Customer Reviews

The Mythic Image

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Let's say you don't want to sit down and read Hero w/ a Thousand Faces, or any other Joseph Campbell works that are very long and more text-based. Perhaps, though, you know a little about the man, and want to learn a little more about what he thinks of things. This is the book that you're looking for, then. It's an incredibly lovingly written study of mythological / religious symbology through most places & times in the history of our little blue rock. With about 500 illustrations, I believe, it makes just as proper a coffee table book as it does a reference source. What's wonderful is that it doesn't take a look at cultures one by one, and examine their belief systems, each in turn--it examines the symbols themselves, instead, and then focuses on the commonalities in the world's living and lost theological systems that have grown out of these archetypal symbols. And like I said, maybe you don't want to read 5 or 6 volumes of scholarly literature just to get at the parts that speak to you. So you start with this book, you see what's what, and THEN you dive in a little deeper from there. Quite possibly the non-fiction book I will keep with me for the rest of my life. Get it for yourself.

One of the last projects he worked on, this beautifully illustrated book puts together Campbell's views on myth as manafested through art. This could be his very best achievement as a "comparative mythologist." Organized around the theam of the world-as-dream (from Hinduism to *Finnagan's Wake*), it discusses several universal motifs in art/myth (the virgin birth, the world axis, the death and resurection of the hero...) and gives Campbell's explainatons for for their commonality. Manny of the artworks discussed in his audio tape lectures are shown and analyzed here. I am an art educator, and I've found that I can build almost my whole (multicultural) curiculum around this book.

Here is a valuable tip if you are wondering whether to buy the hardcover or paperback version. The paperback is in a reduced format and the 34 color plates in the hardcover are rendered in black and white. Since this IS a book that deals with images, it would seem preferable to choose the hardcover. The text IS the same as the hardcover.

While the softbound edition is quite good, if you have the room and can find it, there is a larger Princeton Polychrome Press hardbound with beautiful images that you may prefer.

The big 9.5 by 12 inch, 2 inch thick Princeton Polychrome Press edition has quite a few color plates and has larger black and white images with more dynamic range than those in the softbound 7.5 by 10 edition.

Unfortunately there are at least two hardbounds. Another one by "MJF books" which I mistakenly first bought, is the same size as the softbound, has no color plates, and is on less opaque paper. What led me and other reviewers to seek a hardbound was a note in the preface in the softbound: "In order to realize this paperback edition of The Mythic Image, in reduced format, thirty-four color plates are reproduced in black and white ..."

Unfortunately it is hard to tell which hardbound edition used sellers are actually offering, but Amazon lets you e-mail a used book's seller. An e-mailed question about color plates and the book's size worked for me.

The 9.5 by 12 format Polychrome Press hardbound is ISBN-10: 0-691-09869-7 and has a dust jacket with the same image as the cover of the softbound.

A gem for anyone interested in symbols and myths. Campbell may wander off sometimes but he never loses what he is talking about out of sight.

The seller was prompt and the book was in great condition. However I thought the photos were in color. This was the reason I purchased the Hardcover edition. The Book did not have any color photos in it and If I'd had known I'd have spent much less on the paperback edition