Heard this book through, enticed by prolific name-dropping, stimulated, and finally charmed by the cinematographic apotheosis. ( )

I found this short introduction to the major players in the study of mythology very helpful. I have dived into books by Frazer, Campbell, Bly, Eliade, and Malinowski at various times, only to find myself extremely confused and wondering what myth is. I am not the only one confused. These major figures, while falling into schools, have major disagreements with each other, not to mention huge lacunae in their own thinking which makes them confusing for someone like myself, who has a large acquaintance with the myths themselves, and is looking for big ideas to tie them together. Looks like I'll have to wait. Even Segal's own views, which he presents in the last chapter, while interesting, fails to deal with the question that is central to me, "Why these stories? Why have they been useful to us for thousands of years?" ( )

This is the first "Very Short Introduction" that I have found unsatisfying. It surveys a variety of 19th, 20th, and 21st c. mythologists rather than more simply _introducing_ the subject. As a survey of a field one is already familiar with, it would surely be a help, but as is seems to be too ambitious in scope to really deal with such a large number of mythologists: 33.

E.B. Tylor; J.G. Frazer; Lucien Lévy-Bruhl; Bronislaw Malinowski; Claude Lévy-Strauss; Robin Horton; Karl Popper; Paul Radin; Ernst Cassirer; Henry and H.A. Frankfort; Rudolf Bultmann; Hans Jonas; Albert Camus; Mircea Eliade [Alf Hiltebeitel's prof at Univ. of Chicago]; Wm Robertson Smith; Jane Harrison; S.H. Hooke; René Girard; Walter Burkert; Lord Raglan; Sigmund Freud; Otto Rank; Jacob Arlow; Bruno Bettelheim; Alan Dundes; C.G. Jung; Joseph Campbell; Vladimir Propp; Georges Dumézil; Louis Germet; Marcel Detienne; and D.W. Winnicott.

Indexed

Not a book to be read out of casual interest. That is to say, eye-crossingly dull. Do not be misled by its slender size; takes forever to get through.