as guides for alien spacecraft. Archaeologists and scientists regard ley lines as an example of pseudo-archaeology and pseudo-science.” – Wikipedia

If you’ve read a lot of novels focusing on ancient magic, including The Da Vinci Code, you’ve probably encountered the concept of Ley lines. I’m interested in them, but have never had the opportunity to investigate them, much less travel to a purported location.

If you are curious about them, here’s a link to a post from Dreamcatcher Reality that’s the best explanation of Ley lines I’ve seen in ages: https://dreamcatcherreality.com/ley-lines-matrix/

I don’t necessarily agree with Wikipedia except to say that they are speaking about the view of mainstream science. I find Dreamcatcher reality to be an interesting site, but I don’t use its information in my novels because it’s rather like Jane Roberts’ “Seth Materials” in that I can’t prove it. Even thought I write fiction, I want the details to be true; doing that makes for a stronger story.

—Malcolm

Florida Folk Magic Stories: Novels 1-4 by [Malcolm R. Campbell]Malcolm R. Campbell is the author of the four-part Florida Folk Magic Series in which the hoodoo magic was verified to the greatest extent possible.

If change were as simple as a witch’s ladder

On By Malcolm R. CampbellIn issues, magic

Witches ladders are made by tying a series of knots in thread, yarn, or some other material and that include, at each knot,  a feather, a strand of human hair, leaf, jewelry, pine cone or object that symbolizes the purposes of the ladder. The purpose is generally the creation of a spell or a meditation.

The ladders are known to have been around since the 1870s, but I suspect practitioners of the craft have used them for centuries. Typically, one sings, chants, or recites a specific of general spell element with the tying of each knot. A “simple” ladder often has nine knots and often uses this chant:

By knot of one, the spell’s begun.
By knot of two, the magic comes true.
By knot of three, so it shall be.
By knot of four, this power is stored.
By knot of five, my will shall drive.
By knot of six, the spell I fix.
By knot of seven, the future I leaven.
By knot of eight, my will be fate.
By knot of nine, what is done is mine.

Anyone with patience or the slightest affinity for arts and crafts can make a witch’s ladder, though the example shown here from the Wikipedia article probably shouldn’t be the first one attempted. However, a properly done witch’s ladder is not really simple because for the spell or meditation to manifest, the creator of the ladder must have strong faith/conviction the spell/mediation will work, must maintain a powerful focus upon each knot, and then do nothing to doubt the power of the ladder and the intentions behind it once it’s been completed.

Those who have read this blog for years know that I’m not a big fan of affirmations, statements one repeats daily with the belief that this repetition will bring changes into their consciousness and then into our consensual reality. Émile Coué (1857-1926) was a proponent of this so-called “self-suggestion” and is probably best known for the affirmation “Day by day, in every way, I’m getting better and better.”

Yes, I think affirmations–like the steps in a witch’s ladder–can work if they are not recited more or less by rote and if we live the affirmations after making them. That is, we activate them by doing something in our lives (even symbolically) in support of the statements. That is, if–in the moments before you fall asleep–you say “Day by day, in every way, I’m getting better and better,” then you aren’t really living that self-suggestion if you continue to smoke a pack of Marlboros and drink a quart of whiskey every day while thinking little or nothing about what you would look like or act like or think like if you became better.

So much of what we say and do when confronted with the need for change–as protests around the nation are bringing to our attention–is often (as people have said) little more than lip service to new ideas or a BAND-AID® applied to an old and festering problem.  Saying to the protesters (in person or figuratively), “my thoughts and prayers are with you” is meaningless unless you focus your intent and will power on those thoughts and prayers and then take positive action to back up your intentions.

The real witch’s ladder is not simple, though it need not be considered too complex to utilize effectively. Yet, the ladder is simple if the alternative is doing nothing. The trick, if there is one, is living as though the spell/mediation has come to pass even before you see it with your physical eyes.

—Malcolm

Malcolm R. Campbell’s novels include magic because that’s how he sees and lives in the world.

 

 

 

 

 

The world’s magic is so danged obvious

On By Malcolm R. CampbellIn magic

“Disbelief in magic can force a poor soul into believing in government and business.” – Tom Robbins

I like Tom Robbins’ novels so that probably tells you where I’m coming from on the question of magic. The sins of government and business, we know, but magic isn’t complicit in them. Yet, we scoff at magic. Does anyone use the word “scoff” anymore? Perhaps not, so if you’re too young to know that word, I’ll rephrase: Yet we badmouth magic.

