What Others Say About the Book

"While skillfully retelling a tale familiar to us all, Kay Plumb quickly leads us into depths which invite introspection regarding the "beast" within us and the "beast" within our culture. Those aspects of ourselves we would deny or project onto others invariably show up in ourselves anyway, slipping through the cracks of our denial, repression and psychological sloth. This book obliges the reader to look at ordinary life through a sharpened lens, and see that, beneath the surface of daily events, deeper and darker energies are spilling into our lives.

I like your enthusiasm for the shadow.

--Robert Bly,
National Book Award poet, storyteller, instigator of the men's movement, and author of A Little Book on the Human Shadow

 

What a handsome production!

"Like many familiar things which seem harmless enough,” Kay Newell Plumb writes, “fairy tales can be quite dangerous.” Her book Using Beauty and her Beast to Introduce the Human Shadow is an introduction into the darker side of human nature. Plumb delves into fairy-tale archetypes (absent mothers, fighting brothers, virtuous maidens and hideous monsters) to show they are all parts of ourselves. The way they operate reflects the workings of our own psyches. Drawing heavily of the work of Carl Jung (the founder of analytical psychology) and poet Robert Bly, Plumb’s work is intended for the layman. Written in informal language, the text is accompanied by artist Bob Hobbs’ pen-and-ink drawings of fantasy characters. Plumb lives in Portland.

--Katie Schneider
Special to The Oregonian