Oh, I do feel bad giving this two stars. Credit where it's due, Tindall's prose is gorgeous. I routinely stopped to reread sentences, and if my own critical efforts were as beautiful as his I would be very happy with my academic writing. But. But. As beautiful as his sentences were, and as much sense as his paragraphs made, I finished this book not ten minutes ago, after a week of moderately careful reading, and I couldn't tell you the first thing it was about. Yes, it's about the literary symbol, I know. But what Tindall thinks of it, his theory of it (if indeed there is one)... it has floated away as if it never were. It's not that I didn't understand what he was talking about at time of reading. It's just that the whole thing was so shapeless that nothing whatsoever has stuck. Like critical candyfloss... pink and billowing and, once you've tasted it, completely melting away.