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3.94 AVERAGE
3.94 AVERAGE
A very simple idea wrapped in multiple layers of schizophasic meandering nonsense. It is incredibly sad that this is still considered a cornerstone of literary theory. And as if completely vacuous nature of this book wouldn't be offensive enough by itself, it is full of racist contempt for most of the non-white myths it is retelling. Phallo-centric misoginistic point of view is also, of course, on full display. Finally, author is not above just making stuff up to come up with more examples.
Campbell desarrolla la teoría del camino del héroe en esta obra, partiendo del psicoanálisis —y de este de la visión de Freud y de Jung; que tienden a ser androcentristas—. Un análisis de mitologías de todo el orbe que, con una prosa bien construida, ya por sí mismo —por la amplísima muestra— atrae. Sin embargo, es cierto que la idea de que los mitos reflejan las preocupaciones de la psique infantil puede ser cuestionable y que su planteamiento está centrado en la figura masculina de los héroes y dioses, por consiguiente, sesgada. Aunque amplia, queda la cuestión de si hubiese elegido otros mitos habría podido sustentar su planteamiento. Ciertamente no es Dumézil analizando los mitos de los pueblos indo-europeos —y por consiguiente apuntando hacia un pensamiento religioso de un pueblo—, sino que pretende que todo mito embone en un molde; además, a ello se suma que sigue manteniendo la visión entre pueblos desarrollados y no desarrollados, como si el monoteísmo fuera, por sí mismo, un signo de desarrollo.
challenging
informative
inspiring
reflective
slow-paced
I read this partly because it's a "classic" in terms of academic literature on story structure, and partly because I needed to read it for research purposes. I didn't expect to like it very much and my expectations were pretty low, but I definitely didn't expect to hate it as much as I did. It was a terrible book, most of Campbell's theories are essentially unsupported or straight up contradicted by the examples he gives. He makes ridiculous and broad assumptions about various cultures and religions while completely ignoring any cultural/religious/political/etc context for the myths and folktales he talks about. He consistently claims that "all myths" do x thing or have x symbolism, but his examples rarely prove that and doing even a little bit of research (or just having any general knowledge of more than one culture's myths) completely refutes that idea.
Probably half the book is taken up by his quoting or summarizing various myths or quoting various dreams from contemporary people in order to somehow use said myths to interpret dreams via Jung's idea of the collective unconscious (but not really doing anything like interpreting since he just kind of slaps the dream descriptions in at the end of the chapter and doesn't do anything with them). The book is nearly 400 pages long and could easily have been less than 150 pages and made a better point. He only says anything of worth in the last few chapters, and even then the generalizing is a huge problem.
He either picks out fragments of longer tales and uses them as examples without talking about or including the rest of the story, or he uses shorter "standalone" fables/folktales and implies that they're part of a bigger, longer epic tale. Most of the stories he cherry-picks to try and represent the Hero's Journey don't actually fit into his diagram at all, and I'm genuinely so surprised we were made to learn about this (even in a much more abstract form) in high school. (Not to mention as writing advice it sucks too; making stories formulaic then makes them predictable which makes them boring.)
His whole theory of some sort of universal mythical consciousness is incredibly frustrating. Again, most of the myths he uses as examples aren't actually similar to each other and don't match up to his diagram, either. Also, many of the aspects that *are* similar are simply universal human experiences due to generally being human beings (awareness of the distance between earth and sky, or fear of being eaten/attacked by predators, for example). He also almost entirely ignores how many of the shorter tales (as opposed to longer (somewhat) connected ones like the bible or Bhagavad Gita) are often closer to fables or 'just-so' stories, explaining why certain things are as they are or teaching people how to best behave or what is or isn't moral behavior. (He does at least point out that major texts like the Bible or Torah or Bhagavad Gita are teaching transcendence and cosmological truths and other myths are not.)
Towards the end he even contradicts himself about whether or not you can categorize myths, suddenly saying you can't when this whole time that's exactly what he's been doing (without a hint of saying he attempted and then was unable to). He then goes on to talk about using these "universal" myths and symbols and paths to inform one's own life, despite also admitting that the old myth structure is no longer applicable to modern life and that people don't believe in myths anymore because of technology and science and we live in a society etc. The only thing I actually agreed with him on in this whole book is the idea that society is now focused on individualism rather than community.
