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Title: The Hero with a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell, Ralph H. Blum ISBN: 1-55927-640-1 Publisher: Audio Renaissance Pub. Date: 13 January, 2001 Format: Audio CD Volumes: 5 List Price(USD): $36.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.07 (58 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Profound, World Shakingly Influential & Changing.
Comment: All may roads may lead to Rome, but for me, this year, all books seemed to lead to Joseph Campbell's Hero With 1000 Faces.
I have discovered that this book is probably one of the most influential, widely read books of the 20th century. It's no wonder the author, Joseph Campbell, was featured in a Bill Moyers special on The Power of Myth (with an accompanying book, as usual for Bill Moyer's specials.)
I was reading books on writing-- on story structure-- Particularly, Christopher Vogler's excellent Writer's Journey, and it was based on this book. Ironically, I was already reading another of Campbell's series of books on myth. But then I started looking deeper into this realm-- the idea of the Hero's journey, -- the call to adventure, refusing the call, finding a mentor, encountering threshold guardians, crossing the threshold, facing the worst evil, winning the elixir--- and I discovered that dozens of books have been written about the concepts Joseph Campbell first broached.
It's such a powerful idea, and so useful in conceptualizing life's changes. I used it as an element in a presentation I just gave this past weekend on how the art and science of story can be applied to healing and helping people grow. 80% of the people attending the lecture were familiar with the concept.
This is such powerful material, you might consider essential for helping you understand the way movies are made, and how the contemporary world has been affected by advertising and the loss of sacred rituals in everyday life.
One way I gauge a book is by how many marks I make in the margins, to indicate wise ideas or quotable material ( I collect quotes, and quotation books big-time, owning over 400 quotation books) and this book's margins are just packed. The depth of knowledge in mythology and anthropology is awesome, providing a wealth of examples, metaphors, ancient stories and myths which deepen your understanding of human nature. The only problem with this book is how often, in conversations, I've found it to be relevant, whether talking about a friend who is going through some tough times, or someone who is making some changes in his business.
Rob Kall
Rating: 5
Summary: A landmark of 20th century literature.
Comment: Joseph Campbell was one of the great souls of our age. I've read this book twice, first on my own and the second for a class in "Myth, Religion & the Mythic Imagination." I read the paperack to tatters, literally, marking each illuminating, exhilirating insight. "Dry"? "Not a fun read"? What book did YOU read? Campbell is unlike other writers on myth; he looks not at an entire myth but at its parts. By the end of the book, he has essentially created the Ultimate Hero Myth, which takes bits of every hero myth from virtually every culture (heavy on Native Americans). Campbell was not a dispassionate academic--this was his gospel, and he lived by it. This book is alive and inspiring like no other book I know. One unique aspect of it at the time it was published was its approach to Christianity. For Campbell, Christ's life had to be seen as a myth. Before him, most Western scholars wouldn't have dare to say such a thing. Others had written on that, but in a skeptical manner. Campbell's view is that the Virgin Birth, miracles, Resurrection, etc have meaning only because they ARE myths. Look, there'd be no "Star Wars" without this. No "Sandman" comics from Neil Gaiman. No "Watership Down." This book is for the intellectual who wants to LIVE, not just to sit sterile at the desk. Recommended like mad.
Rating: 2
Summary: A Child of Its Time - But not now
Comment: When this book was written, in 1948, the very idea of questioning the rightness of Freud or Jung, even though they had fallen out with each other, was (supposedly) something only an idiot would contemplate.
Today, thanks to studies such as Richard Webster's "Why Freud was Wrong", we have learnt to treat the teachings of these men with a great deal of caution, and the psychoanalytic movement as a whole enjoys nothing like the unquestioning acceptance it claimed for itself in the first half of the 20th century.
And the point is:
There are two main flaws in Campbell's book:
1. The style of the writing is hopelessly scholarly and pedestrian. In its time, no doubt this help to justify the book's claim to be academically respectable. Today it just makes it a very heavy-going read.
2. Campbell himself attaches terrific importance to the validity of Freud and Jung's work when he seeks to explain the elements of "The Hero's Journey". And since the credibility of Freudianism in particular has been seriously undermined over the last 50 years, that inevitably consigns Campbell's work to the outer fringes of valid interpretation of the material he covers.
As interesting as the basic material is, the dry-as-dust style of writing robbed it of most of its sparkle, as far as I was concerned. The highly questionable interpretive/psychoanalytical sections further interrupted the flow - whilst adding nothing of any value.
If I'd known then what I know now, I wouldn't have bothered with this book.
I reckon you'd learn just as much about the basic process of The Hero's Journey by watching all three "Lord of the Rings" films. And it would be a whole lot more fun, to boot.
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Title: The Power of Myth by Joseph Campbell, Bill Moyers ISBN: 0385418868 Publisher: Anchor Pub. Date: 01 June, 1991 List Price(USD): $13.95 |
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Title: The Writer's Journey: Mythic Structure for Writers by Christopher Vogler ISBN: 0941188701 Publisher: Michael Wiese Productions Pub. Date: November, 1998 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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Title: Myths to Live by by Joseph Campbell ISBN: 0140194614 Publisher: Arkana Pub. Date: February, 1993 List Price(USD): $16.00 |
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Title: The Masks of God: Creative Mythology by Joseph Campbell ISBN: 0140194401 Publisher: Arkana Pub. Date: March, 1995 List Price(USD): $18.00 |
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Title: Transformations of Myth Through Time by Joseph Campbell ISBN: 0060964634 Publisher: Perennial Pub. Date: 28 February, 1990 List Price(USD): $21.95 |
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