Sue Tompkins

3.5 stars
This is a perfect beginner’s guide on astrological aspects, but gives enough food for thought for advanced students of astrology too. Tompkin’s writing is concise and easy to read, but at times her interpretations felt like guesswork. The relatively frequent spelling errors also became distracting after a while (seriously, how did the copyeditors not notice those?) I also wasn’t a particular fan of how Tompkin directly makes a link between abuse and particular aspects, though I know she’s not the first one to do that, lol. Definitely worth a read if you want to understand the concept of aspects, though.… (altro)

LOS ASPECTOS

¿Qué son los aspectos astrológicos y cómo funcionan?
¿Qué importancia tienen en el análisis de una carta astral?
Y, lo que es aún más importante, ¿cómo podemos
utilizarlos para ayudarnos a entender las necesidades y
las relaciones humanas?

Sue Tompkins, directora de la prestigiosa Facultad
de Estudios Astrológicos de Londres, nos explica
la importancia y el uso práctico de los aspectos.

No es este un libro más sobre astrología,
sino la guía más clara, precisa y completa sobre
el tema, ideal tanto para el astrólogo principiante
como para el profesional.… (altro)

This book suffers from a lack of focus and could do with some tighter editing. Since the author goes through the basic introductory material, the book would seem to be meant for beginning astrology students. But I think those same beginners will be confused when Tompkins presents material out of order. She talks about planets being dignified or in fall before she explains what the planetary dignities are, refers to midpoints before explaining what midpoints are, and so on. She also attempts to cover more astrological topics than I think an introductory text can successfully manage. Tompkins herself says that the centaurs and the asteroids are "non-essential bodies," but she includes them anyway, not in much depth. Indeed, she slips in introductory material on homeopathy which seemed to me like it should be in another book altogether.

The other aspect to Tompkins' writing that I found annoying was her fascination with mundane astrological correspondences. She writes about them at some length, and while that could be useful in a horary astrology book, in a book on natal astrology, it's astrological trivia. The correspondences were presented more as stuff that had caught her interest than in any systematic way that might help beginners work with them. At times, the author tosses out blanket statements that just set my teeth on edge, especially when they touched on racial issues.

Parts of the book worked particularly well. Tompkins starts out strong with good descriptions of the elements and modes, especially of elemental lacks. One of her sample chart interpretations ("Amanda") specifically addresses how to synthesize strongly contrasting themes in a chart, which I think is helpful for beginning and more experienced students alike. Overall, however, I think the book is caught in a difficult place: meant for beginners, but at an intermediate student's level of understanding—and there are much better beginning texts out there.… (altro)