Review: The Hero With a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell

All myths are the same myth (the “monomyth”). The story of Prometheus, the Buddha, Jesus, Mohammed, and many others are all actually the exact same story of the hero’s journey:

“A hero ventures forth from the world of common day into a region of supernatural wonder: fabulous forces are there encountered and a decisive victory is won: the hero comes back from this mysterious adventure with the power to bestow boons on his fellow man.”

That’s it. Seriously, that’s the entirety of this book. You don’t really need to read it. If you want a touch more, head over to the Wikipedia page. But don’t bother spending time on the book itself.

Why? First, the writing tends to get a bit too flowery. Sometimes, it works (“Full circle, from to tomb of the womb to the womb of the tomb, we come”), but often, it falls flat, especially when Campbell goes off on religious and spiritual tangents. Second, the arguments lean heavily on lots of theories from psychoanalysts (e.g. Freudian, Jung) who Campbell claims have “proven” all sorts of things about human psychology, though we now know most of those theories have been disproven. You can’t blame Campbell for writing in the time period he did, but it means the book hasn’t aged well.

Third, and most importantly, after reading the whole book, my reaction is, “so what?” OK, so lots of myths share a common structure. Well, if you step back far enough from anything, squint real hard, and wave your hands fast (“the hero will meet a guide, or possibly a guru, or sometimes there is no guide, and occasionally they do this totally other thing…”), you can make all sorts of generalizations. Did you know that if you stand back, all humans are like, totally the same, too, man.

I don’t find it surprising that most myths involve a) heroes that b) undergo challenges. I don’t find it useful in my own writing. It doesn’t make me appreciate stories any more; if anything, this sort of writing makes you cynical and less appreciative of the unique aspects of each tale rather than the commonalities they must share because of the medium and the listener.

In short, perhaps this is a useful book for academics who have a need to over-analyze the classics, but for the average reader, the summary is more than enough.

Rating: 3 stars