The Gift: How the Creative Spirit Transforms the World [Kindle Edition]

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.

... 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.

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.