Customer Reviews

Anima: An Anatomy of a Personified Notion

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This is an odd book-focusing on Jung's anima archetype-very different from Emma Jung's. It uses stilted language, endnotes as the bibliography, & left-hand pages as footnotes to the right-hand pages-an odd but effective construction. It reminds me of a brain-storming session-very open & creative but with numerous ideas which need to be discarded upon review. Hillman extensively describes what anima is & is not (e.g. not all female figures are anima figures) & IMHO rightly describes differences between soul (anima) & spirit (animus) & between anima & feeling/Eros. However, he reaches the IMHO incorrect conclusion that both men & women have both anima & animus & confounds animus with ego, losing Jung's important contra-sexual breakthrough. While Jung used metaphysical/religious terms (soul/spirit) for psychic constructs/entities (anima/animus), he had a strong aversion to neologisms (creating new terms). I think his equating anima to soul & animus with spirit is ambiguous. Hillman's "adaptation" of Jung takes these equivalences too literally IMHO. Symbols are not to be taken literally. Further, Hillman seems to be stuck in Christian mythology despite his obvious parallels with Buddhism (e.g. view of ego, p. 137: discriminating knowledge, p. 143: subtle body, & p. 141: "It is then no longer clear when we are psychologically conscious & when unconscious"). In addition, while Hillman criticizes Jungians for putting too much onto the male anima, he similarly projects female archetypes (e.g. Kore) onto his own creation, "female anima." He seems to think that rocks are alive (p. 109) & be anti-science (Jung considered himself a scientist). Finally, Hillman seems to interpret Jung incorrectly-calling anima demonic on p. 135 whereas Jung (corresponding p. 134 quote) has "daemonic"-in Jung, this is a Big difference. While I find Hillman's provocative approach to be refreshing, he seems to have some spurious reasoning erected on questionable premises. But, per p. 137: "Before we can become conscious we must be able to know that we are unconscious."

The anima is a female archetype of the male psyche. Hillman delves into this difficult to understand Jungian concept in great detail -- for example, the relationship of the anima to the psyche and the soul, or whether the anima is a sexual archetype. The book is heavily footnoted, with the text on the right hand page and the footnotes on the left side. Most of the footnotes are quotes from Jung's Collected Works. Interspersed in the text are numerous line drawings which make for more pleasurable reading.

The only drawback is that Hillman didn't anticipate the reaction of women to his description of the anima. The book is about a female structure in the male psyche, but his description of that female archetype is largely stereotyped and may be rather annoying to any reader who is sensitive to gender issues. Perhaps he relies too greatly on Jung's perspective and doesn't bring himself into contemporary times. His attempts to reach into the women's psyche are unconvincing.

Hillman at his poetic best. He plays with and amplifies the Jungian concept of the anima in ways delightful to read about; one needn't even agree with all of them to enjoy the ride.

it was give as a gift and was received wonderful. the person really is enjoying studying this book

This is the difinitive look at contemporary thinking about the anima