Willie Horton

This book discusses the irrational, self-destructive behaviour of so-called normal people, i.e. basically sane people with various quirks in their personality. The author uses as examples his own friends, acquaintances, business associates and neighbours. Personally, I found it difficult to understand that he can know so many "normal, crazy people", as he terms them. (Though finally I found an explanation, which I state later in this review.)

I must admit I found it boring to hear of all the crazy things his various business associates got up to and, not having much business savvy, found the details of the stories somewhat incomprehensible. Later we are regaled with the nutty behaviour of his various friends (don't his friends mind his exposing their irrationalities, or is he so certain that none of them will ever read his books?)

I was finding it hard going to continue reading, since to me the stories seemed somewhat repetitive and monotonous. But Willie Horton and his family, who come from Dublin, now live in the French Alps and subsequently in the book light was shed on the strange ways of his neighbours ("the mountain folk"), persons who regard even those living in the neighbouring villages as "foreigners". These stories were more entertaining, and I can well believe them. One English couple, also living there, were on the point of getting sued because one of the "mountain folk" broke her ankle by stumbling over a lump of hard snow which she claimed originated from their property and thus belonged to them. However, the case ended by being dismissed.

The author presumably assumes also that his French neighbours will never read this book (he'd better never let it be translated into French, otherwise he might find himself in a pretty pickle).

Now, the real point of the book is that we should all refrain from all this irrational, crazy behaviour and begin to take charge of ourselves. If there's something wrong with our lives, it's our own fault (I would prefer to use the word "responsibility"), and therefore we can fix our life by doing something about it, by consciously changing our behaviour (though of course our bad behaviour is due to our subconscious programmes or beliefs - I don't remember what he said about how to deal with these). It turns out that the author holds self-help courses in which he advises people how to turn their lives around, so they can become normal, successful, instead of crazy, people.

And in the last sections of the book he begins to discuss such concepts as flow and synchronicity, and it turns out he has all sorts of sensible, constructive ideas about how we can improve our lives. He is no airy-fairy New Ager by any stretch of the imagination (and his at times vulgar language isn't quite in keeping with what might be expected of the author of what turns out to be a sort of upside-down self-help book.) We are advised to take chances, trust in life and take action, and this is when synchronicities and flow will occur/set in.

I suspect the author as having a strong Uranus in his horoscope, since he is by no means a run-of-the-mill sort of person. He probably has his Uranus on the descendant or in his 7th house (the 7th house being the area in the horocope that relates to others in one's life), and this is why he has so many acquaintances who display such crazy behaviour. Those who have some knowledge of psychology/metaphysics know that everyone in our life is really a projection of ourself, and thus in some way reflects back to us our own behaviour. (And I recall as a child reading books about the crazy behaviour of Irish people!)

The author is articulate, as befits an Irishman, but nonetheless the book is marred by countless grammatical errors ("their" instead of "they're", for instance, or vice versa) and typos.

To sum up, though I found the first part of the book boring, the latter half constituted a considerable improvement, and it thus became more and more readable and enjoyable. I quite concur with the author's practical, useful advice in the book's final chapters.… (meer)