Community Reviews
Very outdated book, on fables and mythology stories, that jumps from culture to culture.
Pro:
I love mythology. I love to learn about different kinds of religion. And while this book is not great for this it still has a lot of stories that I had never heard before.
Con:
Campbell makes 2 big mistakes in this book. Number one is his focus on using Freud's psychoanalysis to explain the myths and stories. Big problem with this, psychoanalysis is today outdated. In reality it was outdated and not considered a science even when he wrote the book. A modern book on this topic would use evolutionary psychology in its place. And that way it would actually become scientific and make logical and scientific sense. Another problem is that he jumps from story to story, from culture to culture. While the stories are really interesting I would much rather have read a book on only 1 or 3 of these cultures. That way I would have remembered why the story made sense culturally and how it fit into their other stories. As it stands, these stories are disappearing from my memory.
Pro:
I love mythology. I love to learn about different kinds of religion. And while this book is not great for this it still has a lot of stories that I had never heard before.
Con:
Campbell makes 2 big mistakes in this book. Number one is his focus on using Freud's psychoanalysis to explain the myths and stories. Big problem with this, psychoanalysis is today outdated. In reality it was outdated and not considered a science even when he wrote the book. A modern book on this topic would use evolutionary psychology in its place. And that way it would actually become scientific and make logical and scientific sense. Another problem is that he jumps from story to story, from culture to culture. While the stories are really interesting I would much rather have read a book on only 1 or 3 of these cultures. That way I would have remembered why the story made sense culturally and how it fit into their other stories. As it stands, these stories are disappearing from my memory.
