Mythic Imagination: Collected Short Fiction

by Joseph Campbell

Before he was the engaging professor who brought mythology into people’s living rooms through his conversations with Bill Moyers, before he became known as the thinker whose ideas influenced Star Wars, and before his now-beloved phrase “follow your bliss” entered the popular lexicon, Joseph Campbell was a young man who tried his hand at writing fiction. At the age of twenty-nine, after years of Depression-era unemployment, when he lived off money he had earned playing saxophone in a jazz combo and read the world’s great literature in a syllabus of his own design, Campbell published his first short story. That tale, included in this collection, remained the famed mythologist’s only published piece of fiction, until now.

In these stories, readers will find rich mythological symbolism, down-to-earth concerns with the ravages of the Second World War, and singular iterations of Campbell’s famous Hero’s Journey schema — all interwoven into a literary style that anticipates the genre that would years later come to be known as “magical realism.” Compelling in their own right, these seven stories are essential reading for longtime Campbell fans and the many who continue to discover him afresh.

Genres: Mythology, Fiction, Philosophy

288 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1997

About the author

Joseph Campbell was an American author and teacher best known for his work in the field of comparative mythology. He was born in New York City in 1904, and from early childhood he became interested in mythology. He loved to read books about American Indian cultures, and frequently visited the American Museum of Natural History in New York, where he was fascinated by the museum's collection of totem poles.

Campbell was educated at Columbia University, where he specialized in medieval literature, and continued his studies at universities in Paris and Munich. While abroad he was influenced by the art of Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse, the novels of James Joyce and Thomas Mann, and the psychological studies of Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung. These encounters led to Campbell's theory that all myths and epics are linked in the human psyche, and that they are cultural manifestations of the universal need to explain social, cosmological, and spiritual realities. 


After a period in California, where he encountered John Steinbeck and the biologist Ed Ricketts, he taught at the Canterbury School, and then, in 1934, joined the literature department at Sarah Lawrence College, a post he retained for many years. During the 40s and '50s, he helped Swami Nikhilananda to translate the Upanishads and The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna. He also edited works by the German scholar Heinrich Zimmer on Indian art, myths, and philosophy. In 1944, with Henry Morton Robinson, Campbell published A Skeleton Key to Finnegans Wake. His first original work, The Hero with a Thousand Faces, came out in 1949 and was immediately well received; in time, it became acclaimed as a classic. In this study of the "myth of the hero," Campbell asserted that there is a single pattern of heroic journey and that all cultures share this essential pattern in their various heroic myths. In his book he also outlined the basic conditions, stages, and results of the archetypal hero's journey.


Throughout his life, he traveled extensively and wrote prolifically, authoring many books, including the four-volume series The Masks of God, Myths to Live By, The Inner Reaches of Outer Space and The Historical Atlas of World Mythology. Joseph Campbell died in 1987. In 1988, a series of television interviews with Bill Moyers, The Power of Myth, introduced Campbell's views to millions of people.


Reviews

[Rebekah Robertson · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book is a good reminder that anyone's first attempt at writing can suck. Even a genius like Joseph Campbell.

[Barbara · Rating 3 out of 5]

Magical Realism. An interesting mix of fiction and history of times past. Development of characters was interesting but the stories were a little slow.

[Marleen · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is a collection of seven short stories written by Joseph Campbell (author of the famous "The Hero with a Thousand Faces"), six of which have never before been published.

Alas, I understand too well why those stories never saw print: they're no good.

Only the published story was enjoyable. It was concise, had tidy prose, and a clear ending with a poetic payoff. And it helped that the story felt finished.

The other six tales, unfortunately, are in dire need of several more rounds of editing. They are bloated with characters and settings that don't add anything and should have been cut. Additionally, the prose is sloppy, stuffed with filler words (such as: now, then, again, presently, pretty, little), overused words (girlish, strangely), and repetition (six sentences all starting with "he"? Why not!).

