The Hero with a Thousand Faces by Joseph CampbellMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
Hooter: Leveraging many mythological sources, A psychoanalysis on the hero journey that binds all epic stories we have heard or seen.
A must read recommendation and also in film school curriculums especially in the US, this book goes down to the core of storytelling leveraging epics that have survived centuries and breaking it down to the fundamentals and commonalities across the globe. Whether Assirian, Greek, Indian or Oriental, he does a comparative analysis across these to come up with his archetype of the "hero's adventure".
Whilst extremely academic in its nature, the examples make for a vivid reading session as he breaks up the common hero goes for a departure, hits near magical obstacles , overcomes them and returns to a reward above his/her station and how this has been relatable to cultures around the world and across centuries. An interesting thought he leaves behind is Symbols are vehicles of communication and shouldn't be considered as the literal end product. This thought should be enough to ruffle a lot of feathers in the broader world.
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