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timmyr's review against another edition
Got through the intro and first chapter. Enjoyed it a great deal, but this book is dense with myths and what I'd consider Jungian deconstruction of those myths. After a certain point, I couldn't hang.
kjboldon's review against another edition
4.0
Useful, but overlong and dated with so.e questionable cultural references ("the Jew of the Old Testament"?). But the question of how art and commerce can coexist , the examples of Whitman and Pound, are worthwhile. I would seriously skim the section on usury, though.
deanjean_reads's review against another edition
challenging
informative
inspiring
reflective
slow-paced
4.0
superdilettante's review against another edition
4.0
Meandered a bit in the middle, but ultimately a very important read that solidified how I feel about some of the inspirations I've been given.
cheerssteph's review against another edition
4.0
Very interesting book on gift giving and gift culture in relation to the arts.
rgfred's review against another edition
2.0
I wanted to love this, and still find the premise of it extremely valuable. I listened to the audiobook, which may have been of an earlier edition, and did not include the forward by Margaret Atwood copyrighted in 2012 (but did include the preface to the 3rd edition by the author copyrighted in 2019?). Either way, the book's most recent edition is more palatably titled "The Gift: How the Creative Spirit Transforms the World." There were parts of the book I loved. Tidbits of history I devoured, to be sure, particularly in the first half of the book. But the chapters in the second half felt like an extensive comparison of two poets (Walt Whitman and Ezra Pound), and by the end of these chapters I could not decide if I was bored out of my mind or outraged by the romanticizing of these men, who I'd known little about before. The chapter on Pound was particularly infuriating, as the author expounds on the nature of Pound's deep antisemitism, repeating large swaths of quoted hate speech with little relief to remind the reader that he was not speaking for himself. The chapter ends with a brief anecdote about how Ezra Pound, at the end of his life, regretted the damage his racist and antisemitic political rhetoric had caused in the years that he had broadcast it, but the amount of time he'd spent relaying the colorful details of that speech, all in the supposed service of art and gift exchange, made this feel of little significance to the author.
Aside from this, the writing style felt at times so incredibly academic and removed that the poetic spirit of the content (at least as I had hoped to find it) was completely lost to the author's apparently superior intellect. Which is ironic, given the assertion of art as gift and therefore more accessible, freer of barrier, to the recipient. Perhaps I am misunderstanding something the author meant to be obviously important in the main claim of the book. Again, there were parts I found interesting, but they were too rare in the entirety to make it redeemable, in this reader's opinion.
Aside from this, the writing style felt at times so incredibly academic and removed that the poetic spirit of the content (at least as I had hoped to find it) was completely lost to the author's apparently superior intellect. Which is ironic, given the assertion of art as gift and therefore more accessible, freer of barrier, to the recipient. Perhaps I am misunderstanding something the author meant to be obviously important in the main claim of the book. Again, there were parts I found interesting, but they were too rare in the entirety to make it redeemable, in this reader's opinion.
patrickkanouse's review against another edition
4.0
A fascinating read. Hyde explores the nature of gift economy and then tries to place the artist's role as a gift producer within the market economy. The first half of the book explores the essentials and functions of the gift economy using folktales as indicators of symbol and cultural value as well as using anthropological studies of some Polynesian, native peoples, etc.
The second half of the book is a prolonged study of Walt Whitman and Ezra Pound and their view of their art within the larger market economy. Well worth the read.
The second half of the book is a prolonged study of Walt Whitman and Ezra Pound and their view of their art within the larger market economy. Well worth the read.
libkatem's review against another edition
3.0
It was interesting; it covers the importance of gifts in various societies, and the importance of gifts in folklore and fairy tales.
illuscat's review against another edition
5.0
I love this discussion on the economy of gifts -- and the loss of community that comes with a super-capitalist society that turns even art (and writing) into commerce. Some of the religious and gender assumptions felt twenty years old, but then it is twenty years old. Could digital work be on the brink of turning into a gift again, with the advent of creative commons? I wonder--