Myth and Meaning: Cracking the Code of Culture [Paperback]

Claude Levi-Strauss (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 14, 1995

In addresses written for a wide general audience, one of the twentieth century's most prominent thinkers, Claude Lévi-Strauss, here offers the insights of a lifetime on the crucial questions of human existence. Responding to questions as varied as 'Can there be meaning in chaos?', 'What can science learn from myth?' and 'What is structuralism?', Lévi-Strauss presents, in clear, precise language, essential guidance for those who want to learn more about the potential of the human mind.

--This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

Review

'Some thinkers are influential, a few create schools, a very few characterize a period... it is possible that just as we speak of the age of Aquinas or of Goethe, later ages will speak of our time as the age of Levi-Strauss... he is a maker of the modern mind.' - James Redfield --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

About the Author

Claude Lévi-Strauss (1908- ). Anthropologist, who became the most prominent exponent of structuralism. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 80 pages
• Publisher: Schocken; 1ST edition (March 14, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0805210385
• ISBN-13: 978-0805210385
• Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 0.3 x 7.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #31,882 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

23 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A very readable introduction to Claude Lévi-Strauss, November 24, 2004

By 

Jeremy W. Forstadt (Pawtucket, RI) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Myth and Meaning: Cracking the Code of Culture (Paperback)

MYTH AND MEANING is a short and easily-digestible work based on a series of interviews and discussions delivered by the venerable French anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss and broadcast by Canadian radio in 1977. Its informal and conversational style (based on his responses to a series of questions posed by the CBC producer who is interviewing him) allows us broad-stroke insight into Lévi-Strauss's development of structuralism and his theories about science.

A self-professed "non-scientist" with a strong interest in science, Lévi-Strauss begins by outlining the divergence between science and "mythical and mystical thought" which began to occur around the 17th century in European intellectual traditions. The result is, we are lead to believe, that we have somehow lost something: something we may yet strive to regain or at least try to understand better.

Lévi-Strauss makes the argument that `primitive' thought is as rich and complex as so-called `civilized' thought, debunking various functionalist and traditional viewpoints that deny the savage mind has the ability to think both disinterestedly and intellectually. "In order for a culture to be really itself... its members must be convinced of their originality and even... of their superiority over the others." Mythical thinking may be the originality that we have lost in modern life.

One gets the sense that Lévi-Strauss develops his theories as he speaks-extemporaneously. He almost admits as much in his introduction: "I forget what I have written practically as soon as it is finished... I have the feeling that my books get written through me and that once [finished], I feel empty and nothing is left." Some of his explanations of particular myths, though entertaining, are a bit "out there" and border implausibility. One may reproach him for his methods or dispute his theories, but no one can deny that MYTH AND MEANING provides a fascinating glimpse into the mind of this original and controversial thinker.

Jeremy W. Forstadt

31 of 37 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good Introduction to Levi-Strauss but falters at the end, January 31, 2003

By 

A Customer - See all my reviews

This review is from: Myth and Meaning: Cracking the Code of Culture (Paperback)

This book, based on interviews Levi-Strauss conducted with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation in the late '70s, is extremely clear and easy to understand for non-anthropologists like myself. He explains his views about how rational science and mythology branched off from each other in the seventeenth and eighteenth century, leading us to a situation where today we experience life differently that do 'primitive' tribes who use myths to explain the world around them. Levi-Strauss notes, however, that, while these peoples may not be as accurate in describing the world as we are with our modern science, they do possess a great deal of knowledge which we have lost on an individual level, i.e., knowledge about plants and stars. Mythology, he claims, functions like history and science for these people; for an example Levi-Strauss focuses his attention on the meaning of American myths about twins, hare(lips) and babies born feet first.

All this is quite well laid out and easy to read. However, the last chapter deals with music and mythology, and here Levi-Strauss badly missteps. He postulates that the decline in mythology that accompanied the rise of modern science coincided with the creation of great music by the likes of Bach, Haydn and Mozart that drew upon the same sources of inspiration as mythology. He spends several pages in a structural critique of Wagner's Ring which, albeit fascinating, is highly questionable. Furthermore, at the end of the book he suggests, quite wildly, that serial music is now poised to overtake the modern novel, which arose at the same time as modern science, in importance.

This weak section at the end notwithstanding, however, this is a good book for anyone interested in Levi-Strauss's groundbreaking work.

20 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A good short intro to Levi-Strauss, January 8, 2001

By 

Gregory L Dyas - See all my reviews

This review is from: Myth and Meaning: Cracking the Code of Culture (Paperback)

This is an excellent and very short intro to the work the of famed anthropologist Levi-Strauss. It breaks down to a large extent his basic ideas about the structural analysis of myth and provides an opportunity into the thoughts and opinions of the father of structural anthropology. It's mostly taken as a transcript from a series of lectures he gave outlining major themes he's covered in his work.

If you like this book and wish to read more by him I'd recommend The Raw and the Cooked and his classic work, Structural Anthropology.