It doesn't help that it is painfully, uncomfortably, obvious that the author was a white man in the 1940s; the amount of unconscious sexism and racism is staggering. The two stories not written from the POV of a white man are... uncomfortable. If you're familiar with the meme of "men writing women," THAT, exactly that. And just about every single stereotype for black people gets a call out too.

I realise he was a man from his time, writing for his time. However, that doesn't make the stories any less unpleasant--and straight up bad--for me, a woman from my time, reading in my time.


This book feels like reading someone's drafts. Would Campbell be pleased or mortified to hear his stories were published posthumously? Based on the quality of the work presented, I'm inclined to believe the latter...

[Paul · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love Joseph Campbell. He has the remarkable ability to see the commonalities among religions and cultures, and to be able to respect different religions without becoming dogmatically attached to any of them. I was delighted, but not surprised, to find that he and George Lucas had discussed the underlying concepts of the Star Wars saga, and that he understood and resonated with the concept of The Force. His books are largely about "the quest" that each person is challenged to take in his or her lifetime.

So I was intrigued to learn that he had written a number of fictional short stories in the late 1930s and the 1940s. And it turns out that he is a very good writer, very colorful and descriptive. But I simply could not "get" what he was alluding to most of the time. The first story seems to be about the discovery of a soulmate and the ability to recognize that soulmate in this life. Another was about how a US President (much like Lincoln) woke up to discover that his skin color was different, and went on to experience what it was like to live in a different race. One of the final ones appeared to be about a figure like the anti-Christ, and given that his initials were "A.H." and the time in which it was written, seems to have been about a Hitler-like character, and thus is quite relevant to today.

Still, those were only three stories out of about a dozen. If these were to have mythological roots or references, as the title suggests, they went over my head. The bet I can say about them is that they were interesting stories.

I could have used Cliff's Notes. These stories were lost on me.

[Leslie Nack · Rating 3 out of 5]

Parts of this book were good. It was written a long time ago and although I'd love to have time to dig into the entire mythological world Joseph Campbell referenced, I am not a mythology major and felt out of my league and bored at times. When the plot moved forward I was happy. When he diverged into a stream of consciousness experience like someone on psychedelic drugs might, my interest waned. Many people posted in the Literati book club referencing other mythological works being drawn on. I didn't get it.

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

I can't say that this book is an easy read, and that it is not full of some problematic language (due to it's time and place, and also not).

I can say that this is ambitious and steeped in the desire to push into what makes the human mind work, and is dedicated to the idea of pushing past our known selves and into something more.

[Steven Gripp · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some fiction to help elucidate some of Campbells mythic philosophy. Can be very far-reaching at times, but still some stories to jump around to if you’re looking for deeper concepts in mythological symbology.

[Megan Cosby · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting view into the early thoughts of Joseph Campbell. That said, some of the stories were difficult to get through because of the gratuitous wordiness. But, the stories do get progressively better, so stick with it!

[Karen H · Rating 3 out of 5]

Short stories written by Joseph Campbell only one was previously published. I didn't know that he ever wrote any fiction so it was kind of fun. Some of the stories were tough to follow. All were kind of out there. It was a very different look at Joseph Campbell's work.

[Sarah Smith · Rating 1 out of 5]

With a 100 pages left, I cannot finish it. The metaphorical/allegorical meaning that might be worthwhile is buried in odd, disturbing stories that bore me, at best, and make me cringe, at worst.

[Kathleen Moye · Rating 4 out of 5]

Started reading, and completed Part 1, Moonlight in Vermont.

[Lisa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very modern, sometimes more reminiscent of Clive Barker, Neil Gaiman, J.G. Ballard, or Poe than you would expect. Much more surreal than I had imagined. Definitely Sci-Fi, with bizarre plot twists, and the expected dose of dark mythology. Truly an interesting collection of short stories.

[James Kingman · Rating 2 out of 5]

A hero with a thousand faces,
Knew exactly what his space is,
These unpublished pieces
Are not his great thesis,
About the trends of human races.

This book was part of the Joseph Campbell Myth and Meaning Literati book club - and even though it is the first book by the person who this club is based on - it is the first real misfire.