mythology books

[Chris Stolz]

Whoever was asking about myth would want to look at Claude Levi-Strauss, who
has perhaps the most radical contemporary view of myth (one which,
incidentally, is very much in line with what Pynchon does with the Herero
and with a lot of the Norse stuff in _GR_).  More difficult to reads than
graves, Campbell, etc., but much more rewarding in the long run.  

Levi-Strauss' famous assertion was that "Myths communicate with each other
through people."

I'd recommend _The Savage Mind_ and _The Raw and the Cooked_ (though this
second is not an easy read).  And everybody should read _Tristes Tropiques_,
the best book in the world, but this is not focussed on myth.

For a concise and lyrical overview of Levi-Straus, see Octavio Paz' _Claude
Levi-Strauss:  An Introduction_.
Chris Stolz      Internet:  chstolz at canuck.com
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	Modern man likes to pretend that his thinking is wide-awake.  But this
wide-awake thinking has led us into the mazes of a nightmare in which the
torture chambers are endlessly repeated in the mirrors of reason.  When we
emerge, perhaps we will realise we have been dreaming with our eyes open,
and that the dreams of reason are intolerable.  And then, perhaps, we will
begin to dream once more with our eyes closed.

			-- Octavio Paz, _The Labyrinth of Solitude_