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Heart: A Personal Journey Through Its Myth and Meanings
To humans, the heart has always been more than flesh and blood. Rising above its biological function, it has, instead, become the symbol of our emotions. Fear, sadness, anger, love, restlessness, discernment, foreboding, pleasure, longing, comfort, pride, despair - all that signifies passion and the human spirit are the domain of the heart. Gail Godwin takes us on a breathtaking journey that spans the entire history of human civilization, combining literature, myth, religion, philosophy, medicine, the fine arts, and intensely personal stories from the writer's own past to explore the full and complex character of this unique icon. Godwin's explorations and meditations brilliantly track themes of the heart in life, legend, and in from the first drawing of the 'heart-shaped' heart to the first valentine, from Gilgamesh to Confucius, from the heart of darkness to wearing one's heart on one's sleeve.
272 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2001
8 people are currently reading
118 people want to read
About the author
Gail Godwin
51 books416 followersGail Kathleen Godwin is an American novelist and short story writer. She has published one non-fiction work, two collections of short stories, and eleven novels, three of which have been nominated for the National Book Award and five of which have made the New York Times Bestseller List.
Godwin's body of work has garnered many honors, including three National Book Award nominations, a Guggenheim Fellowship, National Endowment for the Arts grants for both fiction and libretto writing, and the Award in Literature from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters. Five of her novels have been on the New York Times best seller list.
Godwin lives and writes in Woodstock, New York.
Godwin's body of work has garnered many honors, including three National Book Award nominations, a Guggenheim Fellowship, National Endowment for the Arts grants for both fiction and libretto writing, and the Award in Literature from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters. Five of her novels have been on the New York Times best seller list.
Godwin lives and writes in Woodstock, New York.
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Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews
February 17, 2021
I’d read one novel and one memoir by Godwin and was excited to learn that she had once written a wide-ranging study of the religious and literary meanings overlaid on the heart. While there are some interesting pinpricks here, the delivery is shaky: she starts off with a dull, quotation-stuffed, chronological timeline, all too thorough in its plod from the Epic of Gilgamesh to the Industrial Revolution. I quickly resorted to skimming and my eye alighted on Chinese philosophy (“True knowledge, Confucius taught, lies in the heart. He created and taught an ethical system that emphasized ‘human-heartedness,’ stressing balance in the heart”) and Dickens’s juxtaposition of facts and emotion in Hard Times.
Part Two, “Heart Themes in Life and Art,” initially seemed more promising in that it opens with the personal stories of her half-brother’s death in a murder–suicide and her mother’s fatal heart attack while driving a car, but I didn’t glean much from her close readings of, e.g. Joseph Conrad and Elizabeth Bowen. Still, I’ll keep this on the shelf as a reference book for any specific research I might do in the future.
Part Two, “Heart Themes in Life and Art,” initially seemed more promising in that it opens with the personal stories of her half-brother’s death in a murder–suicide and her mother’s fatal heart attack while driving a car, but I didn’t glean much from her close readings of, e.g. Joseph Conrad and Elizabeth Bowen. Still, I’ll keep this on the shelf as a reference book for any specific research I might do in the future.
January 9, 2016
A squishy mess of a book which was exasperating to read. Godwin attempted to weave together personal narrative with random snippets of history and medicine. An admirable attempt, but the result is more of an embarrassing Sunday School lesson of a quickly made scrapbook than a coherent 'real' book.
May 22, 2018
Disappointingly thin. I love Gail Godwin and was hoping for more...something deeper and a lot more personal. After the very shallow survey of religion (the Hinduism section was appalling), I just skimmed. I probably missed something good, but she asked for it. Because I didn't read carefully, I'm being generous with my stars. Also, it's Godwin, and I do love so many of her books.
February 22, 2024
I adored this literary tour through the symbol of the heart—cultures, letters, medicine, religion, history—what a delightful compendium.
These are the first words I'd ever read of Gail Godwin, but it won't be the last. Her own heart and erudition are evident through this hospitable nonfiction. I used an absurd amount of ink in the margins and book darts, my highest compliment I can pay to a book.
I can barely sum it up better than this passage where she describes how an editor, via her agent, pitched this idea to her while she was in the midst of planning her next novel:
"Someone's had this delicious, rather quirky idea. ...
