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Title: Trickster Makes This World : Mischief, Myth, & Art by Lewis Hyde ISBN: 0-86547-536-9 Publisher: North Point Press Pub. Date: 16 February, 1999 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $16.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.85 (13 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: Whose World Is It Anyway
Comment: The study of myth entered the popular culture with the Moyer's interview of Joseph Campbell, the articulate and composed teacher from Sarah Lawrence. Campbell introduced thousands to the heroes adventure, the beauty of myth and the place it has in our lives.
In Trickster Makes The World, Lewis Hyde gives us another essential character in myth and folklore. Taking us through the Hermes trickster cycle and the Raven and Coyote folklore of the Northwest and Southwest States, he developes the trickster from simply the mischievous to a complex and indelible character of our stories and lives.
I must confess that reading the book might create anger in some. As our imagination conjures some real life personifications of the trickster - Howard Stern; Bill Clinton; Jerry Springer - we might wonder what profit there may be in the study of the trickster. Fortunately though he doesn't let us progress too far before he introduces us to two original and artistic people who he! proposes have some aspects of the trickster in them.
And this a pivotal point I think. As Blye said in Iron John the point is not to model Iron John, the hairy man who lives in the lake at the begining of the book, but only want to feel his energy and learn how its used. The same holds true for the trickster. This is not a self-help book, but rather a thoughtful and provocative analysis of one of our central characters.
I would have enjoyed more tales about the trickster, yet Hyde gives us enough to describe his thesis and leave us wanting for more. If you enjoy myth and folktales you will enjoy this book.
Rating: 4
Summary: The Trickster's crucial role
Comment: The Trickster is a mythological or archetypal character found in stories throughout the world. The best known in Western myth are Hermes and Loki. In this fascinating study, Lewis Hyde gives equal time to the Native American Coyote, the Chinese Monkey King and India's Krishna. At first glance, these characters are merely pranksters; humorous, sometimes annoying and occasionally dangerous ne'er do wells who disrupt the normal flow of things. As the title of this book suggests, Hyde believes tricksters are much more than this. He makes a convincing case that tricksters are essential in both preserving and transforming societies. Without their disruptions, cultural stagnation would result. He points out that tricksters can either help to maintain the status quo or bring about radical transformation. An example of the former case is illustrated by carnivals such as Mardi Gras, where social customs are predictably and temporarily ignored or reversed. This allows people to vent their frustrations and unleash their inhibitions before returning to normal life. Hyde mentions the abolishionist Frederick Douglas as an example of the more radical sort of trickster who brings about permanent change. Within the institution of slavery, slaves were allowed one week of freedom and revelry. Douglas was not satisfied with this; he wanted to completely overhaul the status quo and indeed helped to accomplish this. Trickster Makes this World describes the antics of both actual (e.g. Douglas, the artist Marcel Duchamp) and mythic (e.g. Hermes, Coyote, Krishna) tricksters. This, of course, suggests a worldview similar to that of Joseph Campbell and others, who see the mythic as the foundation of real life. This book isn't easy reading; Hyde has a trickster-like style of zig-zagging his way all over a very expansive intellectual terrain. It doesn't so much make a case or present an argument as suggest a way of seeing the world. At the center of this worldview is not the all-powerful Zeus, but the slippery messenger/thief/trader Hermes (or one of his counterparts). Getting back to the provocative title, Trickster does not make the world in the conventional way (as the God of the Bible, for example). Rather, he (tricksters are usually male, an issue Hyde devotes a chapter to exploring) remakes and readjusts the world in which he finds himself. This is arguably a task as important as creation itself, or an essential part of creation.
Rating: 5
Summary: Masterful non-fiction writing
Comment: A brilliantly written, funny and moving book--filled with substantial scholarship and honest about its own stakes.
To tell you the truth, I was moved to write this review by the two reviews below, both of which fall pretty wide of the mark. First, this is an amazingly well-written book, and that goes for both Hyde's prose style and his winding structure. His reflections of his own project do not upstage the subject matter but rather deepen and situate it in "time-haunted history." I wonder why anyone would expect or want a book about tricksters to be linear and transparent. By this I don't mean to suggest that Hyde is exactly "performing" the trickster in his writing. He announces his approach perfectly well: Saturn dreams of Mercury.
I suspect that this book will frustrate all species of lazy reader because it asks for a sustained, continuous, and thorough reading. All the chapters are rewarding individually, but they are best read sequentially. If you want to be able to look at a table of contents and pick one or two chapters by topic, find a doctoral thesis, or a utilitarian academic monograph.
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Title: The Gift : Imagination and the Erotic Life of Property by Lewis Hyde ISBN: 0394715195 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 12 February, 1983 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
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Title: Trickster : AMERICAN INDIAN MYTH by Paul Radin ISBN: 0805203516 Publisher: Schocken Books Pub. Date: 13 September, 1987 List Price(USD): $11.96 |
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Title: Mythical Trickster Figures: Contours, Contexts, and Criticisms by William J. Hynes, William G. Doty, Carmin D. Ross-Murray ISBN: 0817308571 Publisher: Univ of Alabama Pr (Txt) Pub. Date: January, 1997 List Price(USD): $34.00 |
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Title: Synchronicity : Through the Eyes of Science, Myth and the Trickster by Allan Combs, Mark Holland, Robin Robertson ISBN: 1569245991 Publisher: Marlowe & Company Pub. Date: 30 December, 2000 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
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Title: Once and Future Myths: The Power of Ancient Stories in Modern Times by Phil Cousineau ISBN: 1573241466 Publisher: Conari Pr Pub. Date: 14 August, 2001 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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