Book Review: A Short History of Myth by Karen Armstong

This is not a formal review of this book of course, but I have to talk about it, because it's kind of pissing me off. The author, Karen Armstrong, is a best selling and well respected author, and I haven't read any of her other books so I can't speak about them, but this book is...well...I have mixed feelings about it.

It presents an overview of the history of mythology from the Paleolithic period to the Modern age (The Great Western Transformation, as she calls it). So it's very comprehensive and well structured. I like that. However it reads like a doctoral dissertation that is heavily biased and trying to back up some sort of thesis that is not overtly stated but appears to be a strange blend of feminist and anti-feminist bias. She talks about the earliest images of a Mother Goddess being a representation of a destructive force that men feared. It's all about death and destruction at the hands of the dominant female goddess and the harsh circle of life. Okay, so yes that's a valid point, but what about the life part of the cycle? She doesn't even mention the Goddess of Willendorf which is one of the earliest (if not the earliest) depiction of the Mother Goddess in the Paleolithic period. You can't talk about Paleolithic mythology without even mentioning the Goddess of Willendorf!!!

She also talks about men tried to change the image by implementing a more patriarchal pantheon as civilization takes hold. Now, that's true but she's not really drawing on all of the evidence in early myth. She focuses on the myth of Hades and Persephone (which doesn't really apply there) but completely ignores the more appropriate myth of Ershkigal's marriage in Sumerian/Babylonian mythology. She also talks about the movement from hunting and gathering to sedentary planters and civilizations, but again she doesn't really talk about the myths that show this patten such as the destruction of Humbaba, the monstrous giant Guardian of the Forest, by Gilgamesh the God-King of Uruk. Come on people, you can't get more obvious of civilization winning over nature then that!

However, she does make a lot of good points, but the strange bias coupled with scant and subjective mythological evidence seems to override her credibility in my mind. Maybe I'm just being stubborn but she seems to be blatantly ignoring any art or myth that gets in the way of her thesis, which appears to be something about how evil mother goddess are. I found out she's a nun, so maybe that explains it.

To be fair, I haven't finished reading the book. I'm in the middle of the chapter on Early Civilizations, but every time I start to enjoy it she throws in some obscure reference and a bizarre twist on an accepted idea -- which would be okay if she presented all the various interpretations instead of just her opinion. But since she doesn't, it pisses me off.

Okay, I'm done ranting down. Please vote in the comments below as to whether or not I should finish it or just give up. Thanks!