Used price: $9.10
Used price: $1.99
Collectible price: $5.99
Buy one from zShops for: $8.00
Used price: $5.19
Collectible price: $6.35
Buy one from zShops for: $5.99
Amazing Grace is David Leemings biographical piece that examines Delaney's life and contributions to the art world. He looks at the forces which brought forth America's premiere modernist artist and shows how his gift impacted on the way one views life and art.
Who is this man, Delaney? A superficial view of his life reveals him as an impoverished homosexual Black artist who is plagued by many demons as he struggles to find himself as an artist and at peace with his sexuality. James Baldwin called him his spiritual father who was a cross between Brer Rabbit and St. Francis of Asissi. Others knew him as the good negro or an eccentric gadfly. Whatever one may call him, Delaney's goal was to infuse the concept of love within his work that would bring him the wholeness that he failed to capture in his life.
Plagued by paranoia, alcoholism and guilt over his homosexuality, Delaney failed to achieve intimacy in his relationships but poured out his inner struggle through his art. Like many artists, he went through several stages of development in his career which reached its climax in France. Unfortunately the demon of paranoia stripped him of his artistic ability in his later years.
This book must be read to get a handle on the artistic struggles of African Americans and how they succeeded inspite of their alienation from the mainstream art world. Delaney also struggled with being homosexual which undoubtably alienated him from his family and Black colleagues. His struggle opens up a new chapter in examining how sexuality impacts on a minority artists life. Delaney was saved from obscurity through this view of his life. Whether he was saved by grace is a moot point for his demonic voices did him in.
Used price: $22.50
Buy one from zShops for: $25.04
Each entry is a short, informative essay. Some entries, like "African Mythology" or "Animism," are general in nature, while others focus on specific deities, heroes or relevant cultural phenomena. Some sample entry topics are "Book of the Dead," "Coyote," "Dikithi" (a Bantu trickster), "Kali," "Lilith," "Quetzalcoatl," etc.
One of the book's strongest aspects is its rich assortment of full-color illustrations. There are many photographs of artwork of all types: a Hopi cloth, a sculpture of the serpent-headed Medusa, a stained-glass window depicting Sir Galahad, a knife handle carved to represent the trickster Raven, a wooden statue of the Chinese goddess Kuan Yin, Egyptian paintings, and much more.
A note to the reader declares, "Myths are sacred tales about gods, goddesses, heroes, and heroines." Thus I was puzzled by the book's failure to include many important figures from Jewish, Christian, and Islamic sacred narrative. Yes, "Adam" and "Eve" are included, but there are no articles on "Abraham," "Moses," "Jesus," "Mary," and others. Yet the editors include figures from other living religions, like Hinduism. Certainly, by the book's own definition of myth, the excluded figures merit entries. This selective process of inclusion and exclusion left me somewhat dissatisfied with the book. Despite its flaws, however, this book is an admirable reference work for young readers.
In addition to the standard entries, stories about characters, such as Adventures of Theseus and the Journey of Pele, and important cultural myths, such as Cherokee Creation Myths and Incan Flood, are highlighted. These features appear in colored boxes near a character's alphabetical entry or close to the story's alphabetical order. Most of the entries are cross-referenced that will point young readers to related subjects discussed elsewhere in the book. Within these pages young readers will find elements from several mythological traditions. In addition to dozens of deities and characters, many of which you can readily find elsewhere, the strength of this book is it facilitates comparative mythological analysis by covering themes of mythology (Quest, Creation, Afterlife, Flood) and recurring places in mythology (City, Labyrinth, Underworld). "The Children's Dictionary of Mythology" also has entries on sources of mythological narratives from the "Epic of Gilgamesh" to the "Enuma Elish," and mythological events like the "Cattle Raid of Cooley" and "Jason and the Golden Fleece."
I do not think I would have been happier with this book if it had been a true dictionary, with two or three times the entries because none of them were more than a paragraph long. I am leaning at this point to wishing the book being organized by the themes it isolates, because that is were it makes the best case for cross-cultural comparisons. Still, with a little effort, teachers can put together those units on their own. The selected bibliography provides a list of books by culture for further information. For teachers putting together a mythology unit for younger students, this book is an ideal first place to look for not just information but also ideas.
List price: $17.95 (that's 30% off!)
Used price: $1.99
Collectible price: $4.24
Buy one from zShops for: $8.75
I was sadly mistaken. Parallelling Joseph Campbell's notion of universal myths, this book is an exciting journey through various myth-types that seem to crop up in nearly every culture. Explore Creation Myths, Flood Myths, Hero Myths, and Object Myths, for a few examples, in a way that crosses cultures and time periods with ease. A truly diverse selection is in this work, this is not just your typical compilation of Greek and Roman myths. Eastern and Western mythologies tie in with Celtic and Asian and Nordic and Hebrew.
If you are at all interested in mythology, this is the book for you.
Used price: $11.99
Collectible price: $19.06
Buy one from zShops for: $10.00
List price: $17.95 (that's 50% off!)
Used price: $3.50
Buy one from zShops for: $10.99
Used price: $1.55
Collectible price: $15.88
Buy one from zShops for: $16.50
List price: $13.00 (that's 20% off!)
Used price: $3.19
Buy one from zShops for: $5.98
And I can understand Baldwin's great perplexity...he wants to point the finger at the American way of life. How years and years of being considered not human has affected the mindset of the average person of color. And of having to come through identity crises, legal crises, social crises to be confronted with who...? A person who is this insane enough to be killing innocent kids? Why have we struggled so much, Baldwin seems to be asking, to create this monster?
And so, it is another probing we received from the always philosophical, questioning, always provocative Baldwin.
Why read the book now? Well, although this murderer has been found and given punishment based on the fullest extent of the law, the questions remains.
How have we come to this?
Used price: $31.45
Buy one from zShops for: $31.45
This is an extraordinarily accessible book. It is intended for the non-specialist and, as such, would be perfect for an undergraduate survey course, for an upper-level topical course on British mythology/religion, or for any scholar seeking an understanding of Britain's pre-Christian culture. I would also recommend it highly as a handbook for any medievalist who needs quick and informed accounts of any and all of these topics. Not only have Drs. Fee and Leeming eloquently opened up the field of pagan Britain to further inquiry and discussion, but they have done so in a work that is, above all, easy and enjoyable to read.