A Short History of Myth / The Penelopiad / Weight / Dream Angus

by Karen Armstrong, Margaret Atwood, Jeanette Winterson

An exquisitely designed box set of the hardcover editions of A Short History of Myth by Karen Armstrong; The Penelopiad by Margaret Atwood; Dream Angus by Alexander McCall Smith, Weight by Jeanette Winterson, as well as a four-page, beautifully designed insert of an essay by Philip Pullman, "A Word or Two About Myths,{" available only within the box set.

Genres: Mythology, Religion, Fantasy, Fiction, Canon, Female Authors, Short Stories

772 pages, Hardcover

First published October 21, 2005

About the author

Karen Armstrong is a British author and commentator of Irish Catholic descent known for her books on comparative religion. A former Roman Catholic religious sister, she went from a conservative to a more liberal and mystical Christian faith. She attended St Anne's College, Oxford, while in the convent and graduated in English. She left the convent in 1969. Her work focuses on commonalities of the major religions, such as the importance of compassion and the Golden Rule.
Armstrong received the US$100,000 TED Prize in February 2008. She used that occasion to call for the creation of a Charter for Compassion, which was unveiled the following year.

Reviews

[Cameron]

I've struggled to not feel guilt at indulging in the hardcover releases of the Canongate Myth series. Feeling the pain of sacrifice when the order for this beautiful collection of the first four volumes, encased and carrying the passionate invocation of Philip Pullman, was sent, an electronic propitiation. Knowing that the series is planned to carry on until 2036 with several volumes each year, the growing expense gives me slight pause, a hesitation before offering up the pungent green papers to burn. Only slight however, as when a coupon exerts its electronic impulse upon me and I discover that my local Borders supposedly has a hardcover of one of the more recent myths, the haste with which I arrive at the structure, payment at the ready, eyes honed upon my destination section and the alphabet wherein it should reside, may lead one to think I am in quest of the latest mindless fluff everyone can't put down or that I am one of the horde of pre- and post-pubescent teenage girls giggling zanily over the latest YA must-have drivel.

Rest easy literate traveler of the winding path, for upon yon wood-veneered shelving rests not the latest frivolity pandering to the thoughtless reader but the modern equivalent to the mythmaker's voice, a creation steeped in the history and myth-story of ages and cultures past or altered, yet remembered and resuscitated and retold, residing within this time to engage us with what has gone before yet endures still in the imagination of humanity, what, as Karen Armstrong shall illuminate within the introductory book to this gateway of canonic myth, we as a modern people have lost and must regain: our mythic stories.

Though I cannot but sound grandiloquent and verbose, it is only that such a style enables the expression of my heartfelt joy upon reading the works within this series. These modern authors have alighted upon tales of meaning, causing resonance in the core of my being as the ineffable essence of myself, ourselves, human self is explored. These myths are engaging. I find myself transported to a different place, grappling and rejoicing with dilemmas and delights that my progenitors of old pondered, laying out the mythic structure that this series reveals, carrying this legacy into modern time and modern usage and modern understanding, a modern mythmaking.

Will the gods hear my prayer? Will the apotheotic blessing be unearthed within the texts to come? Will my sweet-smelling incense call favor upon my book-reading, bowed head? Will these modern tellers of story recall us to the need for mythogenesis, the need for creation and engagement and imagination? My sacrificial struggle to grasp the physical bindings of these modern interpretations pales at the symbolic meaning to which it alludes: as my hand holds the printed word, my mind shall strive to hold the resonance of myth.

[Babble]

This little book (about 160 pgs worth) is a part of an ambitious and fascinating project, the Canongate Myth series. Armstrong's contribution, A Short History of Myth, is the series opener. I think its a good introduction for anyone who is interested in mythology and who perhaps plans to read on in the series.

Being passionate about myth, story telling and folklore, I had hoped for something a bit more substantial. However, Karen Armstrong provides a brief but ambitious overview of mythology across history/time/culture and describes how myth has been used to create meaning, social/personal structure and cultural ritual from life mysteries.

Where I think Armstrong excels is in her skillful weaving of religion to myth. I know that she is primarily a writer of books about religion - so it makes sense that she would pull her expertise into this undertaking. I also applauded her view that the decline of myth has resulted in cultural, spiritual and social impoverishment. Sadly this thesis is merely sketched and not fleshed out.

Considering the length of the book, I felt Armstrong's efforts were adequate albeit not as scholarly, well substantiated or as entertaining as I had hoped.

[Elsje]

Ik kocht onlangs een cassette met daarin drie deeltjes van de Canongate myths-serie. Het eerste deeltje daarin is een inleiding op de serie, waarin Karen Armstrong een min of meer wetenschappelijke verhandeling houdt over de geschiedenis, de ontwikkeling en de functie van mythes. Mythes daterend uit de prehistorie tot recente mythes. Mythes die dienen om de onbegrijpbare wereld begrijpelijk te maken, om contact tussen het goddelijke en het alledaagse te leggen, om de overgang van kind naar volwassene te begeleiden.
Het was wel even werken voor Elsje! Ik hoop dat het me zal helpen om de rest van de serie een beetje in perspectief te plaatsen, dan is het werken in ieder geval niet voor niets geweest :-)

[Tori]

Philip Pullman's "A word or two about myths" evidenced his usual love for storytelling. And a nice little anti-formalist/anti-structuralist stab at those who would simplify all stories into basic types. Dream Angus was my favorite. The Weight was good and Atwood's Penelope story a disappointment. Armstrong had a Pullman-esque reverence for imagination but was less tolerable in her longwinded expression of it.

[lyndel]

I just read the angus myth .which I was able to read in a few days: Its jsut as nice a story as this author created for the ladys detective agency series ... a lovely lovely story with no one coming to harm!

[Phyllis]

have not heard about this one

[Matthew Lloyd]

Review of The Penelopiad on re-reading.

[VG]

I very much enjoyed ‘Weight’, which modernises the interaction between Heracles and Atlas whilst simultaneously drawing parallels with a metaphorical carrying of the world’s ‘weight’. ‘A Short History of Myth’ also serves as a good primer to the subject, although having read reasonably extensively on the topic before, there was not much new there. The disappointment was ‘The Penelopiad’; despite claiming to be centred around Penelope and the maids, she read simply as a conduit for Odysseus with the odd self-reflective moment. With so many exceptional female-centred retellings released over the past few years, it now pales in comparison.

[Sarah Formica]

I couldn’t find anything on Goodreads to rate just Weight so this was the best I could do.