- Paperback: 732 pages
- Publisher: Souvenir Press Ltd; New edition edition (19 April 2001)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0285636081
- ISBN-13: 978-0285636088
- Product Dimensions: 21.4 x 13.6 x 5.6 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 1,353,519 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Review
One cannot but admire the width and diversity of Joseph Campbell's scholarship. --'New Statesman'
Inspired passages connecting with the luminously permament, beyond gender, beyond time. --'The Guardian'
An extremely thorough contribution to our knowledge of the origins of so many of the legends, themes and symbols which are integral to modern culture, both Eastern and Western... A rewarding and informative read. --'Tribune' --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.
Inspired passages connecting with the luminously permament, beyond gender, beyond time. --'The Guardian'
An extremely thorough contribution to our knowledge of the origins of so many of the legends, themes and symbols which are integral to modern culture, both Eastern and Western... A rewarding and informative read. --'Tribune' --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.
Product Description
In the second volume of his monumental work, 'The Masks of God', Joseph Campbell explores oriental mythology as it developed into the distinctive religions of Egypt, India, China and Japan. These religions differ widely in preoccupation and observance from religions that developed in the West though they spring from a single root - the ancient civilisation of Sumer, in what is now Iraq. In the West the myths tell of the knowledge of good and evil while in the East they dwell on the fruit of knowledge. As the Eastern branch spread and subdivided across Asia, manifesting itself in ever more varying modes of thought and expression so Joseph Campbell explains, through philosophy and literature, what they retain from the root that created them.
--This text refers to an alternate
Paperback
edition.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
29 of 32 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
In these four volumes, Joseph Campbell gathers the scattered fragments of world myth and weaves a rich tapestry in which the intermingled threads help trace the evolution of consciousness from the paleolithic through to modern times.
It is a tapestry of gods,stories and symbols which shift,rearrange and change meaning around a core of ubiquitous motifs which persist across ages and civilisations.
While a great philosophical work in its own right the nature of the material means that rather than just been thought provoking, it engages you at gut level. Divesting the mind of some of its theatrical props you can be left with a sense of sublime awe, in the face of, for lack of a more poetic work, we call life.
Like all adventures its hard work in places and the intrepid reader might find 'The Hero of a Thousand Faces' a useful scouting foray into this terrain ( a bit like Bilbo Baggin's outing in advance of the Frodo Baggin's epic).
It is a tapestry of gods,stories and symbols which shift,rearrange and change meaning around a core of ubiquitous motifs which persist across ages and civilisations.
While a great philosophical work in its own right the nature of the material means that rather than just been thought provoking, it engages you at gut level. Divesting the mind of some of its theatrical props you can be left with a sense of sublime awe, in the face of, for lack of a more poetic work, we call life.
Like all adventures its hard work in places and the intrepid reader might find 'The Hero of a Thousand Faces' a useful scouting foray into this terrain ( a bit like Bilbo Baggin's outing in advance of the Frodo Baggin's epic).
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Campbell shows how myth and epic story-telling have always played a role in human society and that these myth stories repeat over and over again. They lie under James Joyce's Finnegan's Wake and the works of Thomas Mann. They lie in the ideas of the grail and the alchymical wedding. It is the same story over and over from Jesus to Luke and Anakin Skywalker through King Arthur and Sir Galahad. It shows us how we create our heroes and how we find our wise men and shaman and how this is brought about by human creativity in myth building
12 of 16 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
"The Masks of God, Vol 2" really is a book only for those with a hardcore interest in the subject. Campbell is both a prolific and well respected author in the field of mythology. "The Masks of God" is his triumph of four volumes, of which this - of Oriental mythology - is typical. The book is a dense fog of information - statistics, quotes, stories and anecdotes.
Once, however, you dip into the book you will invariably begin to find passages of with information so surreal and bizarre that it seems out of place in a book with the layout and style of a textbook. Campbell finds the most obscure and strange rituals and legends from long lost cultures and brings them back to life, not with creative flair but with the sheer impact of the content of his words.
Recommended especially is the final chapter, in which he describes an experience of a samurai warrior fulfilling his own death sentence through suicide by disembowelling himself with a dagger before he is beheaded his kaishaku.
It may not be compulsive reading, but the information contained within this collection will serve your knowledge and imagination for a long time.
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