I gotta tell you, I don’t really trust people who scoff (badmouth) magic. I’m sure they mean well even though they might be crazy Or worse.

If you’re a fan of Penn and Teller, you know (I assume) that they’re not doing magic. It’s all tricks, lies, and sleight of hand. They’re fun to watch, though, including on their “Fool Us” television program.  At times I thought maybe, just maybe, the late Doug Henning might have snuck a little real magic into his TV performances, but perhaps not.

Perhaps I was influenced too much by the movie “7 Faces of Dr. Lao” in which Lao (Tony Randall) had a mysterious travelling show which featured many acts. The strange thing was, audiences often preferred the sleight of hand to real magic. I was studying magic when that movie came out in 1964 and remember getting really ticked off about the clowns in the audience who preferred some kind of trickery over what Merlin could do.

It became obvious to me as the years zoomed by that those who could do real magic had little or no interest in appearing on TV. I don’t blame them. In fact, students of mysticism and other forms of consciousness-raising are often warned about psychic phenomena. Why? Because such things can derail them from their true goal: merging with, shall we say, the cosmos. Yes, mystics may be able to see the future or tell you how much money you have in your wallet, but all that is beside the point. Once derailed into, say, fortune-telling, the fame of it can cut one off from what was originally his or her true goal.

Magic, as opposed to sleight of hand, seems very natural to me. That’s why it shows up in novels such as Conjure Woman’s Cat and Sarabande. Most readers think it’s just part of the story rather than something they could actually do in their lives. But to perform on TV, I couldn’t do that. I’m too much of an introvert. Plus, doing that would gratify the ego rather than what’s important to oneself.

Yet, today more than ever, I have little trust of government and business that I wonder why such things are so important in so many people’s lives. Folks have been fooled so often, yet they keep going back for more government and business. Meanwhile, the solution (magic) is so danged obvious, it’s a shame more people don’t see it. One need not kowtow to the feds, the rich, or the celebrities: they are paper dragons, lies, and sleight of hand.

Yeah, I know, I’m out here whistling into the wind about all this and unlikely to change anyone’s mind. However, I do hope that some of those who read my books might think, “Hmm, maybe there is something to this magic stuff.”

—Malcolm

 

 

 

 

Magic: Crooked Roads

On By Malcolm R. CampbellIn magic2 Comments

“Improvement makes strait roads, but the crooked roads without Improvement, are roads of Genius.” ― William Blake

Praise the universe for crooked roads.
The misdirection of gods and storytellers.
The ancient spells and scrolls of wisdom hidden inside rocks, waiting.
The combined consciousness and will of liked, loving minds, cosmic valentines.
The stars of which we were made and those of future generations
Praise the universe for crooked roads.
The alternate universes of our salvation, just a glimpse away.
The new paths seekers have yet to create, bypassing old roads going nowhere.
The magnetic attraction of all that is good toward those who desire it.
The old mysteries that have retreated but are never lost.
Praise the universe for crooked roads.
Praise for the dreamers walking the Earth in cloaks of stars.
Praise for the children who see beyond the worlds of the crib and the classroom.
Praise for the wisdom that releases sons and daughters from the dogma of ancestors.
Praise for the special sight of all who see the souls of every rock and bird and horse.
And blessings for all who stumble and crawl along those crooked roads toward true heaven.

–Malcolm

Copyright (c) 2019 by Malcolm R. Campbell

 

 

How to tell if you’re an empath

On By Malcolm R. CampbellIn conjure

“Being an Empath or having sensitivity to people, places, animals can be a good thing and a bad thing if you do not know how to control this ability.    Sometimes it leads to people having too many animals, having a relationship with a bully or abusive person because you “feel” you can change them, you can’t say ‘no’ because you don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings.   Places and things bother you while to others they think you’re just nuts—-well, you’re not.   You are an Empath.”

Source: SPIRITUAL INFORMATION: how to tell if you’re an empath

This post is two years old, but it continues to apply today as more and more people develop their psychic skills and find that they are becoming more sensitive to the emotions of other people. It can be good, but it’s not easy to control. This is an interesting discussion of the subject.

–Malcolm

Amazon Kindle cover.

Malcolm R. Campbell is the author of three “conjure and crime” novels that have been collected into one volume.