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Rating: 
Summary: a new world
Review: If you are fascinated by the stories various peoples have told (and still tell) to explain who and why they are, this is essential reading. This Mayan genesis presents a new world, a new reality, peopled by heros, monkeys, and macaws, triumph and treachery. The translation will hold your attention, and the translator's notes on how the story happened to survive contribute to our understanding of this exotic and intriguing material.
Rating: 
Summary: The Authority
Review: It is difficult to imagine a better version of the "Popol Vuh" than this one. It is literary, it is scholarly, and it is well written - by a man who knows his subject. It provides incredible insight into the world of the ancient Maya and their modern descendents.If you're interested in Maya studies and you haven't read this book yet, then you haven't even gotten started. As time goes on it becomes more and more apparent that this book is our guide to understanding Maya iconography, and we are incredibly lucky to have a book like this available to us at all. To have such a well-done translation is almost too much to ask. Small wonder that other writers on the Maya simply cite this book as "Tedlock" - it's considered a foregone conclusion that you know which book is meant. Now if only somebody could come up with a good English version of the "Chilam Balam." Are there any takers out there?
Rating:
Summary: The Mayan Bible
Review: It is difficult to imagine a better version of the "Popol Vuh" than this one. It is literary, it is scholarly, and it is well written - by a man who knows his subject. It provides incredible insight into the world of the ancient Maya and their modern descendents. If you're interested in Maya studies and you haven't read this book yet, then you haven't even gotten started. As time goes on it becomes more and more apparent that this book is our guide to understanding Maya iconography, and we are incredibly lucky to have a book like this available to us at all. To have such a well-done translation is almost too much to ask. Small wonder that other writers on the Maya simply cite this book as "Tedlock" - it's considered a foregone conclusion that you know which book is meant. Now if only somebody could come up with a good English version of the "Chilam Balam." Are there any takers out there?
Rating:
Summary: The Authority
Review: It is difficult to imagine a better version of the "Popol Vuh" than this one. It is literary, it is scholarly, and it is well written - by a man who knows his subject. It provides incredible insight into the world of the ancient Maya and their modern descendents. If you're interested in Maya studies and you haven't read this book yet, then you haven't even gotten started. As time goes on it becomes more and more apparent that this book is our guide to understanding Maya iconography, and we are incredibly lucky to have a book like this available to us at all. To have such a well-done translation is almost too much to ask. Small wonder that other writers on the Maya simply cite this book as "Tedlock" - it's considered a foregone conclusion that you know which book is meant. Now if only somebody could come up with a good English version of the "Chilam Balam." Are there any takers out there?
Rating:
Summary: Much more than a translation
Review: Tedlock's translation is far more than a translation. Because the meaning of the Popol Vuh, he tells us, is situationally dependent (i.e., is likely to change depending on the context in which the reader approaches the text), Tedlock had to receive formal training as Mayan "daykeeper" (shamanistic reader of the Popol Vuh) before he approached the text. The results are amazing -- a depth of commentary and a tapestry of images that will require a dozen readings before I can begin to comprehend it, but intriguing enough that I bought a copy for my wife for Christmas as well. No folklorist should be without this work.
Rating:
Summary: Ian Myles Slater on: Even More Definitive?
