false http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1172249816m/153335.jpg 153335 2 Many cultures have myths about self-imitation, stories about people who pretend to be someone else pretending to be them, in effect masquerading as themselves. This great theme, in literature and in life, tells us that people put on masks to discover who they really are under the masks they usually wear, so that the mask reveals rather than conceals the self beneath the self. In this book, noted scholar of Hinduism and mythology Wendy Doniger offers a cross-cultural exploration of the theme of self-impersonation, whose widespread occurrence argues for both its literary power and its human value. The stories she considers range from ancient Indian literature through medieval European courtly literature and Shakespeare to Hollywood and Bollywood. They illuminate a basic human way of negotiating reality, illusion, identity, and authenticity, not to mention memory, amnesia, and the process of aging. Many of them involve marriage and adultery, for tales of sexual betrayal cut to the heart of the crisis of identity. These stories are extreme examples of what we common folk do, unconsciously, every day. Few of us actually put on masks that replicate our faces, but it is not uncommon for us to become travesties of ourselves, particularly as we age and change. We often slip carelessly across the permeable boundary between the un-self-conscious self-indulgence of our most idiosyncratic mannerisms and the conscious attempt to give the people who know us, personally or publicly, the version of ourselves that they expect. Myths of self-imitation open up for us the possibility of multiple selves and the infinite regress of self-discovery. Drawing on a dizzying array of tales-some fact, some fiction-The Woman Who Pretended to Be Who She Was is a fascinating and learned trip through centuries of culture, guided by a scholar of incomparable wit and erudition. 148015 2004 The Woman Who Pretended to Be Who She Was: Myths of Self-Imitation total:3|5:2|4:1| 3 14 12 0 0 0 false false Tue Aug 11 16:43:54 -0700 2009 Tue Aug 11 16:43:54 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Fri Aug 07 18:52:23 -0700 2009 Fri Aug 07 18:52:23 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Wed Apr 01 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Sat Apr 04 10:02:01 -0700 2009 Sat Apr 04 10:02:16 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Sun Oct 26 08:00:39 -0700 2008 Sun Oct 26 08:00:42 -0700 2008 5 0 false false Wed Jul 16 13:36:15 -0700 2008 Wed Jul 16 13:36:15 -0700 2008 0 0 false false Thu Jun 26 11:30:04 -0700 2008 Thu Jun 26 11:30:04 -0700 2008 0 0 false false Sun May 18 17:52:40 -0700 2008 Sun Oct 05 18:53:52 -0700 2008 4 0 false false Sat Apr 12 17:41:03 -0700 2008 Sat Apr 12 17:41:03 -0700 2008 0 0 false false Fri Dec 14 05:08:58 -0800 2007 Fri Dec 14 05:09:16 -0800 2007 0 0 false false Wed Nov 21 08:37:12 -0800 2007 Wed Nov 21 08:37:12 -0800 2007 0 0 false false Thu Aug 30 09:05:01 -0700 2007 Thu Aug 30 09:05:06 -0700 2007 5 0 false false Fri Feb 23 08:57:04 -0800 2007 Fri Feb 23 08:57:04 -0800 2007 http://www.goodreads.com/book_link/follow/8?book_id=153335