Scan barcode
A review by crispymerola
Breaking Open the Head: A Psychedelic Journey Into the Heart of Contemporary Shamanism by Daniel Pinchbeck
funny
medium-paced
2.0
An accidentally brilliant experience - a tome of spastic babbles, laden with unintentional sexism and xenophobia, which manages to say nothing about the world and everything about its author.
Homeboy is so self absorbed. He, a wise white boy, spends half the book critiquing western society for its ignorance and condescension towards other cultures, while consistently displaying the same carelessness in his writings. He visits Huatla in Mexico, describing the town as a "Third World backwater," "rough, functional, and ugly," "the smell of cheap gasoline hung in the air," his hotel was "plain, concrete-walled, with a septic smell."
Instead of charting various shamanic practices, as the title of the book suggests, Pinchbeck decides to spend the book tripping balls on whatever he can find, cobbling together images and puddle-deep insights from his journeys to bestow upon the reader. Across the 300-ish pages of the book, we witness his writings grow more disconnected, arrogant, self-righteous, irrational - and entertaining.
There's no knowledge to be found here. But, if you want to watch a man zap the shit out of his mind and see the effect this has on his prose and ability to structure a book - you're in for a trip.
Homeboy is so self absorbed. He, a wise white boy, spends half the book critiquing western society for its ignorance and condescension towards other cultures, while consistently displaying the same carelessness in his writings. He visits Huatla in Mexico, describing the town as a "Third World backwater," "rough, functional, and ugly," "the smell of cheap gasoline hung in the air," his hotel was "plain, concrete-walled, with a septic smell."
Instead of charting various shamanic practices, as the title of the book suggests, Pinchbeck decides to spend the book tripping balls on whatever he can find, cobbling together images and puddle-deep insights from his journeys to bestow upon the reader. Across the 300-ish pages of the book, we witness his writings grow more disconnected, arrogant, self-righteous, irrational - and entertaining.
There's no knowledge to be found here. But, if you want to watch a man zap the shit out of his mind and see the effect this has on his prose and ability to structure a book - you're in for a trip.