The Golden Bough

Rating:
Summary: The Longest Book Ever about a Twig
Review: The premise of this book is really simple: Why did the custom exist of the Priest of the Sacred Grove at Nemi having to be slain by his successor, who first had to pluck the fabled Golden Bough? From this premise, Frazer sets off on a course through anthropology and mythology to trace the course of human thought that ultimately culminated in this seemingly unspectacular, if barbarous, custom. While the book is long and often tedious, it is also often fascinating and always fabulously rewarding for those interested in mythology, anthropology, or literature.

Rating:
Summary: Nothing Better
Review: The scholarship of Frazier remains today one of the best sources of Western Nature Spirituality. Material such as this does not get any better. Highly recommended.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent!
Review: The unabridged version tends to get a little bit long winded and boring in some sections (although others are extremely intriguing), but I found the book to be extremely inspirational and mind-opening in that it makes you look at customs and religions in ways you never thought of before. He compares certain folk customs that are common around the world and discusses possible psychological or sociological reasons for them. It stimulates an interest in comparitive religion and broadens the mind to different ways of viewing the world.

Rating:
Summary: Informative for all Pagan Traditions
Review: This book is a classic for just about any pagan tradition. The sheer volume of folklore makes this a very valuble asset to any practicing pagan. Those serious on that path need to read this book even if it is very scholarly in tone, because it outlines some very important traditions. You will see that even when the regions change, the traditions are very similar if not the same (the burning wheel, the corn maiden). I subtracted 1 star due to the tone the work is presented in. It is sometimes degrading on what the author sometimes regards as "savage traditions" but please ignore the occasional comment and get what you can out of this book. The book was written some time ago, and not by a pagan (which is a good thing in my opinion, no bias, just wish the tone was neutral) and so it is forgivable.

Rating:
Summary: read between the lines...
Review: This book, however criticized and unaccepted for its main conclusions, is still the major contribution to the understanding of our evolution of thought. I find it essential reading for anyone who has read or is reading either the newer revelations of freud and jung, or the works of plato and other ancient philosophers.
I notice that many readers are immediately offended by Frazer's apparent disdain for the 'uncivilzed savagery' of non-European cultures. However, this is a superficial conclusion to bring from this masterpiece. A little mulling over of The Golden Bough will show us that the savage's culture that Frazer so often refers to is none other than our own western culture. Frazer reveals to us our own social, cultural, and religious blindfold, which is none other than a pretty rendering of the ancient magics and superstitions explored in The Golden Bough.

Rating:
Summary: For Myth and Anthropology, start here
Review: This is Frazer's own abridgement of a mere 750 pages. The original work is 12 volumes. I've started in my lunch hour writing a few reviews here on Amazon of things which either really struck me deeply, or which I feel are underrated or overrated... or which I happen to have read recently and therefore are fresh in my mind. This one is of the deep-striking, perspective-altering kind.

The book feels to me somehow to be the most central work on mythology, ritual or anthropology that I have read. The reason for this, I think, is that Frazer had a clear vision of some central Fact which he needed to convey. The book is therefore very well organized, doesn't lose its focus amid the masses of data -- and I mean masses of data -- which he brings to bear. And this Fact which he conveys is not really about something external to man -- even something external which man has created; it is about something internal and fundamental to man. Its fundamental point concerns a changeless Fact about the nature of things, more than any myriad of facts -- however amazing -- which have resulted from historical circumstance.

After 100 or so pages, I was thinking, "All right already, I get the point about sympathetic magic and a dead guy in a tree. When's the next topic?" But he just kept going on, and about 300 pages into the book, I felt a sort of chill in the base of my spine... maybe I hadn't gotten it about the dead guy in the tree... and then Frazer just keeps going on and on and on for another 450 pages.

The sheer volume of data, and the effectiveness with which it is organized somehow sunk through. Had I read a yet more abridged volume, I might not have been left with this stunned sense of the unbelievable pervasiveness and power of this one central Myth which runs through all humanity.

There's a lot more one could write about that Myth and the evolution of religions and consequently societies, but I suppose I'll leave that to Frazer. However, for those who have been struck by the Myth or the Dream, I would say that this is the place to start... more than Freud, Jung, Campbell or Bulfinch... all of which should be read at some point. I feel like what Frazer presents is fact more than a perspective or theory, which is why I wish I had read it prior to Freud or Jung. I read Joseph Campbell over and over more than Frazer, but his scholarly works are not as easy to penetrate or as unified as are Frazer's. And Bulfinch and the like collect the tales without penetrating them particularly, though I find Bulfinch a very helpful reference when I need to look things up.

Rating:
Summary: Dated
Review: This is NOT the foundation of modern anthropology. The reader from Oregon is absolutely right. It was considered a great work but is no longer held in such esteem. The idea that societies progressed from magic to religion is outdated. As Mary Douglas said, Frazer led comparative religion into a blind alley. Read something written in the last century if you want a real anthropological veiw.