book data
2210 ratings, 4.34 average rating, 207 reviews
(more data...)
edit
published
April 1st 1988
(first published 1991)
by Doubleday.
binding
Hardcover
isbn
0385247745
(isbn13: 9780385247740)
description
Among his many gifts, Joseph Campbell's most impressive was the unique ability to take a contemporary situation, such as the murder and funeral of Pre...more
Sign in to Goodreads to see your friends' reviews of this book.
There are no discussion topics on this book yet. Be the first to start one »
friend reviews
To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up.
This book is currently not featured on any Listopia lists.
Add this book to your favorite list »
other reviews (showing 1-20 of 2930)
All ratings
|
5 stars (1122)
|
4 stars (749)
|
3 stars (265)
|
2 stars (32)
|
1 star (17)
|
avg 4.34
Read in July, 2003
recommends it for:
everyone- though you have to be a bit idealistic
I really do think that this should be required reading in high school, everywhere. Or beyond. Just in general. I read it in preperation for my AP year, and it really helps you to open your eyes quite a bit. Does Joe Campbell like to stretch his points? Yes. Are some of his ideas and allusions a little far fetched? Absolutely. Will you roll your eyes a few times? Of course! Unless you are more starry eyed than even I was.
However. What he says on the subject of myth and our current culture is ...more
However. What he says on the subject of myth and our current culture is ...more
Like this review?
yes
(4 people liked it)
add a comment
Read in June, 2007
recommends it for:
anyone remotely human
Joseph Campbell is seriously incredible. Read this, listen to the PBS audio tapes, read anything he writes... he's just brilliant, erudite, illuminating, fascinating, lovable, enlightening... he reveals things articulately that you always sensed in the shadowy regions of your instinct, and having them so clearly identified has a revelatory and refreshing effect. It makes you pensive and hopeful. It makes you feel good about being human, part of this thing we do called life. I don't know, I t...more
Like this review?
yes
(3 people liked it)
add a comment
I started reading the hardcover version of this and immediately realized it is a companion to a PBS series between Bill Moyers and Joseph Campbell. So I decided to switch to the audio version – highly, highly recommended over the book.
I found myself connecting with a lot of the passages, but one passage in particular definitely stands out, tackling the meaning of life. While I have a great amount of respect for Moyers, I was slightly annoyed at times with his attempts to assert his equanim...more
I found myself connecting with a lot of the passages, but one passage in particular definitely stands out, tackling the meaning of life. While I have a great amount of respect for Moyers, I was slightly annoyed at times with his attempts to assert his equanim...more
Like this review?
yes
(2 people liked it)
6 comments
Read in July, 2007
recommends it for:
Those who want to be challenged and provoked to view their world a little differently
Joseph Campbell was the foremost authority on comparative religious studies in America. Though he is no longer with us in body his legacy lives on with the profound books he left behind and a series of interviews with Bill Moyer that aired on PBS in the late 80's. Campbell's contribution to the world of myths and rituals is incomparable. And in the Power of Myth (which is basically a transcript of the fascinating interviews with Moyer) Campbell essentially summarizes his life's work and provokes...more
Like this review?
yes
(1 person liked it)
add a comment
I don't know how he does it, but every time I read/hear/stumble upon some vague quotation of Joseph Campbell's work, my day gets better. The sensation I get when reading his work is of relief, that all the seemingly static and infallible truths of the world stem from very simple needs. Somehow knowing that frees me to pursue the quenching of the needs, rather than the physical trappings we have set up around that need. It is very interesting.
