Customer Reviews

Symbolism in Greek Mythology: Human Desire and Its Transformations

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Furthering the steps of Joseph Campbell, deeper than J. P. Vernant, less poetic but more rigorous than Mircea Eliad, not as structurally biased as C. Levy Strauss, more versatile than Freud's Totem and Taboo, Paul Diel's work supplies an analysis which applies to any religious story or any myth at any period in time in any geographical region. This is a book for a lifetime. Confronting Paul Diel's enlightments with Rene Girard's analysis offers a path for anyone interested in getting wiser. Hard to read but more than worth deciphering.

This text is fundamental for all the raeders who have a wide interest in that issue so relevant and trascendental for knowing ourselves as the glorious sons of this civilization.
Paul Diel made an exhaustive analysis about the keys and clues of every myth . Its further implications and the inner relations with the psychology and sociology .
He analizes Icarus , The Minotaur , Edipus, among others with sophisticated but precise and meridian clarity .All along this book you will discover the hidden codes , the inner meaning of these fundamentals episodes of that radiant and fascinating mythology universe .

I was lucky enough to be introduced to Diel by a French friend. Diel doesn't hold anything back: by page 7 he reveals the meaning of life ("harmonius satisfaction of multiple desires"). Diel's intended audience was probably students of psychology, but writers bored of the hackneyed "mythic structure" instilled by the popularity of application of Joseph Campbell's work to screenwriting will revel in what Diel has to offer. But more than improving my writing, I feel reading Diel has made me a better person--and for that, I rank this as one of the most important books an adult person can read.