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Summary: The Joseph Campbell Companio
Review: Outstanding. This is my Bible. Unbelievable wealth of things to read and re-read for the rest of your life. His best work by far. Almost as good is his 5-tape series hosted by Susan Sarandon and much, much better than his 6-tape set with Bill Moyers which is an elementary introduction to Campbell. Moyers tried hard but couldn't seem to get his brain around Campbell's message. Anyone who wants to be fully engrossed in Campbell can do so with the Sarandon tape series and this book. A rare jewel.
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Summary: Make Your Life Easier
Review: Propel yourself into a permanently higher state of consciousness with very little effort. Genuinely phenomenal stuff and easy to read. A book for anyone. A book you sould have even if you don't like to read. One of the ones I'd always take with me.
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Summary: A great start on your journey to Joe Campbell & your bliss!
Review: This is a great introduction to, or summation of, Campbell's works. Most of his works are extreemly deep and can be difficult to reach but well worth the effort. If you really want to probe the deapths of Campbell's work but are intimidated by his other books, this will give you a great overview and fire your desire to dig deeper.I have read all of Campbell's books. The amount and breadth of the information and thier implications is staggering. The most amazing thing about this book is that I would have chosen almost exactly the same summative material for this type of book as did Osborn. My background is steeped in science--Osborn's in poetry. Yet we found the same "song of the universe" within Campbell's works. Why? Because the song is transparent to the transendent and there for the everyone.
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Summary: This book really tells about the "art of living"
Review: This is a very well-organized book that teaches us things about life that we don't already know and should know! It's a must-have for anyone needing a sense of spiritual guidance in one's life unless you're one of those people who believe that you can only find fulfillment and meaning "after"you die!
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Summary: And all because he followed his bliss....
Review: This is an extremely well edited version of Campbell's Esalen Institute lectures with some well selected supplimental material from other sources thrown in. It would be worth reading simply for the revelation that Campbell hung out with John Steinbeck and Doc Rickets during the Great Depression. In fact, that great, wild party described in _Cannery Row_ actually happened- it was being held in honor of Joe Campbell! Somehow I find it entirely appropriate that Steinbeck and Campbell should be connected.
I personally found another personal revelation interesting, namely, that Campbell never bothered to obtain a Ph.D. He felt that it would "interfere with his reading" and he simply didn't want to waste his time with it. Yet, he still serendipitously found a position as a college professor and became one of the most influential thinkers of the twentieth century. And all because he followed his bliss- and the universe cooperated.
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Summary: The Truth may set you free but first it will piss you off!
Review: This is one of the most challenging, thought provoking, mind bending, and soul calling books I have ever read. Campbell is so entertaining in his ability to simplify complex religious and social structures that it is not important to already know about the Far East, the Near East, or your local Baptist church, he brings it all into focus on a common human level. I found this book disturbing in it's ability to draw me into the wonder of being human and how utterly connected we all are. It's the kind of book that you can open to any page, read only a few lines, and be pulled into a thought that will chase you the whole day. Campbell is pithy, humorous, practical, fact filled, and inspiring. If you enjoy thinking about God, the nature of being human, or politics, BUY THIS BOOK!!!! You won't be sorry.
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Summary: A beautiful addition to your collection
Review: This lovely little volume adds biographical information along with additional insights and quotes from the man himself. I have bought and given away numerous copies. So Worth It!
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Summary: Genius At Work
Review: Unlike most of Joseph Campbell's other works, A JOSEPH CAMPBELL COMPANION can be used as a daily reader with each brief topic consumed separately. The text of the book draws its material from an intensive seminar led by Campbell at Esalen in 1983. The seminar lasted for one month and was attended by the editor, Diane K. Osbon, and nine other fortunate people. In one memorable segment Campbell discusses the woman's life and her journey. The traditional role of the woman is in relationship in one way or another to a family. This role can continue into old age as in the example of the grandmother. Campbell contrasts the traditional female role to that of the female professors who are more on the male hero's journey deriving fulfillment from worldly achievements. Campbell sees these women as being less fulfilled than women who are also in nontraditional roles but are totally involved in the arts. The latter receive their fulfillment mostly from doing what the artist does and not so much from their accomplishments. If you begin to read A JOSEPH CAMPBELL COMPANION, it will be a difficult volume to put back in the book case. It is more likely to remain close at hand to be read again and again.
