Madame Clairevoyant’s Guide to the Stars
A Book Review
I’m currently working my way toward mastery of the art of astrology and so consequently, I read everything I can get my hands on about the subject. There are many books that I could recommend as forming the ballast for any novice astrologer’s library. They are books that itemize all of the components of astrology from signs of the zodiac to planets, houses, aspects and other basic how-to elements. But the book I’m highlighting today reads more like a sampler of celebrity bio sketches as illuminated by the traits prominent in their sun signs.
“Madame Clairevoyant’s Guide to the Stars – Astrology, Our Icons, and Our Selves” is not a basic how-to manual for astrology but instead, a deep-dive focus on signature traits of each sign of the zodiac as personified by famous people. Through her lyrical prose, she takes an unflinching look at the strengths and weaknesses that characterize people through each of the signs from Aries through Pisces. Good, bad, or ugly, it’s all there and described with such clarity that even the average reader will be able to spot the dreamy Cancer poet or the off-beat Aquarian hipster without benefit of years of astrology studies.
It gets real. By her own admission, Comstock Gay states that many people expect astrology to be the fun, light-hearted, sugar-pop that she has been supplying as a writer of the “Madame Clairevoyant” horoscope column in The Cut for years. But astrology is not just fun and frou-frou. It’s about life and life gets messy. When she references the passionately caring nature of a Virgo who was a prominent gay rights activist, she points out that our expectations can sometimes ‘support the idea that we can compartmentalize our higher enduring selves from the worlds we live in. As though astrology only works in the good times.” She further muses that “If astrology’s going to be worth anything, it needs to have something to offer us, even when the world is awful.” Amen, sister.
From the drive and ambition of Aries Mariah Carey to the watery, poetic Cancerian depths of poet Pablo Neruda, to the brainy humanitarianism of Aquarian director David Lynch, we get a peek at exactly what makes these famous people who and what they are through the same cosmic lens that dispassionately dispenses the potential for each unique and indelible character trait for every one of us. I highly recommend this book whether or not you are an ardent student of astrology. It’s a fun read, the author is a good writer, and I guarantee you’ll have a better idea of how the energy of each sign of the zodiac looks in human nature after reading it. As the author herself has proclaimed: “Astrology can offer a different way to imagine ourselves and our place in the world.”
