Product Description

In addresses written for a wide general audience, one of the twentieth century's most prominent thinkers, Claude Lévi-Strauss, here offers the insights of a lifetime on the crucial questions of human existence.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #126136 in Books
• Published on: 2001-05-17
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 64 pages

Review
'Some thinkers are influential, a few create schools, a very few characterize a period ... it is possible that just as we speak of the age of Aquinas or of Goethe, later ages will speak of our time as the age of Lévi-Strauss ... he is a maker of the modern mind.' - James Redfield

'Lévi-Strauss's work is characterized by rare brilliance and intellectual audacity. It is an invitation to think and rethink.' - The Guardian

From the Back Cover
In addresses written for a wide general audience, one of the twentieth century's most prominent thinkers, Claude Lévi-Strauss, here offers the insights of a lifetime on the crucial questions of human existence. Responding to questions as varied as "Can there be meaning in chaos?", "What can science learn from myth?" and "What is structuralism?", Lévi-Strauss presents, in clear, precise language, essential guidance for those who want to learn more about the potential of the human mind.

About the Author
Claude Lévi-Strauss (1908- ). Anthropologist, who became the most prominent exponent of structuralism.

Customer Reviews

Mythical Brief

This volume arrived with a postman’s knock and packaged in reinforced cardboard. Disappointment is therefore too weak a word to describe the discovery that the book is so thin that it could have been popped into an envelope and slid under the door. For a book entitled Myth and Meaning that promises insights into human existence, forty eight pages of well spaced text that can be read comfortably in an hour, certainly makes you think profoundly…about your lost tenner!

If you can stomach the price for such a miniscule intellectual snack then the Levi-Strauss lectures reproduced here will not spoil your digestion. Divided into five, lets say ‘bite sized chunks’, the author explicates a little of his notion of science and its relationship to anthropological and structural analysis of myth. Debunking the idea of the ‘primitive’ Levi Strauss endeavours to show certain correspondences between societies ‘without writing’ and methods of science in the modern western world. We can not think of ‘primitive’ societies as backward, rather through myths they develop often sophisticated and communally shared symbolic orders of meaning. Some of these such as the pan-American myths discussed in the second and third chapters, contain elements that describe manners of thought that we are dimly aware of in the west because our cultures and social circumstances have not demanded the development of this mental sector. As such the myth of the Skate and the South Wind of the American Indians is related to binary processes in computers and tribal narratives have parallels with the science of history.

The type of explanation Levi Strauss gives of these myths is at best tenuous but some of his suggestions are delightfully innovative and sincere and the fieldwork is of interest in itself. However, the lecture context is altogether too ephemeral to allow one to see the extent to which the various explanations arise out of systematic treatment rather than authorial whim. The case is not helped by at least three lazy editing mistakes that obscure the meaning of the argument, and dare it be said some needless repetition, which if omitted would make this poor emaciated script even thinner.

Intriguing Discussions
This book contains in published form lectures given by Claude Levi-Strauss where he answered questions to do with structuralism and mythologies.

The information revealed is fascinating, particularly the connection in mythologies between twins and harelips as is the discourse on the linking of myths and music.

The only drawback is the brevity of the book, as fascinating as Levi-Strauss's comments are, it does feel like there should be more.

Short, but Sweet.
This book is very short, and generally a bit expensive considering its length, but if you want a bite-size introduction into the world of anthropological structuralism, their are few better and more interesting places to start than here. What is the relationship between babies born feet first and harelips? Can their be meaning in chaos? Could people of some cultures literally see venus in the sky? If these things strike you as interesting, do get it and enjoy, you will read it over a good few times and short, as it is, it will retain it's freshness.