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Summary: Much better than I anticipated
Review: When my father, a Humanities professor, first gave me this book to read, I thought that it would just be one more over-idealistic study in eccentricity. I was wrong! The book is very educational and even somewhat practical. Most importantly, it has given me a new philosophy about why some cultures have developed countries and why some don't. The traditional socio-economic division in the world is between the east and west, that is, the "liberal" western tradition and the more convervative and subservient cultures of eastern and southeastern asia (Campbell divides them at the country of Iran). But he also brilliantly realizes that there is another, possibly even more important socio-economic division in the world---north and south! The reason for this is that cultures who live north of the tropic of cancer usually have cold winters, where nothing grows, and they must diligently plan for the grain harvests each year. These northern cultures, which include Japan, Korea, and northern China as well as Europe, must be very organized to deal with the harsh climate, and with this organization eventually came developed nations. This is in contrast to the cultures of the world that live between the tropic of cancer and the tropic of capricorn (with the hot equator in the middle). These warm-climate cultures do not need to worry about seasonal changes nearly as much, and spent their free time pursuing other, less organized activities such as superstition and tribal warfare. Thus, in the race to develop their nations, they fell behind by several hundred or even thousands of years. I think that there is nothing politically incorrect about this statement; it is just simply ironic that a culture blessed with a good climate is cursed with a lack of motivation to organize and develop their country. Campbell's hypothesis explains a great deal about the state of world affairs today, and why the northern cultures have generally toned down or abandoned religion, while the warm-climate cultures have embraced superstition and religious fanaticism to the point of world crisis (ex. the middle east).
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Summary: Infinity in a flower...
Review: Within the academic world where he spent the better part of his career, the late Joseph Campbell had a somewhat unique approach to the study, interpretation, and understanding of mythology. Whereas his fellow scholars most often approached the subject with an analytic eye, Campbell suggested an alternative way --using the artistic eye. In "The Hero with a Thousand Faces" Campbell suggested myths "were not manufactured" that they were "spontaneous productions of the psyche" and that each reflected the "germ power of the source." In A JOSEPH CAMPBELL COMPANION, Diane Osborn has assembled excerpts from Campbell's many works, and distilled the central ideas Campbell wrote about over the years concerning the origin and purpose of myths. She has organized these excerpts into topical areas: "In the Field", "Living in the World", "Coming into Awareness", and "Living in the Sacred." Although the topics can be viewed as linear, reflecting the progress of the soul or psyche, I suspect Campbell would have suggested they are also cyclical and that one exists in all four simultaneously. I feel the last section of the Campbell Companion, "Living in the Sacred", contains some particularly insightful notions regarding the nature of art and artistic endeavor, and the role of art in affecting human lives. In this section, Osborn has quoted heavily from Campbell's "Myths to Live By" and provided quotations from several of the artists who affected Campbell's own life and writing including James Joyce and Walt Whitman. For example, Campbell describes how the words of the German writer Schiller, in answer to a friend's problem with 'writer's block' -- "Your problem is that you bring in the critical factor before the lyical factor has had a chance to express itself" -- affected his own thinking and writing. Campbell says he had allowed the criticism of other "scholars" to interfere with his artistic processes, and that Schiller's words freed him to get on with "seeing" and "hearing" what myths could teach him. "Mythologies and religions are great poems and, when recoginzed as such, point infallibly through things and events to the ubiquity of a 'presence' or 'eternity'that is whole and entire in each....The first condition, therefore, that any mythology must fulfill if it is to render life to modern lives is that of cleansing the doors of perception to the wonder, at once terrible and fascinating, of ourselves and of the universe of which we are the ears and eyes and the mind."
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