- Hardcover: 368 pages
- Publisher: Canongate Books Ltd; First UK Edition edition (2 Nov 2006)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 1841958336
- ISBN-13: 978-1841958330
- Product Dimensions: 21.4 x 15.4 x 3.6 cm
- Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 211,262 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
The Gift: How the Creative Spirit Transforms the World
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More About the Author
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 "Hyde is one of our true superstars of non-fiction...the guy's both brilliant (intellectually, literarily) and wise (psychologically, spiritually, you-name-itally)." David Foster Wallace "Absolutely interesting and original...An exciting book for anyone interested in the place of creativity in our culture." Annie Dillard "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"
Jonathan Lethem
"Few books are such life-changers as The Gift: epiphany, in sculpted prose."
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
10 of 10 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
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 way. The blurbs have been earned along over 20 years, reader by reader. I, for, instance, was assigned to read it in a class at NYU after the teacher said that HE had found it by accident on a remainder table.
Hyde wrote this book as a relatively young man, at the beginning of his career. He was a poet himself, trying to puzzle out the tangle of making emotional and spiritual needs fit the economic needs of existence. He includes some of his own intriguing literary research, but the book does not pretend to be the final word on anything. What it is is simply a thoughtful, academically-thorough writer saying what anyone who believes in art and creativity as a way of life wishes someone would say, with authority. That there is value in what they do, and there is perhaps danger in not doing it.
However, if the times we live in now - the way we have to live and work driven by economics and mass market culture - simply suit you just fine - in that case the book will probably not speak to you at all.
Hyde wrote this book as a relatively young man, at the beginning of his career. He was a poet himself, trying to puzzle out the tangle of making emotional and spiritual needs fit the economic needs of existence. He includes some of his own intriguing literary research, but the book does not pretend to be the final word on anything. What it is is simply a thoughtful, academically-thorough writer saying what anyone who believes in art and creativity as a way of life wishes someone would say, with authority. That there is value in what they do, and there is perhaps danger in not doing it.
However, if the times we live in now - the way we have to live and work driven by economics and mass market culture - simply suit you just fine - in that case the book will probably not speak to you at all.
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
... 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 me by a friend (doing his history PhD. at UVA) a couple weeks ago, we recently had a conversation that went something to the effect of "yeah, it's like Hyde takes these things I've given thought to before, but pushes them about 10 steps beyond anywhere I'd have gotten without INTENSIVE research." Like all great cultural artifacts, this book does a ton of legwork to give your thoughts on giving, creativity, and the social purpose of "what we do" a huge push, and really has nudged my brain into a valuable understanding of myself.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not touting this as "self-help" or an "answer" in any way, as it poses as many questions as it does offer possible solutions or reasons for things. And I truly loathe all forms of self-help. But like a film or conversation or piece of artwork, it re-frames and problematizes issues with market economies, the struggle of a creative person in a modern (capitalist) world, and more personally, self-confidence and a faith in what you're doing.
It may help you find ways to be a better person, it may just re-arrange some puzzle pieces, and maybe you're already a savant and will have gotten already out of your life experience what Hyde offers you here, to which I'd simply say "well done." But I don't think the book is a waste of time. The first 80 or so pages are a bit direct, and drag a bit, but as painful as a historical backdrop COULD be, at least he tells a number of interesting stories and fables to keep the need for immediate gratification satiated.
I think the negative reviews I've read here are either from readers unwilling to take the time to properly unpack Hyde's work, or too impatient to relax into it. Further, Hyde is not just a 'quack,' he spends decades researching his material and is a well-respected historian.
It's the first book I've been excited about reading in a long time.
Given to me by a friend (doing his history PhD. at UVA) a couple weeks ago, we recently had a conversation that went something to the effect of "yeah, it's like Hyde takes these things I've given thought to before, but pushes them about 10 steps beyond anywhere I'd have gotten without INTENSIVE research." Like all great cultural artifacts, this book does a ton of legwork to give your thoughts on giving, creativity, and the social purpose of "what we do" a huge push, and really has nudged my brain into a valuable understanding of myself.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not touting this as "self-help" or an "answer" in any way, as it poses as many questions as it does offer possible solutions or reasons for things. And I truly loathe all forms of self-help. But like a film or conversation or piece of artwork, it re-frames and problematizes issues with market economies, the struggle of a creative person in a modern (capitalist) world, and more personally, self-confidence and a faith in what you're doing.
It may help you find ways to be a better person, it may just re-arrange some puzzle pieces, and maybe you're already a savant and will have gotten already out of your life experience what Hyde offers you here, to which I'd simply say "well done." But I don't think the book is a waste of time. The first 80 or so pages are a bit direct, and drag a bit, but as painful as a historical backdrop COULD be, at least he tells a number of interesting stories and fables to keep the need for immediate gratification satiated.
I think the negative reviews I've read here are either from readers unwilling to take the time to properly unpack Hyde's work, or too impatient to relax into it. Further, Hyde is not just a 'quack,' he spends decades researching his material and is a well-respected historian.
It's the first book I've been excited about reading in a long time.
30 of 35 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
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...
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...
Most Recent Customer Reviews
What a Gift
WHen I've read it I will leave a review.. but it looks good so far.
Published 20 months ago by I. P. Cheneour
Worth persevering with
I tried and failed to read this book about a year ago, finding it too academic, too many digressions, etc. However, I picked it up again a few days ago and I'm transfixed. Read more
Published on 6 Feb 2010 by Nadine
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 on 17 Mar 2009 by M. Hale
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 on 11 Feb 2009 by M. Ashby
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 on 2 Jan 2009 by Simon Kwong
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 on 21 Nov 2008 by P. Wright
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 on 15 Dec 2007 by Sarah
Makes me want to be a bohemian.
Makes me feel like there really is some point to it all. Life enhancing stuff.
Published on 13 April 2007 by refrodmiel
One of the best books - ever!
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... Read more
Published on 11 Dec 2006 by Stefan Lubo
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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