There’s also the problem of applying Freudian or Jungian psychoanalysis to ancient cultures or ancient stories which likely did not have the same relationships to certain life experiences or certain objects/events as we do in modern society, or to cultures/stories that are not patriarchal. And the bizarre way he seems to hold Christian, Hindu, and Buddhist myths and religious stories as somehow higher and ‘civilized’ but all other religions and myths and folktales are recounted with a sort of subtle implication of ‘savagery.’
It's fairly obvious really liked and believed in the theories of Jung and Freud (Jung especially) and that he had his entire theory already planned out, so he simply shoehorned various myths into those interpretive spaces rather than looking at them all with a hypothesis and remaining open-minded to the comparisons revealing something different.
I don't think this book belongs in the category of writing guide and it definitely doesn't belong in comparative mythology. At best I think it's something that might supplement other woo-woo New Age-y "spirituality" books that appropriate the idea of "spirit animals" and tell you that you have past lives and things like that.
Probably half the book is taken up by his quoting or summarizing various myths or quoting various dreams from contemporary people in order to somehow use said myths to interpret dreams via Jung's idea of the collective unconscious (but not really doing anything like interpreting since he just kind of slaps the dream descriptions in at the end of the chapter and doesn't do anything with them). The book is nearly 400 pages long and could easily have been less than 150 pages and made a better point. He only says anything of worth in the last few chapters, and even then the generalizing is a huge problem.
He either picks out fragments of longer tales and uses them as examples without talking about or including the rest of the story, or he uses shorter "standalone" fables/folktales and implies that they're part of a bigger, longer epic tale. Most of the stories he cherry-picks to try and represent the Hero's Journey don't actually fit into his diagram at all, and I'm genuinely so surprised we were made to learn about this (even in a much more abstract form) in high school. (Not to mention as writing advice it sucks too; making stories formulaic then makes them predictable which makes them boring.)
His whole theory of some sort of universal mythical consciousness is incredibly frustrating. Again, most of the myths he uses as examples aren't actually similar to each other and don't match up to his diagram, either. Also, many of the aspects that *are* similar are simply universal human experiences due to generally being human beings (awareness of the distance between earth and sky, or fear of being eaten/attacked by predators, for example). He also almost entirely ignores how many of the shorter tales (as opposed to longer (somewhat) connected ones like the bible or Bhagavad Gita) are often closer to fables or 'just-so' stories, explaining why certain things are as they are or teaching people how to best behave or what is or isn't moral behavior. (He does at least point out that major texts like the Bible or Torah or Bhagavad Gita are teaching transcendence and cosmological truths and other myths are not.)
Towards the end he even contradicts himself about whether or not you can categorize myths, suddenly saying you can't when this whole time that's exactly what he's been doing (without a hint of saying he attempted and then was unable to). He then goes on to talk about using these "universal" myths and symbols and paths to inform one's own life, despite also admitting that the old myth structure is no longer applicable to modern life and that people don't believe in myths anymore because of technology and science and we live in a society etc. The only thing I actually agreed with him on in this whole book is the idea that society is now focused on individualism rather than community.
There’s also the problem of applying Freudian or Jungian psychoanalysis to ancient cultures or ancient stories which likely did not have the same relationships to certain life experiences or certain objects/events as we do in modern society, or to cultures/stories that are not patriarchal. And the bizarre way he seems to hold Christian, Hindu, and Buddhist myths and religious stories as somehow higher and ‘civilized’ but all other religions and myths and folktales are recounted with a sort of subtle implication of ‘savagery.’
It's fairly obvious really liked and believed in the theories of Jung and Freud (Jung especially) and that he had his entire theory already planned out, so he simply shoehorned various myths into those interpretive spaces rather than looking at them all with a hypothesis and remaining open-minded to the comparisons revealing something different.
I don't think this book belongs in the category of writing guide and it definitely doesn't belong in comparative mythology. At best I think it's something that might supplement other woo-woo New Age-y "spirituality" books that appropriate the idea of "spirit animals" and tell you that you have past lives and things like that.
informative
reflective
slow-paced
took me forever to read but had some interesting stuff. might need to reread when i’m smarter cuz i think a lot went over my head
informative
reflective
slow-paced
challenging
informative
reflective
slow-paced
Nearly a year after buying it and 4 months after restarting, I’m finally free.
