Eureka! 1

Reviewed by Catheline van den Branden Newton, MA United States
Exactly what I needed! I often, when I talk with friends, or when I read a book, or a painting that I admire, or am in cinema, to think that an object, a gesture, a color, a word have, culturally, literarily, historically symbolic meaning. I appreciate these signs, these symbols in some contexts, and I hate stumbling over my ignorance or my memory lapses. This dictionary enabled me again to go a little further in reading symbols. It is very comprehensive, and the word "symbol" here includes allegories, symbols, metaphors, symptoms, parables, attributes and apalogues. The examples are numerous and varied sources, cultural, artistic, literary, philosophical, religious. It is also a book, yes, not just a dictionary, but really a book full of discoveries, tales, mythological references too. An example: I find it happens to open it at random, and learn that "mice are used for divination by many peoples of West Africa. Among the Bambara are doubly linked to the rite of circumcision. We give them the clitoris of girls excised and a belief that the sex of the first born girl or determined by the mouse that ate her clitoris ... "From there, the research in the area m 'have carried much further, to discover another culture. I like dictionaries in general, and it is particularly useful and unusual at a time.