>>17836030No problem. The insight that impacted me the most was that right in the introduction he proposes mythology to describe the world not as an inventory of items in time and space, but as a forum for action. To my young materialist brain this was quite a shock since it managed to establish a very specific framework in which myths are true whereas others like Mircea Eliade can only tell you that it references some general patterns and Levi-Strauss can pretty much just reduce myths to logical operators.
But JP instead goes on to establish the types of actors and situations that are common in myths, what are their usual aspects and ultimately why it matters. If I remember correctly there is some kind of cascade structure that depicts how the more general, aetherical beliefs (such as myths) provide a framework for slightly more specific narratives (political) and how those enable us to codifyu behavior (ritual) etc. Meaning he not only gives you some relatively (!) solid keys to interpreting mythology, he shows you where mythology would fit on our maps of meaning - how they anchor our fundamental undestanding of what it means to be human down to neurological level.
I remember the last third was more about literature analysis than about neurology and psychology though, so that wasn't that fun. I've got loads of notes from the book and I must admit I haven't looked at them in the past 8 years, but might do it soon.
