Resenhas - The Manual of Mythology

JPHoppe 22/01/2023

Fulfilling... yet incomplete
Since immemorial times humankind has tried to explain everything: natural phenomena, emotions, catastrophes, order and disorder, cause and consequence. Why things are the way they are, and not some other way.

Myths are one of the many ways we try to make sense of the world. It is fascinating how basically each culture and tradition has its own variation of their belief systems. How, like the languages they speak, they are more similar the more recent they were one.

One thing that seems obvious after reading the book, but unsuspected for me, is how there are parallels in the portfolio and, especially, the names between Greek deities and Hindu deities. To the point that certain ones have names that makes no sense in Greek, but can be readily identified in Hindu, like "Zeus" deriving from the word for "to shine" in Proto-Indo-European. Interestingly, the same root is present in words such as "theos" and "deus".

This book is basically as the long-time classic, but with some additions here and there, and including more pantheons such as the Hindu and Egyptian. It gets in depth sometimes, but more often the rule is brevity. It is inevitable, since it covers so much content, otherwise the book would be massive. Hindy and Egyptian mythology sections are so short that, in the case of the latter, even the most important deities are only mentioned, without a section of their own.

As a starting point, however, it does its job pretty well.
A must read if you're into the subject.