This book is a sort of revised and embellished versi...more
This book is a sort of revised and embellished versi...more
Like this review?
yes
(1 person liked it)
add a comment
Read in January, 2005
I would recommend this book to anyone who feels like they need some kind of answer to life's bigger questions. I learned so much from J.C. He is truly one of the good guys... Although I have to say to those of you who haven't read this: This book is basically just a transcription of an interview that Bill Moyers conducted with Joseph Campbell. This interview was filmed and PBS did a 4 or 5-part special and you can get the DVDs from Netflix. The book is great and you should read it, but I ...more
Like this review?
yes
(1 person liked it)
add a comment
This book changed my life. Joseph Campbell opened the world of Mythology to me and introduced a new way for me to relate to my life journey. His insights and ideas about the power of myth help us understand how important it is to be aware of the traditions inherent in our cultures and how they play out personally and collectively.
I am able to look for the "soul-story" resonating in diverse cultures and know that I am looking at the myth that is informing their values, ideas, id...more
I am able to look for the "soul-story" resonating in diverse cultures and know that I am looking at the myth that is informing their values, ideas, id...more
Like this review?
yes
(1 person liked it)
add a comment
Here's a Myth for you Joseph Campbell:
Whitey got it all figured out.
Now here's some nonfiction for you:
Whitey just a dummy headed dummy like the rest of us.
Looking at Myth in literature - interesting enough.
Looking at Myth as a world view - light the bowl, fill your hemp bag with hacky sacks, head to the country fair and dread your locks all you want but don't insult me by calling religion a myth unless your willing to shut your pipe hole long enough to consider the possibility that ...more
Whitey got it all figured out.
Now here's some nonfiction for you:
Whitey just a dummy headed dummy like the rest of us.
Looking at Myth in literature - interesting enough.
Looking at Myth as a world view - light the bowl, fill your hemp bag with hacky sacks, head to the country fair and dread your locks all you want but don't insult me by calling religion a myth unless your willing to shut your pipe hole long enough to consider the possibility that ...more
Like this review?
yes
(1 person liked it)
add a comment
I've read sections of this so far only, but whatever I've come across so far is packed with wisdom. It makes great connections between the narratives that we read (and grew up on) and our lives. I've presented excerpts of this to my AP Literature students, and many of them have been intrigued by the notion of the hero's journey. If my high school students liked this stuff, then this is definitely a good read for veteran readers.
Like this review?
yes
(1 person liked it)
add a comment
"People say that what we're all seeking is a meaning for life. I don't think that's what we're really seeking. I think that what we're seeking is an experience of being alive, so that our life experiences on the purely physical plane will have resonances within our own innermost being and reality, so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive."
Like this review?
yes
(1 person liked it)
add a comment
Read in April, 1908
campbell awes me--can anyone else answer questions so profoundly, precisely, and beautifully?
Like this review?
yes
(1 person liked it)
1 comment
Read in October, 2008
This book is a religious text in the simplest form of the word. As I experienced it, I felt crooked lines connecting all the books I'd read, the movies I'd seen, forming themes that defined my entire history.
Campbell and Moyer's conversation transitions seamlessly from an ancient tribe crushing copulating virgins with logs to eat their flesh, into the almost new-age cheesiness of "Follow your bliss." Everything feels familiar even when it's shocking, panning back on the spectru...more
Campbell and Moyer's conversation transitions seamlessly from an ancient tribe crushing copulating virgins with logs to eat their flesh, into the almost new-age cheesiness of "Follow your bliss." Everything feels familiar even when it's shocking, panning back on the spectru...more
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
Read in August, 2008
recommends it for:
Anyone who wants to learn more about themselves
Fantastic book. Nailed a lot of thoughts that I had been tossing around in my mind together. I always felt like stories were central to being human, but I just couldn't describe that relationship. This book I believe dives into that and helps get those ideas flowing. I would not say this is an end all be all authoritative book on the cultural influences of mythology but it is a great start. It has helped further peak my interest into the subject and taught me to look at Mythology in a whole ...more
Like this review?
yes
2 comments
Joseph Campbell was able to do what no other mythological academic has done, he was able to package mythological studies, anthropology, sociology, and Jungian psychology into a form that people understand. I love JC, but I have always considered him more of a figurehead, a voice for those who are so much in the aether's they have a hard time coming back to the real world to give us the message.
