Review: The Power of Myth

The Power of Myth by Joseph Campbell
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

This was not at all what I was expecting. I’ve had a very good college mythology class, and was expecting something akin to that. This felt more like an Eckhart Tolle book, with a writer full of himself and willing to come up with new terms to provide an academic-sounding answer to every question and to overcome any objections. And Campbell isn’t really the writer of this. This is a choppy edit of the transcript of Bill Moyers talking to Campbell for their PBS show. The narration is presented with often long monologues by one or the other on a topic. This would be fine, but the next exchange could be on an entirely unrelated topic. I found it difficult to follow and to tie the ping-pong discussion to the main concepts of the chapters. It feels like this was rushed to press to capitalize on the popularity of the TV show.

Another indication of the book being not quite there was the highlighting in my used copy. It had obviously been used as a textbook and had some highlighting. But there were so few passages highlighted, and with no semblance of importance to the chosen passages, that I would have to say the former owner didn’t know what to make of this either.

I am very surprised at my reaction to this book. I’ve heard about it for many years and was looking forward to finally spending time reading it. It just didn’t seem right. I would hope that Campbell’s books that aren’t edited together questions and answers would be more interesting. Skip this book. Perhaps the PBS shows are a better bet, and perhaps the shows are what people are thinking of when they rate this highly.


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