Very interesting. Might be the single most interesting book I’ve read thus far.
Very interesting. Might be the single most interesting book I’ve read thus far.
informative
slow-paced
The Hero with a Thousand Faces is a well-referenced research piece with undeniable truth hidden behind discredited Freudian and misogynistic rhetoric.
James Campbell proves his monomyth theory using dense writing bloated with references to mythology and theology. My low rating reflects the sexism and dry tone. I acknowledge that the Monomyth is a key stepping stone in literary theory and is a necessary evil when learning about storytelling in human history.
James Campbell proves his monomyth theory using dense writing bloated with references to mythology and theology. My low rating reflects the sexism and dry tone. I acknowledge that the Monomyth is a key stepping stone in literary theory and is a necessary evil when learning about storytelling in human history.
slow-paced
“Anne,” dedi, “acı duyma. Kimse yaşayıp da ölmemezlik edemez. Kendini bir şeye sahip saymak yanılmak demektir; kimse baba, anne ya da oğul değildir. Yalnızca kesintisiz doğum ve ölüm çevrimi vardır.”
.
Ocak ayında Mine Oral’ın grubuyla okumaya başladım Kahramanın Sonsuz Yolculuğu’nu, onun kitap sohbetleri gerçekten farklı bir deneyim oluyor. Uzun ve yorucu bir okuma oldu ki Campbell kolaylaştırıcı davranmıyor. Eğer kendi başıma okumuş olsaydım ya yarım bırakırdım ya da hiçbir şey anlamadan bitirirdim. Grup okumasına rağmen yine de kitabı tam kavrayabildiğimi iddia edemem ancak bilinç ve öz kavramlarına farklı bir bakış açısı getirmemi sağladı. Evrene, zamana hatta bazen sadece önümüzdeki engellere nasıl baktığımız insanlık tarihi kadar eski bir konu. Farklı mitolojileri, dinleri ve ortak yanlarını okumak güzeldi. Her ne kadar bambaşka ‘dünya’larda yaşamış olsak bile dönüp bakıldığında her insan aynı evrelerden geçiyor. Günün sonunda önemli olan galiba bu yolculuğun ne kadar farkında olduğumuz. Bir yandan da yaşamı olan biten her şeyiyle kabullenmek gerekiyor. Yazımı keşke biraz daha kolay okunabilir bir tarzda olsaymış çünkü çoğu kısımda cümlenin tekrar tekrar başına döndüğüm oldu. Kitap boyunca bambaşka kültürlerin mitolojilerini okumak, günümüze ulaşmış eserlerini görmek güzeldi. Grup okuması olduğundan kitabı daha çok anlamlandırabilmiş olduğumu tekrar belirteyim yoksa daha az severdim.
.
Ocak ayında Mine Oral’ın grubuyla okumaya başladım Kahramanın Sonsuz Yolculuğu’nu, onun kitap sohbetleri gerçekten farklı bir deneyim oluyor. Uzun ve yorucu bir okuma oldu ki Campbell kolaylaştırıcı davranmıyor. Eğer kendi başıma okumuş olsaydım ya yarım bırakırdım ya da hiçbir şey anlamadan bitirirdim. Grup okumasına rağmen yine de kitabı tam kavrayabildiğimi iddia edemem ancak bilinç ve öz kavramlarına farklı bir bakış açısı getirmemi sağladı. Evrene, zamana hatta bazen sadece önümüzdeki engellere nasıl baktığımız insanlık tarihi kadar eski bir konu. Farklı mitolojileri, dinleri ve ortak yanlarını okumak güzeldi. Her ne kadar bambaşka ‘dünya’larda yaşamış olsak bile dönüp bakıldığında her insan aynı evrelerden geçiyor. Günün sonunda önemli olan galiba bu yolculuğun ne kadar farkında olduğumuz. Bir yandan da yaşamı olan biten her şeyiyle kabullenmek gerekiyor. Yazımı keşke biraz daha kolay okunabilir bir tarzda olsaymış çünkü çoğu kısımda cümlenin tekrar tekrar başına döndüğüm oldu. Kitap boyunca bambaşka kültürlerin mitolojilerini okumak, günümüze ulaşmış eserlerini görmek güzeldi. Grup okuması olduğundan kitabı daha çok anlamlandırabilmiş olduğumu tekrar belirteyim yoksa daha az severdim.