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catherineofalx's review against another edition
4.0
Necesitaba más del pícaro, otherwise great. (Well, unconvincing on gender, but ofc it was.)
pinwheeling's review against another edition
3.0
I was describing this book to my friend last night as, "It's really good -- but don't read it!" unless, I guess, if a cross-cultural analysis of trickster figures as applied to modern artists is your thing. The great thing about this book is how expansive Hyde's mind is, the connections he makes and argues for. I'm not sure I agree with all of it (especially the last about Douglass!) but for a book on a somewhat esoteric subject, I found it incredibly readable and enjoyable.
shimmer's review against another edition
3.0
There are some absolute gems in the course of the book, some passages and ideas I read several times over because they were so compelling and offered so much creative potential. But there were also long sections that felt repetitive and disconnected — sometimes because I wasn't familiar with a story being taken for granted as common knowledge among readers, but other times because new directions were suddenly taken without clear transitions or context. The book often felt more like a notebook than a text meant for readers beyond the author. In part I think I was a bit frustrated because I read this as research, hoping to learn more about traditional trickster figures and tales — especially coyote — and those turned out to be a very small part of Hyde's concern. The book is much more about his own projections of the trickster onto other figures, and as he keeps going to be Hermes as his foundational example I didn't learn as much as I'd hoped to about the social, historical, and cultural contexts in which trickster stories arise, or about the stories themselves.
mayhap's review against another edition
5.0
If you are at all interested in mythology or the creative process, you must read this book.
wade's review against another edition
5.0
Wonderful, interesting book. The rare book on mythology that made me think repeatedly of events in the world today.
hilaritas's review against another edition
5.0
This is the kind of book I could live in forever. Hyde is playful, erudite, witty, and warm. While this type of comparative mythology may be out of style, it really serves as a jumping-off point for his wide-ranging musings on philosophy, theology, literary analysis, depth psychology, and the boundary-erasing exuberance of immersing oneself in the riotous plenitude of life and nature. Hyde weaves several threads throughout the text, primarily explicating Hermes, Eshu, Legba, the Monkey King, Coyote, Krishna, and more modern trickster-adjacent figures like John Cage, Marcel Duchamp, Andres Serrano, and Picasso.
Hyde peppers his work with charming and interesting etymological asides. One of the best is on the relation of trickster to the complex of meanings from ars/artus-- jointing or joint-work, including joining things together (as an artisan or artificer), disarticulating things (separating the earth from the order of heaven), and making flexible or testing connections (acting as god of the hinge, a liminal figure belonging neither to above or below but between). It is trickster as artus-worker that makes a space for art to exist: to find a beauty that is neither purely functional nor purely decorative, but rides a giddy edge where both aspects point back at each other in a funhouse mirror. Think Duchamp's readymades. Art is everywhere if you have the eyes for it.
Hyde lovingly celebrates the humorous and scatological aspects of trickster stories. He ties together the rude creativity of the farting Hermes, Jung's youthful vision of God's turd falling on a cathedral, and Coyote's grunting birthing of his feces as parody of shamanic prophesying. As a bonus, Hyde includes in the appendices his own fun translation of the Hymn to Hermes and a short essay on gender and the trickster figure.
Above all, the book is suffused with joy: the joyful creation of stories and the unexpected delight of combining motley things to fashion something new. Hyde celebrates the thief and the plagiarist, who, like Raven, collects shiny things and assembles it into an object of true novelty. Through the trickster, we can steal fire from heaven and participate in the divine act of creation. What could be more fascinating? This book is lovely and everyone should read it.
Hyde peppers his work with charming and interesting etymological asides. One of the best is on the relation of trickster to the complex of meanings from ars/artus-- jointing or joint-work, including joining things together (as an artisan or artificer), disarticulating things (separating the earth from the order of heaven), and making flexible or testing connections (acting as god of the hinge, a liminal figure belonging neither to above or below but between). It is trickster as artus-worker that makes a space for art to exist: to find a beauty that is neither purely functional nor purely decorative, but rides a giddy edge where both aspects point back at each other in a funhouse mirror. Think Duchamp's readymades. Art is everywhere if you have the eyes for it.
Hyde lovingly celebrates the humorous and scatological aspects of trickster stories. He ties together the rude creativity of the farting Hermes, Jung's youthful vision of God's turd falling on a cathedral, and Coyote's grunting birthing of his feces as parody of shamanic prophesying. As a bonus, Hyde includes in the appendices his own fun translation of the Hymn to Hermes and a short essay on gender and the trickster figure.
Above all, the book is suffused with joy: the joyful creation of stories and the unexpected delight of combining motley things to fashion something new. Hyde celebrates the thief and the plagiarist, who, like Raven, collects shiny things and assembles it into an object of true novelty. Through the trickster, we can steal fire from heaven and participate in the divine act of creation. What could be more fascinating? This book is lovely and everyone should read it.
verycarefully's review against another edition
2.0
There was enough interesting stuff in this book to leave me frustrated by how little I liked it overall. Perhaps I was just sick of Hermes, but the best reading came when Hyde compared and contrasted artists and other real people with the trickster archetype; for the most part, this was a slog through repetitive investigation of folk tales and mythology that I thought could have been covered much more concisely. Maybe Hyde's style of writing just isn't for me. I can't think of another reason why I found reading this such a grind.
The most engaging part of the book ("Trickster and Gender") was shunted into the appendices, which gave me a sad face.
The most engaging part of the book ("Trickster and Gender") was shunted into the appendices, which gave me a sad face.
lfs's review against another edition
3.0
Interesting but frequently repetitive or meandering; dryly written.
rune's review against another edition
5.0
This book was a delight from start to finish, I found myself attempting to delay my reading of it so it would last longer. There were many well thought out and researched ideas in here that led me down on research paths of my own, and I’m so glad I took the dive into reading this.