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3.94 AVERAGE
3.94 AVERAGE
The book nearly defeated me many times. I have completed the Hero's journey, and now demand unfettered power over all I survey....
If you ever want to read this book, I just recommend referring to a website that summarizes it. You'll get everything you need without the pain and suffering associated with actually exposing yourself to this work
If you ever want to read this book, I just recommend referring to a website that summarizes it. You'll get everything you need without the pain and suffering associated with actually exposing yourself to this work
Not as good as I remember it to me. Still a fan of the Hero's Journey summary but this book has not aged well.
I wanted to give this five stars, but I found it a little opaque. As someone else has said here, I feel inadequate to the task. It is an avant-garde work of genius, and I learned lots of new words as well as absorbing some of the the profundities of human existence. I did lose the threads of argument quite often and found that there were leaps of ideas that I just could not follow. There were enough, however, that I was able to follow to make me want to read more Campbell and to continue the exploration of meaning he navigates.
Fascinating ideas, very dry presentation. It was difficult to follow the jumping to different myths and fables. I prefer the PBS/Bill Moyers specials.
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
Maybe I'm not academic enough for this because I feel like I didn't retain any of it. There were too many examples trying to prove his points and everything got muddled.
Briefly formulated, the universal doctrine teaches that all the visible structures of the world—all things and beings—are the effects of a ubiquitous power out of which they rise, which supports and fills them during the period of their manifestation, and back into which they must ultimately dissolve" (257).
A lot of insight here, but a lot of chaff to get through to find it.
Fair warning this is not an easy read. Its one of the most intellectually challenging books that I've ever read. Its dense as dense as it is fascinating. I highly suggest familiarizing yourself with Freudian and Jungian psychology before tackling this classic.
challenging
informative
reflective
medium-paced
The Hero's Journey can undoubtedly be a useful tool in storytelling and comparative mythology, but the way Campbell writes about it - as a "monomyth" and the only true story, as well as his obsession with psychoanalytic bullshittery, leaves a capacity to do more harm than good.
Campbell hamfists as many myths as he has an (sometimes surface level) understanding of into a "cohesive" structure of his own accord. Those myths that don't fit or go against the structure, he chooses to simply ignore and not even mention. Even the myths he picks, he never once acknowledges different versions of them (most egregiously only presenting the Ovid version of the Greek myths). The worst part is that Campbell obviously comes across as being deeply interested in world myths and religions, and could have easily written this book as being more inquisitive and respectful. Rather than celebrate mythology and folklore as a diverse and live tradition shaped by geography and culture and history, he tries to impose his own artificial framework to come off as some profound prophet.
Campbell hamfists as many myths as he has an (sometimes surface level) understanding of into a "cohesive" structure of his own accord. Those myths that don't fit or go against the structure, he chooses to simply ignore and not even mention. Even the myths he picks, he never once acknowledges different versions of them (most egregiously only presenting the Ovid version of the Greek myths). The worst part is that Campbell obviously comes across as being deeply interested in world myths and religions, and could have easily written this book as being more inquisitive and respectful. Rather than celebrate mythology and folklore as a diverse and live tradition shaped by geography and culture and history, he tries to impose his own artificial framework to come off as some profound prophet.