Fw:other books with the Philosopher's Stone

[martha <fakeplastikcynic@hotmail.com>]

The Neil Gaiman short story "Chivalry", which appears in the 
collection "Smoke and Mirrors", features a cameo appearance by the 
philosopher's stone. Synopsis: old lady finds the holy grail in a 
charity shop, whereupon an Arthurian knight (might be Lancelot, but I 
can't remember) turns up on her doorstep trying to trade it for 
various items, including the stone and a phoenix egg.

Well worth a read. 

By the way, for anyone who's been following the childhood memories 
thread, the site http://www.iusedtobelieve.com has some fantastic 
shattered-beliefs type stuff ("i used to believe that all dogs were 
male and all cats were female", and that sort of thing).

Back to Lurkerland
Martha

--- In HPFGU-OTChatter at yahoogroups.com, "David <dfrankiswork at n...>" 
<dfrankiswork at n...> wrote:
> Heidi wrote:
> 
> > As I'm making it fully off topic, does anyone else have recs of 
> books containing the philosopher's stone?
> 
> The Chymical Wedding, by Lindsay Clarke.  Set in about 1980 and 
> Victorian times.
> 
> It has lots of alchemy in it, though for that very reason treats 
the 
> stone as essentially allegorical: what the alchemists *really* 
> wanted from the stone was not longevity and money, but purity.  It 
> was the (non-physical) thing that they wanted to be able to turn 
the 
> base metal of their own natures into the purity that gold 
represents.
> 
> Anyway, I liked the book.
> 
> David