Rating: 
Summary: Hero Of A Thousand Feces
Review: This is a good general introduction to the barest basics of mythography, recommended for jr. highschool students or adults wanting to get their feet wet before diving into actual texts and theory.However, this book is no more than a New-Age philosophy manual - far closer to Deepak Chopra than the works of say, Roger Loomis. This is best for Star Wars-headed armchair 'mythologists' i.e. hobbyists with no true inkling of what the research of cultural evolution is all about. If you're looking for a quick fix to your 'deeper' questions about Star Trek and Hobbits, or a framework for your million-dollar Hollywood script project, this is for you! If you are serious about mythograhy, however, you'd better get a serious grip on linguistics and begin tackling the extant texts in their original languages. Any other approach is a waste of time.
Rating: 
Summary: A Child of Its Time - But not now
Review: When this book was written, in 1948, the very idea of questioning the rightness of Freud or Jung, even though they had fallen out with each other, was (supposedly) something only an idiot would contemplate. Today, thanks to studies such as Richard Webster's "Why Freud was Wrong", we have learnt to treat the teachings of these men with a great deal of caution, and the psychoanalytic movement as a whole enjoys nothing like the unquestioning acceptance it claimed for itself in the first half of the 20th century. And the point is: There are two main flaws in Campbell's book: 1. The style of the writing is hopelessly scholarly and pedestrian. In its time, no doubt this help to justify the book's claim to be academically respectable. Today it just makes it a very heavy-going read. 2. Campbell himself attaches terrific importance to the validity of Freud and Jung's work when he seeks to explain the elements of "The Hero's Journey". And since the credibility of Freudianism in particular has been seriously undermined over the last 50 years, that inevitably consigns Campbell's work to the outer fringes of valid interpretation of the material he covers. As interesting as the basic material is, the dry-as-dust style of writing robbed it of most of its sparkle, as far as I was concerned. The highly questionable interpretive/psychoanalytical sections further interrupted the flow - whilst adding nothing of any value. If I'd known then what I know now, I wouldn't have bothered with this book.
I reckon you'd learn just as much about the basic process of The Hero's Journey by watching all three "Lord of the Rings" films. And it would be a whole lot more fun, to boot.
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