'A book about the heart,' John said. 'Not a medical book, but the ways we've imagined the heart through time in myth and art and popular culture and what those images tell us about the human condition, then and now. It would be informative, but not scholarly. More of a lush, intimate book with a narrative arc.'
...
'It should have world history and religion and psychology and the arts in it, but it shouldn't be a plodding survey... Whoever writes it should try for a broad, inclusive sweep, with emphasis on the lively, human-interest stuff. ...
And not survey-ish or travelogue-y either. More like a long conversation with that writer over drinks or tea, about books and lovers and mystics and animals and gardens — all sorts of weird and curious stories about the heart. There should be medical stories, too, cardiology lore..."
She goes on to describe how then her "internal reference library" kept her awake at night. And we're the recipients of that rich internal library. (I mean, what a way to describe one's inner life!) She certainly succeeds in bringing together a rich collection of prophets and poets and playwrights and painters that I'll no doubt visit again and again.
The perfect read for February!
These are the first words I'd ever read of Gail Godwin, but it won't be the last. Her own heart and erudition are evident through this hospitable nonfiction. I used an absurd amount of ink in the margins and book darts, my highest compliment I can pay to a book.
I can barely sum it up better than this passage where she describes how an editor, via her agent, pitched this idea to her while she was in the midst of planning her next novel:
"Someone's had this delicious, rather quirky idea. ...
'A book about the heart,' John said. 'Not a medical book, but the ways we've imagined the heart through time in myth and art and popular culture and what those images tell us about the human condition, then and now. It would be informative, but not scholarly. More of a lush, intimate book with a narrative arc.'
...
'It should have world history and religion and psychology and the arts in it, but it shouldn't be a plodding survey... Whoever writes it should try for a broad, inclusive sweep, with emphasis on the lively, human-interest stuff. ...
And not survey-ish or travelogue-y either. More like a long conversation with that writer over drinks or tea, about books and lovers and mystics and animals and gardens — all sorts of weird and curious stories about the heart. There should be medical stories, too, cardiology lore..."
She goes on to describe how then her "internal reference library" kept her awake at night. And we're the recipients of that rich internal library. (I mean, what a way to describe one's inner life!) She certainly succeeds in bringing together a rich collection of prophets and poets and playwrights and painters that I'll no doubt visit again and again.
The perfect read for February!
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April 25, 2021Titles of books, deliberately so, can have a variety of meanings and have something to do with interest, relevance and individual appeal.
This edition of Gail Godwin's book Heart adds that it's The Story of its Myth and Meanings; another edition calls it A Personal Journey Through Its Myths and Meanings.
These phrases are quite different statements: the latter is more accurate a description of the text. I would call the former misleading in that it implies (to me, anyway) that there will be some robust knowledge presented that stands outside personal experience.
The book begins with a prologue, essentially about Godwin's cat(s), a discarded snakeskin, and a person carving headstones of deceased monks, beginning with the heading IHS, Iesus Hominum Salvator in my decades old altar boy experience – a Latin phrase seen on priestly vestments worldwide. However Godwin identifies this as the first three letters of Jesus of Nazareth's name in Greek.
Further on in the book, Godwin mangles Jung's experience with the Pueblo Indian Mountain Lake and seems not to know the nature of Memories, Dreams, Reflections, which isn't actually Jung's autobiography.
To be honest, I couldn't go on from there. Although the book is organised in an appropriate way, the method and style of writing is obtuse and obscure and there are several contentious comments in the various places I randomly located. In short, I could not trust this book, anbd its style was essentially inaccessible.
This edition of Gail Godwin's book Heart adds that it's The Story of its Myth and Meanings; another edition calls it A Personal Journey Through Its Myths and Meanings.
These phrases are quite different statements: the latter is more accurate a description of the text. I would call the former misleading in that it implies (to me, anyway) that there will be some robust knowledge presented that stands outside personal experience.
The book begins with a prologue, essentially about Godwin's cat(s), a discarded snakeskin, and a person carving headstones of deceased monks, beginning with the heading IHS, Iesus Hominum Salvator in my decades old altar boy experience – a Latin phrase seen on priestly vestments worldwide. However Godwin identifies this as the first three letters of Jesus of Nazareth's name in Greek.
