TRICKSTER MAKES THIS WORLD – LEWIS HYDE

First things first, this book does not slap as hard as THE GIFT. I know, I know, THE GIFT is a hall-of-famer. It’s one of the non-fiction books I think about most often and I read it over a decade ago. Hyde really is on another level, he has the ability to spin out a cultural concept that seems simple into some really mind-blowing and clarifying shit. And by that metric, how hard did this blow my mind?, THE GIFT still reigns supreme. Anyone who wants to think critically and honestly about cultural appropriation or artistic production or modern capitalism generally needs to quit fucking around and get on THE GIFT. TRICKSTER MAKES THIS WORLD is not as mind-blowing. That is not to say it isn’t excellent, it is, but it never introduced or clarified concepts that made me really change my mind. Like all right thinking people, I’ve got a pretty healthy interest in mythology and comparative cultural studies. While I was familiar with most of the gods (and goddesses, tho more on that in a moment) and all of the actual people mentioned in this book, this book was great at introducing me to lots of new trickster figures like Matlacihuatl (a Mesoamerican “entangling woman” who renders men pregnant if they try to seduce her) or Wakdjunkaga, the Winnebago trickster. Hyde’s wide range is refreshing, I was worried that the book would be really focused on European mythologies, especially since Hyde can and does translate ancient Greek (there’s an appendix that’s his translation of a Homeric Hymn to Hermes). And to be fair, there is a lot of Hermes stuff. For whatever reason Hermes wasn’t one of my favorite Greek gods as a kid, but this book makes a strong case for him. We get lots of Krishna and Raven and Coyote and Eshu. However, I will say that I think Hyde does allow euro-centrism trip him up conceptually, especially regarding gender. Hyde is really insistent that Tricksters are male and has an entire appendix called “Tricksters and Gender” that is, to my mind, one of the most interesting parts of the book. He lists a bunch of female tricksters, tho I would add Scheherazade, Lilith (Hyde does have a part about the difference between devils and tricksters, but I would argue Lilith is closer to the later), Morgan Le Fey, and fairies/brownies generally. I would have also liked more discussion of Tricksters and sexuality, especially non-straight sexualities, given the Trickster’s role as a crosser of boundaries. The parts where Hyde compares real people, John Cage, Fredrick Douglass, Marcel Duchamp, to tricksters was fascinating. As an American, I loved the connections he drew between con-men, the ur-American arch-type, and tricksters. I wanted more of this. Either way, I did really enjoy this, Hyde is still one of the best to ever do it. 256 Tricksters.