Trickster Makes This World: Mischief, Myth, and Art
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Editorial Reviews:
Trickster Makes This World solidifies Lewis Hyde's reputation as, in Robert Bly's words, "the most subtle, thorough, and brilliant mythologist we now have." In it, Hyde now brings to life the playful and disruptive side of human imagination as it is embodied in trickster mythology. He first revisits the old stories--Hermes in Greece, Eshu in West Africa, Krishna in India, Coyote in North America, among others--and then holds them up against the life and work of more recent creators: Picasso, Duchamp, Ginsberg, John Cage, and Frederick Douglass. Authoritative in its scholarship, loose-limbed in its style, Trickster Makes This World ranks among the great works of modern cultural criticism.
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Spotlight customer reviews:
Customer Rating:
Summary: A captivating and informative work.
Comment: This is one of the most interesting books I've read in awhile (and I read a lot.)
Customer Rating:
Summary: Original mythological interpretation
Comment: Intelligent, widescoped and worthwhile. High academic quality in basic language. The connection of trickster's paradigmatic qualities and capabilities to the spirit of certain modern artisits is an important & original idea! Highly recommended. (Theater directress and lecturer.)
Customer Rating:
Summary: The Trickster's crucial role
Comment: The Trickster is a mythological or archetypal character found in stories throughout the world. The best known in Western myth are Hermes and Loki. In this fascinating study, Lewis Hyde gives equal time to the Native American Coyote, the Chinese Monkey King and India's Krishna. At first glance, these characters are merely pranksters; humorous, sometimes annoying and occasionally dangerous ne'er do wells who disrupt the normal flow of things. As the title of this book suggests, Hyde believes tricksters are much more than this. He makes a convincing case that tricksters are essential in both preserving and transforming societies. Without their disruptions, cultural stagnation would result. He points out that tricksters can either help to maintain the status quo or bring about radical transformation. An example of the former case is illustrated by carnivals such as Mardi Gras, where social customs are predictably and temporarily ignored or reversed. This allows people to vent their frustrations and unleash their inhibitions before returning to normal life. Hyde mentions the abolishionist Frederick Douglas as an example of the more radical sort of trickster who brings about permanent change. Within the institution of slavery, slaves were allowed one week of freedom and revelry. Douglas was not satisfied with this; he wanted to completely overhaul the status quo and indeed helped to accomplish this. Trickster Makes this World describes the antics of both actual (e.g. Douglas, the artist Marcel Duchamp) and mythic (e.g. Hermes, Coyote, Krishna) tricksters. This, of course, suggests a worldview similar to that of Joseph Campbell and others, who see the mythic as the foundation of real life. This book isn't easy reading; Hyde has a trickster-like style of zig-zagging his way all over a very expansive intellectual terrain. It doesn't so much make a case or present an argument as suggest a way of seeing the world. At the center of this worldview is not the all-powerful Zeus, but the slippery messenger/thief/trader Hermes (or one of his counterparts). Getting back to the provocative title, Trickster does not make the world in the conventional way (as the God of the Bible, for example). Rather, he (tricksters are usually male, an issue Hyde devotes a chapter to exploring) remakes and readjusts the world in which he finds himself. This is arguably a task as important as creation itself, or an essential part of creation.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Masterful non-fiction writing
Comment: A brilliantly written, funny and moving book--filled with substantial scholarship and honest about its own stakes.
To tell you the truth, I was moved to write this review by the two reviews below, both of which fall pretty wide of the mark. First, this is an amazingly well-written book, and that goes for both Hyde's prose style and his winding structure. His reflections of his own project do not upstage the subject matter but rather deepen and situate it in "time-haunted history." I wonder why anyone would expect or want a book about tricksters to be linear and transparent. By this I don't mean to suggest that Hyde is exactly "performing" the trickster in his writing. He announces his approach perfectly well: Saturn dreams of Mercury.
I suspect that this book will frustrate all species of lazy reader because it asks for a sustained, continuous, and thorough reading. All the chapters are rewarding individually, but they are best read sequentially. If you want to be able to look at a table of contents and pick one or two chapters by topic, find a doctoral thesis, or a utilitarian academic monograph.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Great, but the naysayers are right as well
Comment: This book, like the myths it describes, is an interpretation. It is one man's exploration of his own exploration of the trickster myths. True, some of the tricksters he indentifies don't live up to his own definition; and true, his own definition is elastic. The structure of the book is a bit circular and tangential, not the most eloquently structured thing I've read. But... the book is also full of insights about how we erect a world, both in story and in fact. It makes distinctions that, as other reviewers have said, are glaringly obvious once you've read them, but were somehow beyond the pale before you read the book.
I've not yet read The Gift, though I did purchase it after reading half-way through this book. I found "Trickster" inspiring and insightful, often funny, always surprising.
Hyde does not promise us a scholarly dissection, which, when you consider that we're talking about myths, is entirely appropriate. His writing, even when he takes us on tangents, is fluid and clear. He's someone I'd want to have dinner with, maybe once a month or so, just to hear where his thinking is going and where it's been.
Read the excerpt. See for yourself.
Technical Details
Binding: PaperbackDewey Decimal Number: 398
EAN: 9780865475366
ISBN: 0865475369
Label: North Point Press
Manufacturer: North Point Press
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 432
Publication Date: 1999-02-16
Publisher: North Point Press
Studio: North Point Press
