The Hero with a Thousand Faces (Bollingen Series (General))

Rating:
Summary: Profound, World Shakingly Influential & Changing.
Review: All may roads may lead to Rome, but for me, this year, all books seemed to lead to Joseph Campbell's Hero With 1000 Faces.

I have discovered that this book is probably one of the most influential, widely read books of the 20th century. It's no wonder the author, Joseph Campbell, was featured in a Bill Moyers special on The Power of Myth (with an accompanying book, as usual for Bill Moyer's specials.)

I was reading books on writing-- on story structure-- Particularly, Christopher Vogler's excellent Writer's Journey, and it was based on this book. Ironically, I was already reading another of Campbell's series of books on myth. But then I started looking deeper into this realm-- the idea of the Hero's journey, -- the call to adventure, refusing the call, finding a mentor, encountering threshold guardians, crossing the threshold, facing the worst evil, winning the elixir--- and I discovered that dozens of books have been written about the concepts Joseph Campbell first broached.

It's such a powerful idea, and so useful in conceptualizing life's changes. I used it as an element in a presentation I just gave this past weekend on how the art and science of story can be applied to healing and helping people grow. 80% of the people attending the lecture were familiar with the concept.

This is such powerful material, you might consider essential for helping you understand the way movies are made, and how the contemporary world has been affected by advertising and the loss of sacred rituals in everyday life.

One way I gauge a book is by how many marks I make in the margins, to indicate wise ideas or quotable material ( I collect quotes, and quotation books big-time, owning over 400 quotation books) and this book's margins are just packed. The depth of knowledge in mythology and anthropology is awesome, providing a wealth of examples, metaphors, ancient stories and myths which deepen your understanding of human nature. The only problem with this book is how often, in conversations, I've found it to be relevant, whether talking about a friend who is going through some tough times, or someone who is making some changes in his business.

Rob Kall

Rating:
Summary: Provocative, poetic, scholarly... and downright beautiful
Review: Having moved so far beyond the intellectual/psychological paradigms Campbell subscribed to and so magnificently introduced to me with this book, I had forgotten how important his way of thinking is and had been to both regular people and anthropological scholarship- and my own personal development as a person.

Joseph Campbell was an intellectual/spiritual throwback to the pre-Victorian age, when myth was not degraded for religious, socio-political and scientific agendas. It is almost hard to believe- thanks to him- that the word could have ever taken on the connotation of lie or trivial fantasy. Or, that the ancient myths at the foundation of what we know to be culture, universal in much of their form and reason for being, could ever possibly be ignored or trivialized. So much wealth of human history do they hold, and so many treasures of inner knowledge do they make as gifts.

Campbell set out to be not just a scholar or intellectual, but a modern Bard of his own, in the tradition of Homer, Sophecles, Confucius, Shakespeare and Freud. In so doing, he also cut through much of the modern culture's historic efforts to divide the world into some form of the Pagan/Believer dichotomy (via religon or science or politics vs. the regular folks of every century and their traditions) and reestablish the hegemony of the ancient truths that still serve as the fountain head of our imagination. HERO OF A THOUSAND FACES does that so elegantly, and so compassionately, that it becomes a truly life- affirming as well as paradigm shifting adventure.

Some scholars have had and will continue to have problems with his work and approach. Don't kid yourself; it's in part because he was such a wonderful writer who can connect the daunting intellectual scope of his ideas with the general public, almost regardless of one's level of education. Weaker writers cannot do that, regardless of their intellectual capacity or theories, and hide in the ivory tower where it is safe. Another reason, however, is the degree to which his work relied on the psychological theories of Jung. Though Jung's genius is also unquestionable, he did not provide the only lens by which to look at ancient myth, and via staying so deeply in a psychological paradigm (for more than just altruistic therapeutic reasons) he served to antagonize variant approaches and perspectives on the same materials. (Jungian psychologists and architects for example can almost never sit in the same room together without a fistfight practically ensuing, so violently and diametrically opposed they become on Jung's interpretations of what very often is actually ancient science and mathematics.) Yet though I tend not to agree with a significant portion of the meaning given to Campbell's work and discoveries anymore for that reason, I cannot help but remember that it was he more or less who opened my eyes to so much of what I now understand to be human and universal, transcending culture, "race", language and time.

Campbell's unexpected bringing together of mythical similarities from Celtic, native American, Indian, Bablyonian and other divergent world sources of myth is done so well, and so poetically while again with great erudition, it will put you in touch with much of what is beautiful in art, literature, religion, and the human mind- not to mention the human heart. And of the several of his books I have read, HERO OF A THOUSAND FACES is the best. Your soul-quest will far from end with his work and ideas, but I can't imagine it having a better beginning.

