Watership Down by Richard Adams

Read: 8 June, 2009

When Fiver senses that a great danger is coming to the warren, only his brother and a few others believe him. Unable to convince the other rabbits, this small band leaves on a journey in search of safety that takes them through farmyards, across roads and rivers, and into warrens with very different cultures.

This is an absolutely fantastic book. The adventure story alone is well worth the read, but the amateur mythicist in me was especially impressed with the construction of an entire rabbit culture and religious system, language included. Especially impressive is how familiar and, yet, distinctly alien the rabbit culture is. This rarely felt like a book about people that happens to be set in a rabbit setting. Rather, this was a book about rabbits, only slightly anthropomorphism. The characters and their culture retain a great deal of what can only be called 'rabbitiness.'

Most books get at least one aspect right. Some get a few things right. When this happens, the book may be called masterful, or great. But Watership Down is one of the very few books that tempt me to use the word 'perfection.' This is a masterpiece and I think that anyone who hasn't read it yet is somewhat impoverished. There's something about it that just touches the Jungian collective subconscious. This is the hero with a thousand faces pulled off in a way that feels natural.

Though marketed as a children's book (although perhaps a little too gruesome/frightening for younger kids), Watership Down is a must read for adults as well.

The Jesus Puzzle by Earl Doherty

Read: 27 September, 2009

Imagine if people living a couple hundreds of years from now forgot that the Harry Potter series was fiction. Imagine that they started to worship Harry Potter, to seek out relics from Hogwarts, and fought wars against those who did not believe that the historical Harry really did have magical powers.

That's essentially the premise of The Jesus Puzzle. According to Doherty, Jesus was a mythic character, invented consciously by individuals who were  embodying the teachings of their sect in an archetypal character. But then, as the religion spread outside of this original community, the allegory was forgotten and adherents came to see Jesus as an actual historical figure. This is how Doherty explains the discrepancies between the gospels and the lack of biographical information given in the epistles of Paul.

To a lay reader, the argument is convincing. That being said, it's worth noting that Doherty is not a scholar, the accolades on the book jacket are written by individuals (David B., Mary B., Jan K., and Rusty A., whoever they are), and he is something of a laughing stock among biblical scholars. "Mythers," as they are called within scholarly circles, tend not to be very well received.

Indeed, even a lay reader may grasp that something is amiss after Doherty's umpteenth reference to his persecution at the hands of academics. My own skeptical alarm bells tend to ring when authors imagine vast conspiracies against themselves or their ideas.

I'm not sure that I'd be willing to dismiss the book entirely, simply because Doherty does provide a perspective on many New Testament passages. I've found it useful in my reading of scripture over at my other blog, if only to have additional points of view to mull over while forming my own readings. Just keep in mind that Doherty is expressing a fringe opinion that is not taken seriously by those who know the material best.

The Blue Fox by Sjon

Read: 10 December, 2009

In 19th century Iceland, a priest hunts for a mythical blue fox and a girl with Down's Syndrome is mourned by her admirer. These two seemingly unrelated stories interweave into a poetic whole.

It's an enchanting tale, a modern myth, that might have worked nearly as well in verse. The story is short, easily read in an hour or two, and interesting lyrical look into Iceland's recent past.

Icarus at the Edge of Time by Brian Greene

Read: 8 April, 2009

Icarus is the classic story of the boy who flew too high for his own good. The twist here is that the titular hero lives in the future, grew up on a space ship, and flies into a black hole rather than the sun. Icarus is also a rather large board book, illustrated with beautiful images taken by the Hubble space telescope.

POSITIVE: Icarus offers an interesting blend of classical mythology and modern science. It's a great introduction to black holes and the relativity of time. Finally, the stunning images can only feed a young mind's interest in science.

NEGATIVE: I don't know what Icarus was trying to be. Board books are normally associated with younger children, but the diction seems too advanced. I'm all for books that challenge kids, but I think that this would only serve to frustrate. The book is also far too large to be comfortably read to a young audience that wants to see the pictures too. If, on the other hand, Icarus was intended for a slightly older set, I think that kids would find the story too simplistic.

Another major flaw was the choice in representation of the black hole. This is shown as a black dot (literally a 'black hole' in the middle of the page) that progressively takes over the entire page and then shrinks back down. I can understand an appreciate that this is supposed to allow the reader to "approach" the black hole as Icarus does, but it's just plain black and it obscures the beautiful background images (almost completely for several of the middle pages). It's both distracting and frustrating.

The greatest flaw this book has is its apparent lack of direction. Perhaps the author wanted it to be too many things at once. Who can blame him? The niche for storybooks that also teach science is severely under-filled - but one book alone cannot hope to fill all of it. The result is literary schizophrenia.

This, coupled with the unfortunate design choice, makes this book somewhat of a disappointment. It's still worth getting, though, if only because of how sparse the genre is.

Six Micmac Stories by Ruth Holmes Whitehead

I've recently started some research into fairytales and, while my focus has been on European myths, I have also been looking into other cultures.

I found this book to be very interesting. There are only six short stories, but they are well selected to cover a number of cultural aspects. I also enjoyed the short commentary provided after each story. It explained a bit about the symbolic significance of aspects of the story, as well as some cultural background necessary to appreciate the narrative.

Overall, it's a a very short read, essentially a quick dip into Micmac storytelling. It's by no means authoritative. The stories mostly have positive messages and, with the exception of a few scary moments, would be appropriate for kids.

Kwaidan by Lefcadio Hearn

Read: 27 October, 2008

This is a small, thin book with seventeen short stories (some barely more than a page or two, others a little longer) and three "insect studies." Most of the stories are old supernatural tales, but the author writes from his own experiences sometimes (one short story and two of the insect studies, if memory serves).

It's a short read and an interesting one. Far from an in-depth look at the Japanese supernatural, these are rather short vignettes that provide a beginner's taste. Overall, I found them interesting and thought-provoking.

The insect studies are very different. The Butterfly chapter does still discuss Japanese (and Chinese) mythology, but these are mostly put aside for the chapters on Ants and Mosquitoes. For this reason, these studies may be disappointing for readers who are interested solely in mythology and don't have a taste for idle musings. For my own part, I found them just as interesting as the stories of strange things found in most of the book.

The Epic of Qayaq retold by Lela Kiana Oman

Read: 2006

As Qayaq's siblings grow up, all leave home to seek their fortunes and never return. Qayaq, the youngest and last of his parents' children, decides to go in search of his siblings. From there, the story cycles through episodes of Qayaq's legendary journey over land and by kayak.

Qayaq has something of the trickster in him making these stories very interesting. In particular, I found the fluidity between the animal and human worlds very interesting. Qayaq is able to turn himself into animals and they into humans. Because the book is a collection of stories from an epic cycle each functions well alone and they make for a pleasantly varied experience if read all at once.

I especially enjoyed my edition because the edges of each page contained short summaries of the stories as well as illustrations that fit the action described. It may seem like only a small detail, but being able to see the Inupiat art along with the stories added a fantastic extra dimension.

Dictionary of Celtic Myth and Legend by Miranda Green

Read: 25 November, 2007

I have no idea how accurate the information in this dictionary is because I know just about zilch about Celtic mythology. However, I do like the book based on a purely "how interesting is it?" criterion. While it may be read through from cover to cover (as I did in about two days), I wouldn't necessarily recommend it. Because it's a dictionary and because each entry is intended to stand along, many of the stories and ideas are repeated several times. It would be much better used as a reference book.

The entries are fairly short, ranging from about a paragraph or two as the norm to about a page as an extreme. Because of their shorter length, they obviously are not terribly detailed. Each entry gives a general overview of its concept and includes other terms and names that may also be looked up. In essence, it's a great place to get a vague idea to start with, but other books are needed if a more in-depth study is to be conducted.