Trickster Makes This World: Mischief, Myth, and Art

by Lewis Hyde

Book Overview

In Trickster Makes This World, Lewis Hyde brings to life the playful and disruptive side of human imagination as it is embodied in trickster mythology. He first visits the old stories--Hermes in Greece, Eshu in West Africa, Krishna in India, Coyote in North America, among others--and then holds them up against the lives and work of more recent creators: Picasso, Duchamp, Ginsberg, John Cage, and Frederick Douglass. Twelve years after its...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0374532559
• ISBN13: 9780374532550
• Release Date: August 2010
• Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
• Length: 432 Pages
• Weight: 0.78 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.6" x 8.2"

Customer Reviews

Masterful non-fiction writing

A brilliantly written, funny and moving book--filled with substantial scholarship and honest about its own stakes. To tell you the truth, I was moved to write this review by the two reviews below, both of which fall pretty wide of the mark. First, this is an amazingly well-written book, and that goes for both Hyde's prose style and his winding structure. His reflections of his own project do not upstage the subject matter but rather deepen and situate it in "time-haunted history." I wonder why anyone would expect or want a book about tricksters to be linear and transparent. By this I don't mean to suggest that Hyde is exactly "performing" the trickster in his writing. He announces his approach perfectly well: Saturn dreams of Mercury.I suspect that this book will frustrate all species of lazy reader because it asks for a sustained, continuous, and thorough reading. All the chapters are rewarding individually, but they are best read sequentially. If you want to be able to look at a table of contents and pick one or two chapters by topic, find a doctoral thesis, or a utilitarian academic monograph.

Great, but the naysayers are right as well

This book, like the myths it describes, is an interpretation. It is one man's exploration of his own exploration of the trickster myths. True, some of the tricksters he indentifies don't live up to his own definition; and true, his own definition is elastic. The structure of the book is a bit circular and tangential, not the most eloquently structured thing I've read. But... the book is also full of insights about how we erect a world, both in story and in fact. It makes distinctions that, as other reviewers have said, are glaringly obvious once you've read them, but were somehow beyond the pale before you read the book.I've not yet read The Gift, though I did purchase it after reading half-way through this book. I found "Trickster" inspiring and insightful, often funny, always surprising. Hyde does not promise us a scholarly dissection, which, when you consider that we're talking about myths, is entirely appropriate. His writing, even when he takes us on tangents, is fluid and clear. He's someone I'd want to have dinner with, maybe once a month or so, just to hear where his thinking is going and where it's been.Read the excerpt. See for yourself.

a remarkable synthesis

This is an extraordinarily well-written and perceptive book that examines the Trickster archetype in depth with wit, imagination, and an appreciation for the vagaries of life. One of Hyde's strengths is his ability to untangle the common threads in such diverse areas as Native American mythology, African divination, the art of Marcel Duchamp, the chance-based music of John Cage, and the life and thought of Frederick Douglas. As its subtitle implies, it is weighted heavily towards "culture work" (myth, literature, art, storytelling, etc.) and does not really explore the social territory of the Trickster-- the domain of cons, grifters, snake-oil salesmen, chain-letter writers, illusionists, pranksters, and scam artists of all stripes. But given that the 20th century Western art world was largely dominated by a succession of Trickster figures, this book is a useful antidote to the hoary idea of art as simply a harmonious search for beauty or a form of self-expression that somehow takes place in a vacuum, unhindered by cultural constraints. I suspect that, in keeping with its subject matter, this book is likely to engender a deep sense of anxiety in some readers, while coming to others as a breath of fresh air.

A neglected archetype gets to ride the "special" bus

"I can't see you, but I know you're there..." (Peter Falk in Wings of Desire) -- The hero, the martyr, the whore-with-a-heart-of-gold, the earth mother, the domineering father, ad nauseum, all the archetypes of our world, and of the worlds from which we come, have been done to death, and exist as fully realized options, niches in society, possibilities, definite shapes -- trickster is much more amorphous, less obvious, less overtly possible as an option, yet somehow always lurking somewhere nearby, stoking the creative fires and putting thumbtacks on unsuspecting seats. Hyde gives trickster the exegesis and the credit he rightly deserves but seems so often to dodge or come late to. Well worth reading, even if you disagree with Hyde's premise (as so many seem to).

Absolutely extraordinary:

No lover of myth, folklore, or the arts should be without it. I can't recommend this book (or The Gift) too highly. Many thanks to Lewis Hyde for these inspiring works.