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thomas_edmund 's review for:
The Hero With a Thousand Faces
by Joseph Campbell
I've been meaning to read this book for ages. Anyone interested in writing and storytelling would have heard of 'The Heroes Journey' or possibly the Monomyth (e.g. the idea that all stories/myths have the same structure and development of their hero.)
Hero with a Thousand Faces is the progenitor of that concept, an analysis by Joseph Campbell claiming common threads of all mythology that combines to the Heroes Journey, well sort of I'll get to that.
For all the claims I've heard of the Hero's Journey over the years, Campbell sure doesn't actually make any of them. Far from bluntly describing a structure, the hero's journey is really just a portion of this book, which explores a variety of common ideas or motifs that spring up from myths. I don't think at any one moment Campbell actually claims that myths are all bound by this common theme, rather that the themes he had noted are extremely relevant.
Both are of course bold claims, but it seems most people interpret Campbell's argument as saying this is THE way and the ONLY way, whereas Campbell seems to be saying that his monomyth is the closest to the "true" myth. In some respects Campbell doesn't have much regards for general fiction anyway, even though since then everyone is using that lens, Campbell appeared to consider general fiction as a sort of "local" or "modern" muddying of a story. In fact his idea of the true message of a myth was really quite strange and almost nihilistic.
You see Campbell's thesis (as far as I can tell) appears to be that true knowledge is essentially unknowable, a sort of paradox kind of along the lines of to be truly one with the world you must also not be an individual and thusly not quite exist. Essentially the idea is that through the weird images and symbolic lessons of myth one might be able to touch on or glimpse this unknowable knowledge. So effectively the monomyth or hero's journey was basically the closet to getting to the unknowable.
This might be a good time to point out how wild and unempirical this work is. Like seriously Campbell could have very well been a cult leader had he not been an academic. the breath of his knowledge of mythology etc is absolutely astounding, but his methods and arguments are beyond word salad. For example in a section he would usually present a concept briefly for a paragraph or two, and then launch into examples from various cultural stories. A really compelling and interesting way of writing, however I want to stress there was no coherence to these arguments...
People seem to take Campbell's work as strong evidence for this common format of myths, and talk about this book as if its an exhaustive analysis coming to that conclusion, let me assure that IT IS NOT. This book is a great example of extreme cherry picking where any point is supported by Campbells (admittedly) knowledge of myths but there is no system to the analysis, its just Campbell saying "obviously these are the same" the weirdest one had got to be the tale of hero being born as "water jar boy" a literal jar wandering around throughout their childhood, this was apparent consistent with heroes spending a time in "obscurity" (I don't remember being a literal water jar boy part of the heroes journey)
As I write very negatively I have to point out that much of my ire is because I'm judging this book from the various exposure I've had to the Hero's Journey since. I picked up this book expecting to elucidate much of the mythology of the very concept and was somewhat shocked to find something quite different. while I think Campbell's work is flawed in many respects its a fun and strange romp through comparative myth. In many respects its others' interpretation of his work that is perhaps worse.
So in conclusion I'm not sure I'd recommend this book, unless perhaps you're somehow a die-hard fan of the subject but haven't got to this tome yet, you might find it disillusioning. If you're a writer wanting to hone your understanding of stories there is a surprising dearth of knowledge here - again its not actually Campbell's fault what I'm saying, at the time he was riffing on his area of interest, he wasn't trying to spawn innumerable writing guides and absolutist statements about stories - in fact his stance was more commenting on the role of myth for society and people rather than how to write books.
Hero with a Thousand Faces is the progenitor of that concept, an analysis by Joseph Campbell claiming common threads of all mythology that combines to the Heroes Journey, well sort of I'll get to that.
For all the claims I've heard of the Hero's Journey over the years, Campbell sure doesn't actually make any of them. Far from bluntly describing a structure, the hero's journey is really just a portion of this book, which explores a variety of common ideas or motifs that spring up from myths. I don't think at any one moment Campbell actually claims that myths are all bound by this common theme, rather that the themes he had noted are extremely relevant.
Both are of course bold claims, but it seems most people interpret Campbell's argument as saying this is THE way and the ONLY way, whereas Campbell seems to be saying that his monomyth is the closest to the "true" myth. In some respects Campbell doesn't have much regards for general fiction anyway, even though since then everyone is using that lens, Campbell appeared to consider general fiction as a sort of "local" or "modern" muddying of a story. In fact his idea of the true message of a myth was really quite strange and almost nihilistic.
You see Campbell's thesis (as far as I can tell) appears to be that true knowledge is essentially unknowable, a sort of paradox kind of along the lines of to be truly one with the world you must also not be an individual and thusly not quite exist. Essentially the idea is that through the weird images and symbolic lessons of myth one might be able to touch on or glimpse this unknowable knowledge. So effectively the monomyth or hero's journey was basically the closet to getting to the unknowable.
This might be a good time to point out how wild and unempirical this work is. Like seriously Campbell could have very well been a cult leader had he not been an academic. the breath of his knowledge of mythology etc is absolutely astounding, but his methods and arguments are beyond word salad. For example in a section he would usually present a concept briefly for a paragraph or two, and then launch into examples from various cultural stories. A really compelling and interesting way of writing, however I want to stress there was no coherence to these arguments...
People seem to take Campbell's work as strong evidence for this common format of myths, and talk about this book as if its an exhaustive analysis coming to that conclusion, let me assure that IT IS NOT. This book is a great example of extreme cherry picking where any point is supported by Campbells (admittedly) knowledge of myths but there is no system to the analysis, its just Campbell saying "obviously these are the same" the weirdest one had got to be the tale of hero being born as "water jar boy" a literal jar wandering around throughout their childhood, this was apparent consistent with heroes spending a time in "obscurity" (I don't remember being a literal water jar boy part of the heroes journey)
As I write very negatively I have to point out that much of my ire is because I'm judging this book from the various exposure I've had to the Hero's Journey since. I picked up this book expecting to elucidate much of the mythology of the very concept and was somewhat shocked to find something quite different. while I think Campbell's work is flawed in many respects its a fun and strange romp through comparative myth. In many respects its others' interpretation of his work that is perhaps worse.
So in conclusion I'm not sure I'd recommend this book, unless perhaps you're somehow a die-hard fan of the subject but haven't got to this tome yet, you might find it disillusioning. If you're a writer wanting to hone your understanding of stories there is a surprising dearth of knowledge here - again its not actually Campbell's fault what I'm saying, at the time he was riffing on his area of interest, he wasn't trying to spawn innumerable writing guides and absolutist statements about stories - in fact his stance was more commenting on the role of myth for society and people rather than how to write books.