Myths to Live By (Print and Electronic)

This is a forum to discuss specific questions, thoughts and issues raised in the books (paper and electronic) that are part of The Collected Works of Joseph Campbell.

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Myths to Live By (Print and Electronic)

Post by David_Kudler »

Welcome to the discussion forum for one of Joseph Campbell's most popular books--in every sense of the term:

Image
Myths to Live By


Campbell drew this book from a wide-reaching, inspiring series of lectures that he gave at New York's Cooper Union. Covering topics from the basis of myth to Asian art to mythologies of war and of love to schizophrenia to the then-recent landing on the moon, Campbell explores all of the ways in which myth supports us as individuals, as societies and as a species.

In print continuously since its initial publication in 1972, Myths to Live By has just been reissued as the first digital title in the Collected Works of Joseph Campbell series. Newly annotated and illustrated, this ebook allowed us to create the edition that we would like to think that Campbell himself would have wanted.

Any thoughts, observations or questions on this book? Share them below![/img]
Last edited by David_Kudler on Wed Apr 20, 2011 3:30 am, edited 12 times in total.
David Kudler<br>Publications<br>Joseph Campbell Foundation<br>publications at jcf dot org

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Post by Ercan2121 »

David,

You mention that the book was adapted from a lecture/radio broadcast series.
That's the very reason that I've chosen Myths to Live By as my reference book to Joseph Campbell. One can still feel the enthusiasm of WNYC and the Cooper Union between lines. Sooner or later, the reader finds himself aboard the ferry for Jersey. That often means leaving New York forever (your friends, your career, your family, your name, prestige, everything and all) but who cares? :D

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Post by David_Kudler »

Ercan2121 wrote:David,

You mention that the book was adapted from a lecture/radio broadcast series.
That's the very reason that I've chosen Myths to Live By as my reference book to Joseph Campbell. One can still feel the enthusiasm of WNYC and the Cooper Union between lines. Sooner or later, the reader finds himself aboard the ferry for Jersey. That often means leaving New York forever (your friends, your career, your family, your name, prestige, everything and all) but who cares? :D
Well, I certainly care, Ercan! My name and prestige aren't worth caring about under any circumstances, but my family...? And the books...? ;)

Of course, the whole point of that trip to Jersey (or Berkeley, depending on which version of the lecture you've heard) is realizing that, like Dorothy in <i>The Wizard of Oz</i>, you never left home in the first place. Not that many of us reach <i>that </i>level of insight!

When I was editing Pathways to Bliss, I knew that Myths to Live By was both the standard against which I should measure the new work and the classic on whose toes I did not wish to tread. It was a humbling experience, but a wonderful one. It has been wonderful, seven years later, to put a new polish on this wonderful collection!

(By the way, in case you're curious, the reason that you didn't receive any earlier feedback was that you caught this thread in the few hours between when it was set up in preparation for the release of MTLB v. 2.0 and the moment when I remembered to turn the visibility off, since the book hadn't been released yet. Oops.)
David Kudler<br>Publications<br>Joseph Campbell Foundation<br>publications at jcf dot org

Ercan2121
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Post by Ercan2121 »

By the way, in case you're curious, the reason that you didn't receive any earlier feedback was that you caught this thread in the few hours between when it was set up in preparation for the release of MTLB v. 2.0 and the moment when I remembered to turn the visibility off, since the book hadn't been released yet. Oops.
Not at all, David.
In fact, I think the thread acted beautifully for a forum
that was called at the start 'Conversations of Transcendental
/Transparent Order! :)

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Post by David_Kudler »

Ercan2121 wrote:
By the way, in case you're curious, the reason that you didn't receive any earlier feedback was that you caught this thread in the few hours between when it was set up in preparation for the release of MTLB v. 2.0 and the moment when I remembered to turn the visibility off, since the book hadn't been released yet. Oops.
Not at all, David.
In fact, I think the thread acted beautifully for a forum
that was called at the start 'Conversations of Transcendental
/Transparent Order! :)
:lol:

True. However, as you see, the forum is no longer transparent! Or, rather, hopefully, is transparent to the transcendent, but no longer to the eye.

The ebook has been through a number of shakedown cruises; it will imminently become immanent. ;)

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Post by CarmelaBear »

Kudos, Kudler.

8)
Once in a while a door opens, and let's in the future. --- Graham Greene

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Post by Ercan2121 »

Thank you, David. First time in my life, I'll read
in ePub format. Myths to Live By looks brandnew
with all those illustrations :-)

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Post by David_Kudler »

CarmelaBear wrote:Kudos, Kudler.

:-)
Ercan2121 wrote:Thank you, David. First time in my life, I'll read
in ePub format. Myths to Live By looks brandnew
with all those illustrations :-)
Thanks to both of you! Ercan, please let me know what you think of the new edition. The illustrations were a lot of work, but a lot of fun!
David Kudler<br>Publications<br>Joseph Campbell Foundation<br>publications at jcf dot org

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Post by Clemsy »

Ahhh! David! This is so cool! Yes!
Give me stories before I go mad! ~Andreas

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Post by David_Kudler »

Clemsy wrote:Ahhh! David! This is so cool! Yes!
Glad you like. :)

Campbell's thought and writing was so hypertextual (in the old days, we would have said cross-referential), and his references to images so frequent, that I really think this is how he would have liked the book to be published--if it had been possible in 1972!

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One work, or a collection?

Post by David_Kudler »

I have a question for those of you who've read the book. I was having a conversation the other day with JCF President Bob Walter about Myths to Live By and we realized that we saw the book differently. For him, it was a collection of linked but separate essays. For me, it was more of a unified whole. What do you think?

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Post by jonsjourney »

For him, it was a collection of linked but separate essays. For me, it was more of a unified whole. What do you think?
Ok...this will sound like a hedge, but it is kind of both.

I do not have the new version yet, but I recall that in the preface, or introduction, it saying that the book was a series of lectures given over a period of many years. In this respect, it is a series of linked essays.

However, I think that Prof. Campbell was always linking ideas together in order to find a more holistic understanding of the mythological experience. In this respect, everything he did can be seen as a unified whole. Sometimes I think that we believe that a unified whole has to be consistent from beginning to end, but I have yet to meet any unified whole being who displayed such a characteristic.

We are all works in progress, linked by spatial and temporal experiences, and at the same time separate.
Yet we seek to be unified in our thought and have a holistic and consistent existence.
It is a paradox, but then what is not?
"He was a dreamer, a thinker, a speculative philosopher... or, as his wife would have it, an idiot." -Douglas Adams

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Re: One work, or a collection?

Post by CarmelaBear »

David_Kudler wrote:I have a question for those of you who've read the book. I was having a conversation the other day with JCF President Bob Walter about Myths to Live By and we realized that we saw the book differently. For him, it was a collection of linked but separate essays. For me, it was more of a unified whole. What do you think?
I had the BW* experience.

~

* [Bob Walter....linked but separate essays]
Last edited by CarmelaBear on Tue Mar 20, 2012 12:30 am, edited 1 time in total.
Once in a while a door opens, and let's in the future. --- Graham Greene

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Post by ALOberhoulser »

So the new version will not be printed ?? :cry:

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Post by ALOberhoulser »

I got the download - now, we just need a JCF "official" reader... Any suggestions??

We also got a Cafe Press book bag - it is very nice!!

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