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The Gift: Creativity and the Artist in the Modern World (Vintage) |  | Author: Lewis Hyde
Publisher: Vintage
Category: Book
List Price: $16.00
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Rating:  10 reviews
Sales Rank: 14196
Media: Paperback
Edition: 25 Anv
Pages: 464
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.8
Dimensions (in): 8 x 5.2 x 0.9
ISBN: 0307279502
Dewey Decimal Number: 306.3
EAN: 9780307279507
ASIN: 0307279502
Publication Date: December 4, 2007
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Product Description
By now a modern classic, The Gift is a brilliantly orchestrated defense of the value of creativity and of its importance in a culture increasingly governed by money and overrun with commodities. Widely available again after twenty-five years, this book is even more necessary today than when it first appeared. An illuminating and transformative book, and completely original in its view of the world, The Gift is cherished by artists, writers, musicians, and thinkers. It is in itself a gift to all who discover the classic wisdom found in its pages.
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Showing reviews 1-5 of 10
 What's Better Than A Gift? December 2, 2008
D. Knowlton (Florida)
19 out of 20 found this review helpful
"The grass is a uniform hieroglyphic." - W.W.
Some books will simply not go away.
I am glad this one has endured.
Through its many sub-title revisions, The Gift has retained its place as a prime interpreter of gift and commodity societies, and their relation to a culture of creativity. The connections Hyde constructs between art, science and literature are capable of provoking limitless discussion, increasing frustration, and possess enlightenment potential.
Hyde weaves modernity and tradition, and succinctly sums economy and philosophy at the close of chapter five where he states, "both anarchism and gift exchange share the assumption that it is not when a part of the self is inhibited and restrained, but when a part of the self is given away, that community appears."
I was initially drawn to the author by his second non-fiction prose work Trickster Makes The World: Mischief, Myth and Art. A year later, this earlier work captured my attention because of an ongoing search for contemporary sources that contain chapters on Whitman. The Gift's ninth chapter is where Hyde's genius became vivid for this reader, and as a bonus, in concert with another reviewer, my whole view of Pound shifted, especially in view of the Ginsberg story.
It is striking to see a book categorized as Literary Criticism/Sociology on the back cover of the original Vintage edition, and then noted on the copyright page as 3. Economic Anthropology, and 4. Art and Society, with three major poets' testimonies cited to Hyde's credit on the back cover. Why, because this is not the sort of crossover, or fusion (to use the music industry term) you expect to find. Reading any of the ten chapters, conclusion, new introduction, or afterword to the 25th Anniversary Edition individually is worthwhile. Especially the afterword for artists and arts communities. Reading the book in toto is deeply satisfying in a disturbing sort of way.
What led me to write this brief review was not an earnest desire to spread my Whitmananian obsession. What I discovered after finishing the ninth chapter and returning to the first in order to read the entire text, is an ethnologist's collection of tales, history, and economics, with an omniscient POV for the present. As the reader follows Hyde's stories and reasoning to the end, there will be sufficient exposure to a mind-altering view of the arts and the world. What is most gratifying is how The Gift has retained its currency, in spite of a few dated references from an earlier generation.
There are five things in particular that make Hyde's work worth reading.
1. His eloquence as he combines seemingly tangential sources. Nevertheless, as with poetry, reader patience and stamina are required.
2. The author possesses an ever-aware connection with the now, no matter how much history or philosophy he challenges readers to absorb.
3. It is apparent that Hyde maintains a capacity for change and growth within the scope of 385 pages. Note the beginning of his conclusion: ". . . Such, at any rate, were my assumptions when I began to write." I like experts who admit to being human. One expects this quality of judgment suspension in good scientific writing; to find it in a book purported to be literary criticism is heartening.
4. Hyde demonstrates a finely tuned understanding of Whitman in chapter nine, which efficiently explains the mystery of the greatest American Poet's creative awakening.
5. The Gift offers (albeit some 20 years in advance) a balance for Richard Florida's Rise of the Creative Class. Although, some may see it as a corollary work, or even a substantiation of Florida.
