Seducing the Ferryman

The author is a true encyclopédiste, eighteenth-century style, like Diderot or the dear old Marquis. What makes it worth reading, and has earned its author a place in the pantheon of our regular contributors, is the understated humor and poetical style that disarm disbelief and create an experience of the extraordinary. Like her forebear Ovid, Ms. Groundhogg knows that we’re still ready to believe in mythology if we aren’t first told we must take it seriously. Here, as at the opera, you leave your common sense with your hat and coat on entering and enjoy a rich aesthetic experience on its own terms.