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Gangbare naam: Goodrich, Norma Lorre
Officiële naam: Falby, Norma Therese
Geboortedatum: 1917-05-10
Overlijdensdatum: 2006-09-19
Geslacht: female
Nationaliteit: USA
Geboorteplaats: Huntington, Vermont, USA
Plaats van overlijden: Claremont, California, USA
Woonplaatsen: Claremont, California, USA
Opleiding: University of Vermont (BA | 1938)
Columbia University (Ph.D | 1965)
Beroepen: historian
biographer
professor
author
academic administrator
Relaties: Howard, John Hereford (husband)
Organisaties: Scripps College
University of Southern California
Prijzen en onderscheidingen: Fellow, Society of Antiquaries of Scotland
Korte biografie: Norma Lorre Goodrich was the pen name of Norma Therese Falby, born in Huntington, Vermont. She graduated from the University of Vermont in 1938 and continued her studies at universities in France, where she lived for many years. In 1965, at age 48, she earned doctoral degrees in French and Roman philology from Columbia University. She became a prolific author and an Arthurian scholar known for her unconventional theory -- introduced in a 1986 book titled King Arthur -- that King Arthur was a real person, not a myth, and that he was Scottish, not English or Welsh. Dr. Goodrich was a professor of French, comparative literature, and writing for 45 years at the University of Southern California and the Claremont Colleges.

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The Holy Grail door Norma Lorre Goodrich

This is an incomprehensibly bad book. It took me a long time of reading a paragraph or two at a time to finish it. The author is erudite and she has done tons of research. But her writing style seems to be: (a) go to a well-stocked university library; (b) take notes from a whole shelf of books tangentially related to Arthur or the Holy Grail; (c) type notes into a word-processor; (d) publish typed notes. The author, no joke, references things like this (p. 271): "The French dictionary and encyclopedia Peitit Larousse (1967) defines Graal and/or Saint Graal (p. 1,394) as 'the eternal vase' that...." blah blah blah. No joke. No footnotes, endnotes, etc. She says she read in this one book on this one page that. And she does this ad infinitum. She just throws her notes into heaps of paragraphs, grouped into rough chapters, that have no real thesis. There is no real thesis to her book. I learned lots of cool things about some grail lore and some of the great grail romances, but, the author never really tells us anything on her own, or what her damn point was, even in her misnamed "Conclusion." And, she inserts herself, her thoughts, and her opinions into the text at random points. Take this gem, from pp. 246-247: "That light especially warns a backward country like the United States. Here in America women were granted the vote long after those in European countries, and here, in 1990, women are considered minors, not equal to men before the law." First of all, she's dead wrong on the voting, as several European countries did not grant women the right to vote until after the U.S. Her vaunted France did not grant women the right to vote until 1944! So that's just wrong. Second, she's dead wrong on the law, as in no place in the West, and no place in the United States in 1990 were women "considered minors and not equal to men before the law." (Yes, the E.R.A. did not pass, but that doesn't mean anything she said right there is legally correct in any fashion.) How can one trust an author who makes numerous such errors and asides in the book. A star-and-a-half for the reams of interesting info from someone who's read the texts and the literature, but, all-in-all, a worthless drudge of a read with no point and little value.… (meer)

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tuckerresearch | 1 andere bespreking | Aug 2, 2022 |

Priestesses door Norma Lorre Goodrich

I was very interested to read this book. I love Goddess religions and the more ancient a subject the author discusses, the better. But something didn't feel right about this book. It felt like every other page, an alarm bell went off inside with a message telling me 'the author didn't prove what she just said,' 'the author is extrapolating but didn't want me to notice her slide into extrapolation,' or 'I'm not sure the evidence you provided really supports the conclusion you drew.' She comes to fascinating conclusions; I don't know if I believe what she says. In fact, I'm pretty sure I don't.… (meer)

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RNCoble | Mar 25, 2021 |

The Medieval Myths door Norma Lorre Goodrich

290 is Dewey for legends and myths, under 'religion'. (taken broadly)

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brendanus | 1 andere bespreking | Apr 9, 2019 |

The Holy Grail door Norma Lorre Goodrich

Scholarly study of the Holy Grail as described in literature; what it is, where it came from, where it is now. Arthurian mythos is very strong. Interestingly, discussion of Saint Theresa (of Spain in the Dark Ages) weaves though out. Although a scholarly dissertation, the storytelling is wonderful!

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PallanDavid | 1 andere bespreking | Aug 21, 2018 |

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