In order to conduct my own experiment, and add a witness to those of Bly, Zweig and Sarton found on the back cover of the original Vintage edition, I have introduced Hyde's book to the members of the Village Book Club in the form of a gift.
Whether conscious of our quest along the fabled lines of The Gift, or not, we will continue to act out the drama of Hyde's most provocative and enduring dilemma: "How, if art is essentially a gift, is the artist to survive in a society dominated by the market?" One other reviewer answered it by saying "art will outlast the market." How will you answer the question?
Again, caveat lector: this book of Hyde's is not beach reading.
The gift is to the giver . . . it cannot fail. - W. W.
There are nothing but gifts on this poor, poor Earth. - Czeslaw Milosz
Information about this edition March 2, 2008
A Reader from Chicago (Chicago, IL USA)
29 out of 35 found this review helpful
I may do an actual review later after some more reading, but some people may want to know, as I did, what relationship this book has to some other slightly differently named books by Lewis Hyde that were published under starting name "The Gift".
On the copyright page it states: Originally published in hardcover as "The Gift: Imagination and the Erotic Life of Property" in a slightly different form in the United States by Random House, Inc., New York, and published in paperback in a slightly different form in the United states by Vintage Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York in 1983.
Update #1: This edition has a three page preface from 2007. It also has a 16 page chapter from 2007 entitled "On Being Good Ancestors: Afterword to the Twenty-fifth Anniversary Edition".
This book redefines the "liberal arts" October 3, 2009
Michael Tiemann (Chapel Hill, NC United States)
6 out of 6 found this review helpful
I enjoy reading books that expand my perspective, but this is one of the rare books that has truly altered it, or at least given me notice that alteration is necessary.
What served me best in reading this book was the fact that it was one of only two I brought for a very long trip. This meant that I had plenty of time and less reason to be distracted. With this time I was able to pace myself through a somewhat slow beginning, tolerate the re-telling of some stories with which I was already familiar, and, by the end of Part 1, be willing to write a 4-star review of how amazing it was that Michael Lewis could have so presciently defined the logic and sensibilities of the free software and free culture movements that would blossom within ten years of the book being published. His telling of the real establishment of capitalism--that begin with Martin Luther rather than Adam Smith, and the concomitant destruction of charitable customs in Western nations provide a far more cogent explanation of both the moral bankruptcy and the actual bankruptcy of globalism than I've heard in more than one hundred hours of NPR news stories. And his explanations are spot-on for what I am seeing as a person who is involved with, and invests in, community development and sustainability. Indeed, I think it would make especially good reading in faith communities that also have a social community mission.
Then Mr. Hyde lets the other shoe drop: "the gift" describes not only the cultural practices that made economies flourish under conditions beyond the abilities or cares of capitalism, but also the human practices that enable the "genius" of creativity to flourish. The depth of his insights are staggering, and in the end they recontextualized a good portion of my own liberal arts education.
I am delighted to have read it, and look forward to applying its lessons to everything I do going forward, starting with buying enough copies to begin giving them away...
Everyone should read this book! March 10, 2009
Dewey Square (New York, NY)
3 out of 4 found this review helpful
This book is an eye opener. It's not just about how creative endeavors are affected by modern market society, it's about how we got here, and what it means to live in a market-driven world. It does not bash capitalism; but it gives a very accessible overview of how non-market societies used to operate, and suggests that it is still possible to strike a balance between treating art (or anything else) as commodity and as a gift. Highly recommended for anyone, not just artistic types.
Essental reading for any creative person June 28, 2010
Shona
This beautifully written book seems like poetry 'what oft was thought but ne'er so well expressed' yet it deals with a pragmatic issue: the issue of reward for art and the role of money. For anyone working in a creative field it is enormously cathartic and empowering as it explores almost simultaneously how essential and irrelevant money is within a creatively productive life. For anyone not working creatively, albeit profitably, it is a spur to question the worth of what they are doing.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 10
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