I read this book for the first time in my late teens and it really affected me, provided me with th...more
I read this book for the first time in my late teens and it really affected me, provided me with th...more
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
Read in November, 2006
Having discovered Joseph Campbell in a class through the Osher Institute at the University of Richmond, I devoured this book, but slowed down, re-read, and took lots of notes.
Campbell defines myth not as a search for meaning but as the experience of meaning. To experience life means to affirm it, to experience the "rapture of being alive." Myths and poetry are told through metaphor. The world cultures share many myths, such as creation myths. Many of the mythical images foun...more
Campbell defines myth not as a search for meaning but as the experience of meaning. To experience life means to affirm it, to experience the "rapture of being alive." Myths and poetry are told through metaphor. The world cultures share many myths, such as creation myths. Many of the mythical images foun...more
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
Read in January, 1990
recommends it for:
writers, scholars, those who study religion and history.
This book is really a compilation of Campbell's interview(s) with Bill Moyers. As such, it is conversational in style and a fairly easy read of Campbell's more complex ideas captured in his many other books. Campbell was a scholar and loved his subject, which comes through.
The only reason this gets a 4 and not a 5 is because it is an interview. Think of this as a survey class for all of Campbell's other work.
For those who do not know the impact of Campbell--beyond the rather well k...more
The only reason this gets a 4 and not a 5 is because it is an interview. Think of this as a survey class for all of Campbell's other work.
For those who do not know the impact of Campbell--beyond the rather well k...more
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
Joseph Campbell's (now deceased) Q & A with journalist Bill Moyers. An inspirational book for creative writers, students and anyone generally interested in Mythology. This book is a direct transcript from a 6-part television series with Moyers and Campbell.
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
Read in January, 2002
recommends it for:
All readers
I have this both in paperback and hardcover, both gifts I've received from kind friends over the years. Illustrated and threaded with knowledge and the benefits of cultural relativism, Campbell brought us as close to the primal truths in culture as possible. Even the myths that we mock and ignore today reflect parts of our beings that are vital to our survival. He unpacks the meaning and hands it to us - the least you can do is flip through this book and take a handful of the knowledge with you....more
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
Read in January, 1990
recommended to Shaun by:
Doctor Bean at the university of Wisconsin at Oshkosh.recommends it for: anyone
This book, is seminal and a must read for any story teller. Lucas was inspired by Campbell in the writing of Star Wars (and then apparently forgot everything he learned). This book made me realize I could still be spiritual. Organized religions piss me off, there will always be corruption when that much power over people can be wielded by a select few....but I always struggled with how beautiful the universe is...now it may just be all happy accidents but it seems to me there could be more. ...more
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
Read in July, 2008
recommended to Sam by:
My cousinrecommends it for: Everyone who likes death... everyone.
I love this book. It's the interview between Bill Moyers and Joseph Campbell going in to the Power of Myth Television series, I don't think you get the whole thing on the series straight through. Even if you just want cannon fodder for your anti- christian Zine, this book is for you but it's much bigger , stories of vishnu roll of this guys tongue like he's talking about what garfield did in the funnies today. It's fun, awesome, it's kinda like taking a college class that doesn't suck with no h...more
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
to-read
(on 442 people's shelves)
currently-reading (on 123 people's shelves)
non-fiction (on 16 people's shelves)
philosophy (on 11 people's shelves)
mythology (on 7 people's shelves)
classics (on 5 people's shelves)
religion (on 4 people's shelves)
nonfiction (on 4 people's shelves)
own (on 4 people's shelves)
spirituality (on 4 people's shelves)
More shelves...
currently-reading (on 123 people's shelves)
non-fiction (on 16 people's shelves)
philosophy (on 11 people's shelves)
mythology (on 7 people's shelves)
classics (on 5 people's shelves)
religion (on 4 people's shelves)
nonfiction (on 4 people's shelves)
own (on 4 people's shelves)
spirituality (on 4 people's shelves)
More shelves...
groups with this book