Review: The "Popol Vuh," written in a Mayan language but a European script, is the most substantial surviving account of the Maya view of their own history, including that of their gods and divine ancestors, and has presented a host of problems for translators. The Tedlock translation of 1985 added new information to the work of many distinguished predecessors, and made substantial parts of the narrative clear (or at least much clearer). The fact that a fairly extensively revised edition of this book was not only possible, but necessary, a decade after its first publication (in 1985) might have discouraged the publisher from calling the new version "Definitive." However, that seems to be the recent marketing buzzword. But how would a third edition be described? (Dennis Tedlock has recently -- 2003 -- returned to the writings of the post-Conquest Maya aristocrats who actually produced the existing "Popol Vuh," in "Rabinal Achi: A Mayan Drama of War and Sacrifice," so it is clear that his work in the area continues.) In fact, the work of Dennis and Barbara Tedlock with living Quiche Maya ritualists (priests / diviners / shamans), which, in the first edition, added so much to understanding this early post-Conquest text, was part of a larger expansion of Maya studies, including a more complete decipherment of ancient inscriptions, and greatly improved studies of Maya art. It is now possible to recognize events, and even characters, of the "Popol Vuh" in art centuries older, and their even older prototypes a millennium earlierl. Meso-American cultures have been re-analyzed, and lost details recovered, as part of a major, and very rapid, shift in understanding. As an example: a large part of the story of "Popol Vuh" involves games played in ball-courts, in this world and the world of the dead; a major collection of papers on this theme, in Mayan and other cultures, "The Mesoamerican Ballgame," was based on a conference held the same year the first edition of Tedlock's translation appeared (Scarborough and Wilcox, 1991). Another change was the adoption of a new official system for writing Mayan languages in the Roman alphabet, one devised, for the first time, by native speakers of the various languages. This adds considerably to etymological and grammatical precision, but enormously complicates recognizing words and names in older systems. (Anyone familiar with the juggling of Wade-Giles and Pinyin transliterations of Chinese will be only too familiar with the kind of adjustment process for ordinary readers.) Tedlock has attempted, with considerable success, to incorporate this new information, and the new transcription system, into the old structure of the book. In the process, besides adding fascinating illustrations and fine-tuning the translation, he has restructured the introduction and notes. Some interesting personal observations are gone, or greatly reduced. References to older literature, often with Tedlock's reconsiderations, have generally been replaced by citations of more recent studies. Once debatable points have been given firm answers, and new questions have been raised. Some material which, at a first glance, I assumed to be missing, turned out, on close examination (with copies of both editions open in front of me, and the help of a lot of post-it flags), to have been broken up or consolidated in different contexts. In a few places, however, the strain shows, as a once-clear line of argument is disrupted. The sheer complication of the material explicated, in which social, cosmic / astronomical, and agricultural references are constantly intertwined, probably made this inevitable. Archeological and epigraphic material has somewhat eclipsed in prominence the modern Maya contribution to this edition, although for fuller information it was always necessary to turn to Barbara Tedlock's "Time and the Highland Maya." Among more recent publications of considerable value for understanding the mythological and astronomical material, Susan Milbrath's "Star Gods of the Maya: Astronomy in Art, Folklore, and Calendars" (1999) is exhausting, but I found it particularly illuminating. A series of books of which the late Linda Schele was co-author or co-editor (The Blood of Kings," 1986; "The Forest of Kings," 1990; "Maya Cosmos: Three Thousand Years on the Shaman's Path," 1993; and "The Code of Kings," 1999) are more popular in style, and very rewarding; unfortunately, like everything else in Mayan studies, they have dated very quickly, and the reader should always keep the date of publication in mind. Technical studies -- linguistic, epigraphic, archeological, art-historical -- are now abundant, but also harder for me to judge.
Rating:
Summary: Both scholarly and engaging
Review: There's something here for the serious student of Mesoamerican culture, the historian, and those who just like mythology. Rather than relying solely on academic translations, Tedlock has employed the services of native speakers of the Quiche Mayan language to give not only the words, but the *feel* of the stories. The first section is a synopsis of the people and events in the Popol Vuh itself from the time of the "creation" all the way to the coming of the Conquistadores, but rather than detracting from the story itself (as such synopses all-too-often do), it adds depth and understanding. I would have appreciated seeing more of the original glyphs, as well as the original forms of many of the names (which have been translated whenever possible), but this is a very minor quibble. Overall, highly recommended!
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Summary: The Mayan Bible
Review: This prize-winning translation of the Popol Vuh, the Mayan Bible, is the best one ever published. The translator not only knows the language but he is also a participant in the culture. His other books, "Days from a Dream Almanac" (poetry) and "Breath on the Mirror" (short stories)show his deeply poetic understanding of the culture. Now he has a new translation "Rabinal Achi," a Pre-Columbian Mayan play still performed today. These are mystical books that are also absolutely accurate.
Rating: 
Summary: Very Disappointing
Review: Vastly inferior to the 1985 edition. Usually a book has more information in the 2nd edition. This has MUCH less. Huge sections of the background information have been removed. Does the author think this makes the book MORE comprehensible?
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