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The Timeless Myths: How Ancient Legends Influence the Modern World

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In Japan, individuals of extraordinary talent and vision are recognized as living national treasures as they live out their later years. The American writer Alexander Eliot should be given honorary Japanese citizenship and awarded that honor.

Alexander in "The Timeless Myths" coins the term, "mythosphere", to describe the reach of myth across cultures and epochs. For Alexander Eliot, the mythosphere is the intellectual and spiritual tissue that embodies our humanity.

Alexander was the lead art critic for Time magazine from 1945 until 1960. His articles on the growth of American post-war art and the rise of New York as the center of the art world were unsigned per Time's policy of that era. But he was able to gather some of the most pertinent information into his volume,"Three Hundred Years of American Painting" - published in 1957. The book was a huge success and along with a Guggenheim grant enabled Alex to move to Greece to further his studies of art and myth which now has led to the crowning work of his career: "The Timeless Myths".

Mr. Eliot has done what so many other 'mythologists' have done before him; infuse his ego into every letter of the book. While no one can doubt his grasp of academic mythology/mythological concepts, the elemental portion seems to elude him. He just doesn't seem to 'get it'. Myth shouldn't be only about presenting fanciful stories and then unveiling the obvious metophors within, we need to go deeper and find out why was this particular story created in the first place? Eliot also falls into that other white male scholar trap of limiting his references to Asian and Classical mythology. It seems a near racist act omitting Austrailan, African and Carribean stories and tales. This book has no form or logical progression. While the stream of consciousness style works for some, it did not work here. Buy this book used.