folklore analysis, an anti-rec
Aug. 17th, 2006 01:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rivendellroseShould you be looking for a book on women in folklore, I recommend that you not pick up "Waking the World: Classic Tales of Women and the Heroic Feminine" by Allan B. Chinen. Maybe it's just me, but this guy's analysis reads like he's randomly flipping through a Freudian primer and the collected works of Jung, without the slightest attention to the cultures the various stories come from.
Unsurprisingly, a look at the back cover reveals that he is, in fact, a psychiatrist. Psychiatrists should be barred from writing literary analysis. The stories are worthwhile and interesting... which makes it especially frustrating that he follows proper procedure and spends twice the time on analysis that he does on the actual stories. I have a deep love for the analysis of folklore, but this guy makes me feel like I'm contemplating somebody else's belly button lint.
Or maybe I'm just feeling grumpy about the art today.
In other news, finished rereading "Smoke and Mirrors" by Tanya Huff yesterday. Damn do I love that book. ♥
Unsurprisingly, a look at the back cover reveals that he is, in fact, a psychiatrist. Psychiatrists should be barred from writing literary analysis. The stories are worthwhile and interesting... which makes it especially frustrating that he follows proper procedure and spends twice the time on analysis that he does on the actual stories. I have a deep love for the analysis of folklore, but this guy makes me feel like I'm contemplating somebody else's belly button lint.
Or maybe I'm just feeling grumpy about the art today.
In other news, finished rereading "Smoke and Mirrors" by Tanya Huff yesterday. Damn do I love that book. ♥