Further on in the book, Godwin mangles Jung's experience with the Pueblo Indian Mountain Lake and seems not to know the nature of Memories, Dreams, Reflections, which isn't actually Jung's autobiography.
To be honest, I couldn't go on from there. Although the book is organised in an appropriate way, the method and style of writing is obtuse and obscure and there are several contentious comments in the various places I randomly located. In short, I could not trust this book, anbd its style was essentially inaccessible.
December 19, 2018
Being a sentimental person... this book was written for me and you, if you so choose to indulge your need for love. Great selection of various readings pertaining to the heart. It brought me deep into thought... the underlying rhythm to life starts in the womb. We can get back to the simple things when we focus on that first introduction to life... the call of the sea and roar of the heart!
October 7, 2019
A fascinating study of the concept of heart - spiritual, philosophical, historical, literary. I couldn't put it down.
November 10, 2021
I loved this meditation on the heart by Gail Godwin. Very thoughtful.
September 4, 2007
Not Godden's usual but I enjoyed it. It's different -- it's difficult to describe. Still I think if you like Godden to start then you will likely enjoy exploring this out of the norm little book from her.
Here's my original post on CR about this book:
A serendipitous purchase -- and the first non-fiction work by one of my favorite authors. I was lost in it from the start and enjoying every moment
of it.
An examined journey of review through history, mythology, art, religion of the conceptions of the heart -- both the physical and the metaphorical seat of faith, hope, and love -- ranging from the first valentine, ancient Egyptians, Buddha, and the first stethoscope to Conrad's Heart of Darkness -- sprinkled with anecdotal heart tales from Godwin and others.
What a spiritual feast!
If you enjoy Godwin, get your hands on this out of the ordinary offering. Save it for the "right" moment if need be but do read it. It's a meaty little read and definitely one to be returned to and sampled and imbibed over time -- time and again I think.
Here's my original post on CR about this book:
A serendipitous purchase -- and the first non-fiction work by one of my favorite authors. I was lost in it from the start and enjoying every moment
of it.
An examined journey of review through history, mythology, art, religion of the conceptions of the heart -- both the physical and the metaphorical seat of faith, hope, and love -- ranging from the first valentine, ancient Egyptians, Buddha, and the first stethoscope to Conrad's Heart of Darkness -- sprinkled with anecdotal heart tales from Godwin and others.
What a spiritual feast!
If you enjoy Godwin, get your hands on this out of the ordinary offering. Save it for the "right" moment if need be but do read it. It's a meaty little read and definitely one to be returned to and sampled and imbibed over time -- time and again I think.
November 13, 2013
I'm not sure what I think. It was sort of a research having to do with the heart in its many forms throughout a long period of time. The author read a lot of material in order to write this book. She researched the use of "heart" in ancient times, in poetry, in art, in literature, even in her personal life. We know that emotions are generated in the brain, yet, to this day, we refer to the heart to describe them. All around the world this is true. In ancient times it was true. It is an interesting concept. Something most of us never think about.
September 6, 2021
only read it just over halfway. It was interesting and if given more time I would have loved to finish. At times the delivery was shaky. Learnt some interesting things about the split of the heart in the new world and how it started. The physical heart is just as important as the metaphorical heart.
January 19, 2016
This is not necessarily a book about personal experiences; it follows the cultural significance of the heart from ancient civilisation to now. The personal touches to the writing, however, is what makes this book so complete and fulfilling.
March 12, 2014
I especially liked the first half of this book.
The heart is an essential muscle in the body but it is also linked to spirit. A careful reading will yield an eclectic reading list.
The heart is an essential muscle in the body but it is also linked to spirit. A careful reading will yield an eclectic reading list.
February 5, 2015
Just read this again. I think it was my 4th time. This is a great book.
February 10, 2010
Interesting historical perspectives. Somewhat rambling.
December 29, 2012
Could have been better organized. An interesting summary of the heart through mostly the liberal arts and religion.
January 28, 2014
An impressive and well written history of the way we think of heart in all its gory glory. I like Godwin's personal approach to what might otherwise be a dreary march through data.
December 16, 2015
I enjoyed the beginning and the end. The middle was muddled?
January 30, 2017
Love love love
Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews