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The Gift: How the Creative Spirit Transforms the World (Paperback)

by Lewis Hyde (Author)
3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
RRP: £9.99
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Product details

  • Paperback: 352 pages
  • Publisher: Canongate Books Ltd; New edition edition (6 Sep 2007)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 1841959936
  • ISBN-13: 978-1841959931
  • Product Dimensions: 19.6 x 12.8 x 2.8 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 89,994 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Product Description

Review

"Brilliant... by the time he is done he has folded language, culture and the very habit of being human into his ken." New Yorker "A masterpiece... The Gift is the best book I know of for the aspiring young, for talented but unacknowledged creators, or even for those who have achieved material success and are worried that this means they've sold out." Margaret Atwood "This timely British reissue reminds readers how urgent some of these questions remain, while also allowing them to measure the extent to which matters have changed." Bharat Tandon, TLS "Persuasive and fascinatingly illustrated, The Gift profits immensely from the modesty and unpretentiousness of Hyde's writing and the fascinated good nature with which he expounds his propositions." Tim Martin, Independent on Sunday "The Gift actually deserves the hyperbolic praise that in most blurbs is so empty. It is the sort of book that you remember where you were and even what you were wearing when you first picked it up. The sort that you hector friends about until they read it too. This is not just formulaic blurbspeak; it is the truth. No one who is invested in any kind of art, in questions of what real art does and doesn't have to do with money, spirituality, ego, love, ugliness, sales, politics, morality, marketing, and whatever you call 'value', can read The Gift and remain unchanged." David Foster Wallace"


Annie Dillard

"Absolutely interesting and original…An exciting book for anyone interested in the place of creativity in our culture." --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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Inside This Book (Learn More)
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index
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The Gift: How the Creative Spirit Transforms the World
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Customer Reviews

12 Reviews
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 (1)
2 star:
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Average Customer Review
3.6 out of 5 stars (12 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars Do not believe the blurbs, 15 April 2008
I keep looking at the cover blurbs, looking at the book, looking back...

Pages 1 to 145 (out of 285, not including the afterword) is a summary of anthropological studies of gift giving in different cultures, and of examples of folk tales which have morals about reciprocity (for example the elves and the shoemaker) and sharing. Message: gift exchange has always been massively important in human culture. So far, almost nothing about the creative spirit and transforming the world.

Pages 146 to 162: 'Commerce and the creative spirit'. OK so now we're getting into it, interesting quotes from Pinter, Roethke, Snyder, Ginsberg. This 16 pages seems to be the start of the main theme, but then...

Pages 163 to 218: A biographical sketch of Whitman, focusing 'on how his nursing during the war opened him to love'.
Pqges 218 to 275: An exposition of Ezra Pound's dingbat economic theories and advocacy of facism and anti-semitism.

The relation of these chapters to the rest of the book seems to rest on the fact that both poets were not mainly attentive to the trappings of worldly success (but neither is Warren Buffet!). There is a strong feeling that he has lectured extensively on both these guys and has basically crowbarred them in. But they make up more than a third of the book.

Last ten pages: kind of a restatement of the introduction, but also a moderation: "I still believe the believe a gift can be destroyed by the marketplace. But I no longer feel the poles of this dichotomy to be so strongly opposed". Now he tells us!

The afterword, written in 2006, is a bunch of disparate stuff: open source, open access journals, Lessig-like copyright issues. all showing gift exchange being alive and well (again, nothing to do with artistic gifts - he bounces between the 2 ideas when convenient).

So why are Geoff Dyer and David Foster Wallace (neither of whom are the types of writer I would associate with this kind of poorly constructed mush) willing to act as salesmen for it? How can canongate say that reading about Pound and facism will 'transform the way you look at the world'?

I keep looking at the cover blurbs, looking at the book, looking back...
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23 of 27 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars One of the best books - ever!, 11 Dec 2006
By S. M. A. Vaux "Stefan Lubomirski de Vaux - Ph... (London, England - on that little island off Europe!) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
This review is from: The Gift: How the Creative Spirit Transforms the World (Hardcover)
Originally published in 1979 as The Gift: Imagination and the Erotic Life of Property and now published in England for the 1st time is a book which in my view is one of the best books - ever! Why, because it speaks directly to you about what makes us tick as human beings, what we do for love and what for money. By studying gift economies in the Pacific which show that gifts link people and commerce separates them and then taking an amazing jump through numerous cultural, spiritual and commercial universes helps give you a coherent view of the world. It then awakens interest in every area of art and human endeavour with wonderful readable prose. This is truly the book to have on your desert island and to give as a gift to everyone you know. Along with Epictetus's "the Art of Living" its all I need.
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24 of 29 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars A book that will change the way you see the world, 11 Sep 2007
By Leo McMarley (Edinburgh) - See all my reviews
I picked up a copy of The Gift in a bookstore and was initially sceptical because it had these raving endorsements from what seemed like TOO many authors who I think are brilliant. Can a book be this good? Margaret Atwood, David Foster Wallace, Zadie Smith and Geoff Dyer all certainly seem to think so. And you know what? They were right.

Lewis Hyde is not only a beautiful prose stylist but he is a thinker to match, for The Gift offers a challenging and provocative argument about how we value things. He uses wide-ranging examples from across cultures and epochs and leaves you at the end valuing all the more those things that can't have a monetary worth attached to them.

This is a massive book teeming with wisdom and insights into what matters. It's essential reading. And a beautiful book to give people for many different reasons.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Not For Readers of Self-Help Books
The cover of this edition is a little misleading, with the heart and all the blurbs. The fact is that so many people over the years have stumbled on it, and loved it in a quiet... Read more
Published 6 months ago by Marjorie Van Halteren

1.0 out of 5 stars If you're even half enlightened this book is boring.
When I bought this I bought it as a practicing Pagan and artist (painter) I thought it would enlighten me on some of the issues of creativity. Read more
Published 8 months ago by M. Hale

5.0 out of 5 stars Not usually one to review
... but this book has come up in my daily life again and again as I've begun reading it. (NB: I am reviewing as a graduate student studying Painting)

Given to... Read more
Published 9 months ago by M. Salter

3.0 out of 5 stars Heavy going but has nuggets of insight
This is not a book to read from cover to cover. It is quite academic in it's delivery and although I found several things very interesting, it is somewhat obscure and challenging... Read more
Published 9 months ago by M. Ashby

2.0 out of 5 stars Marketing over content..
Whilst there are some nice ideas about 'gifts' and their cultural meaning, this feels too much like a sub-standard academic paper in much need of editing/rewriting. Read more
Published 10 months ago by Simon Kwong

1.0 out of 5 stars Don't get sucked in
I cannot agree with AGLEADER enough (at time of writing this the other 1 star review). I admire them for actually finishing the book - something I have not managed to do despite... Read more
Published 11 months ago by P. Wright

5.0 out of 5 stars Early Xmas present to myself
I bought this for my art school student brother, but ended up keeping it for myself...It reminds us of the place of non-commercial exchange in our culture. Read more
Published 23 months ago by Sarah

5.0 out of 5 stars Makes me want to be a bohemian.
Makes me feel like there really is some point to it all. Life enhancing stuff.
Published on 14 April 2007 by refrodmiel

5.0 out of 5 stars Help is on the Way
For those who create art without knowing exactly why they are doing it and knowing at the same time that more than likely few people if any at all will appreciate it, Lewis Hyde's... Read more
Published on 10 Nov 2006 by Clifford Thurlow

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