The Ale Boy's Feast: How The Auralia Thread Has Impacted Me
Rather then focusing on just The Ale Boy's Feast this post deals with the series as a whole, of which the fourth book is indeed a part.
Jeffrey Overstreet's book series has been one of small handful of book series that over the past few years have impacted my outlook, even after I had set the book back on the shelf. The overwhelming feeling for me that came through the books and into the way I view the world is the appreciation for beauty. I also have gleaned from these books the sense that art can impact the world very powerfully. Of all the things I've learned from them it is to look for the beautiful, even in the most unlikely of places. This of course is something I have gleaned from other places besides The Auralia Thread. But among many things this book series took some of those thoughts, those passing moments of wonder when I see something beautiful, and gave it a voice. The book is clearly not an allegorical work, nor is it meant to be. But I did draw some parallels to many things, political, and yes, spiritual from the book. This I think is more from the book being in a world with characters, both of which seem alive in that world of theirs. These things are part of the fabric of the tale, not the tale in itself. They are little lights that shine out of the entirety of the book, which shines as if it were a single light composed of all these little lights of meaning and wonderment that I found within the pages of the books. Other lights I saw were themes of redemption, of forgiveness, of mercy, of grace, of love. The book series reflects my own love of art and beauty, in many ways it seems as though I am looking in a mirror rather then reading a book. Seeing myself and the world around me through the lens given me within its pages. At other times it seems as though I'm the mirror and that the wonder and the beauty of things in my own world, experiences, and imagination is reflected in the pages, and in the reading of them the things in my world become clearer, sometimes the beauty is drawn out in the words, sometimes the darkness is amplified, yet both are things that need light to shine upon them; beauty to reveal and darkness to expose. The Auralia thread has deepened my appreciation for beauty, and for the wonder of the world around me, and perhaps, part of the magic of books like these is that it is different for each person who reads it, yet it remains the same looking glass before all, reflecting what is already there within each of us, shining its own light upon us, giving us something of its own reflection back to us. That is the mark of a good book, and such is The Auralia thread.
The Ale Boy's Feast on Amazon.com
Author Website: Jeff Overstreet, looking closer.org
As part of the CSFF blog tour, I received a free copy of this book from the publisher, for the purposes of this tour.
Participants’ links
Gillian Adams
Red Bissell
Grace Bridges
Beckie Burnham
Morgan L. Busse
Valerie Comer
CSFF Blog Tour
Shane Deal
Chris Deane
Cynthia Dyer
Andrea Graham
Katie Hart
Ryan Heart
Bruce Hennigan
Jason Joyner
Carol Keen
Dawn King
Inae Kyo
Shannon McDermott
Shannon McNear
Karen McSpadden
Rebecca LuElla Miller
Eve Nielsen
John W. Otte
Sarah Sawyer
Kathleen Smith
Donna Swanson
Rachel Starr Thomson
Robert Treskillard
Steve Trower
Fred Warren
Dona Watson
Phyllis Wheeler
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