Rating:
Summary: An excellent introduction to a serious study of MYTHOLOGY...
Review: Joseph Campbell and Mircea Eliade are, perhaps, the preeminent accessible scholars in the field of mythology in the 20th century. I eliminate writers like Harold Bloom whose blatant gnosticism often blurs intended explication of mythological traditions and renders them bewildering and solipsistic rather than "illuminating". The great "political" mythologist Czeslaw Milosz' vision is...as he himself declares...a bit "eccentric" for the beginner. Hence: Campbell and Eliade. The former explains the "players" (would-be heroes). The latter explains the nature of the "field" (the cosmos & history), the nature of the TWO kinds of time: sacred and profane; be they WESTERN/linear/; or EASTERN/ cyclical)...... THE HERO WITH A THOUSAND FACES is, I submit, Campbell's best and perhaps only important work. Why? The book provides clear definition of THE HEROIC QUEST and why the hero is the foundation of all mythologies. Axiom: societies must have heroes; mythologies are stories of heroes who incarnate values upon which a society, nation or world-order thrives or dies. THE CALL...THE ORDEAL...(Trials by "Fire & Water") THE GREAT TEMPTATION...AND THE RETURN (Final apotheosis as NAMED hero) initiate the hero. All kinds of cool jargon, freighted with the cultural values of the West (LOGOS)or East (TAO)are employed by Campbell along with stories adjuged by great cultures to Re-Present themselves to their own traditions and the WORLD embodying their notion of THE HEROIC. It's good stuff and very accessible. Campbell's later work..."The Masks of God" and his studies in the mythological dimension of dreams...becomes less so as he apparently succumbs to the "gnostic" temptation himself. After studying THE HERO WITH A THOUSAND FACES, the reader is advised to take-on Eliade. THE COSMOS & HISTORY: The Myth of the Eternal Return; and SYMBOLISM, the SACRED & the ARTS. Then, if your interest has been piqued, you're ready for Eliade's literally encyclopediaec study of religions and myth. Or not. No, I have not forgotten Frazer,Graves,Ceram or Corcoran...explicators; nor Lewis, Tolkien or for that matter A.A.Milne..."creators" of mythical heroes and their quests. But with Campbell's THE HERO WITH A THOUSAND FACES, the student of mythology can acquire some formidable tools for judgment of culture and ethical ultimates. Petronious (Emperor Nero's "minister" of culture) once composed a mock-heroic quest called THE SATYRICON. It is about the daring struggle of two homosexuals ...against odds and foes, arch and otherwise...to leach a free meal EVERYDAY! An inspirational goal (GRAIL) of truely heroic archetype. Of course historically, Petronius was slain by Nero for participating in an assassination plot. Nero himself reluctantly committed suicide aided by a courtier Then followed civil war (and, in a single year, four violent aspirants to the Emperor's chair and SPQR). The final point: "Who wants to be a hero?" in a culture which has devolved into another quest called "Who wants to be a millionaire?" THE HERO WITH A THOUSAND FACES helps to suggest which answer is important; why and how such heroes prevail...or the consequences of failure in even the REFUSAL of the Call. It's an important book...not because Campbell was George Lucas' mentor and STAR WARS was conceptualized on Campbell's ideas. But because this society now does not know the difference among heroes, entertainers and celebrities (the famous for being famous). This book...an excellent introduction to the serious study of mythology...suggests answers to what provides a society with essential VITALITY to EXIST...and that is the purpose of all TRUE MYTH..........

Rating:
Summary: A landmark of 20th century literature.
Review: Joseph Campbell was one of the great souls of our age. I've read this book twice, first on my own and the second for a class in "Myth, Religion & the Mythic Imagination." I read the paperack to tatters, literally, marking each illuminating, exhilirating insight. "Dry"? "Not a fun read"? What book did YOU read? Campbell is unlike other writers on myth; he looks not at an entire myth but at its parts. By the end of the book, he has essentially created the Ultimate Hero Myth, which takes bits of every hero myth from virtually every culture (heavy on Native Americans). Campbell was not a dispassionate academic--this was his gospel, and he lived by it. This book is alive and inspiring like no other book I know. One unique aspect of it at the time it was published was its approach to Christianity. For Campbell, Christ's life had to be seen as a myth. Before him, most Western scholars wouldn't have dare to say such a thing. Others had written on that, but in a skeptical manner. Campbell's view is that the Virgin Birth, miracles, Resurrection, etc have meaning only because they ARE myths. Look, there'd be no "Star Wars" without this. No "Sandman" comics from Neil Gaiman. No "Watership Down." This book is for the intellectual who wants to LIVE, not just to sit sterile at the desk. Recommended like mad.

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.