by Sallie Ann Glassman, 2nd edition, 238 pages
Review
Sallie Ann Glassman has written an extraordinary book about an extraordinary subject. VODOU VISIONS gives a most cogent, accessible, and moving view of a body of sacral thought -- really, an entire imaginative culture -- that is of profound importance, rarely studied, and almost invariably exploited or aligned. Ms. Glassman's approach is unqiue. She frames her exegesis and celebration of Vodou as a spiritual autobiography. Her persoanl journey helps us understand the religion that she studies, and appreciate its intensely personal transformative power. VODOU VISIONS is appropriately and vividly personal. But Ms. Glassman also places Vodou in its culture, and in world culture. Her work demonstrates both the singularity and the centrism of Vodou. This is a book that is scholarly in its essence, and historical in its scope. It is also a book that is remarkable in its art. Ms. Glassman is a stunningly gifted writer. Her prose is brilliantly intelligent, and entirely original. Her artwork is breathtaking, and sublimely interrelated with her thought and her uses of language. Almost everyone who has reviewed VODOU VISIONS has praised it in appropriately warm and respectful terms. VODOU VISIONS is without question the most compelling work on its subject to appear in recent years. Experts and readers new to the subject will relish this utterly wonderful book. --Amazon.com
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