The Golden Bough

Edition of 1894

De: James G. Frazer

Narrado por: Robert Bethune

Just as Proust derives an entire world of feeling, people and events from the taste of a madeleine, James G. Frazer brings us into a worldwide survey of religion, folklore, culture, symbolism, and ritual using the Priest of Nemi as his starting point. Starting from the image of the lonely, doomed high priest, prowling his precinct night and day, sword in hand, hardly daring to sleep as he awaited the assault of the man who would kill him and take his place, Frazer roams the world of ancient and modern religious and ceremonial practice in search of the underlying universals of human thought.

The Golden Bough quickly took its place in the fields of mythology, anthropology and comparative religion as a classic. Though clearly open to criticism from a modern perspective, it opened pathways of thought and interpretation that enabled later thinkers to explore perspectives that would not have been available otherwise. In many forms and guises, Frazer's ideas have flourished from his day to the present.

Public Domain (P)2013 Robert Bethune

A plethora of knowledge about superstition

This is one of those books where I want to be left alone to listen for hours on end. Some mistaken conclusions are surely drawn, but the stories themselves are what does it for me. You can draw your own conclusions, if need be. I have to recommend this book due to the fact that it is just fascinating. I do not know if someone will ever be alive again that will have the drive to put another volume, building on this, into existence. I sure hope so. Superstition doesn't always die, but it always evolves. For me, it is best to try and understand their origins to help others be rid of their unnecessary superstition. This book helps to do just that.

Provides highly detailed examples..

.. possibly too many. I recommend the abridged version, if there is one. Learned a lot.

Exhaustive Research

The premise of the narrative is to offer an original dissertation on the ritual of the Golden Bough at Lake Nemi, Italy using comparative analysis of animistic or heathen ritual to interpret. The original publication date was circa 1906 and the author’s own fieldwork for the book dated to 1880’s. Anthropologists may find it easier to tolerate the dated language and cultural biases of the author; others may find the frequent references to primitive people of the world as savages, etc. Lay-people may find the language offensive. For the time period, The Golden Bough is considered one of the most groundbreaking books ever written. The text is encyclopedic. Rather than summarizing previously described rituals and myths by way of reference, he retells multiple comparable rituals or myths, one after another until you have lost track of the original example. This style of writing would not win as many admirers if written today. That said, the body of myth cited is fascinating. These myths offer insights such as why the bull is considered sacred by multiple cultures. A study of one culture’s body of myth would appeal to me more than exploring substantially similar concepts four or five times. The book could have been explained in twenty percent of the volume produced. It would be more engaging. It had enough appeal to wade through it, but it was a bit of a chore to get through but ultimately worth the effort.

Valuable Historical Information

This is a classic anthropology reference book. The text contains descriptions of primitive rituals that took place in various cultures from around the world. This is a good source of data regarding many kinds of worship and practice - including human and animal sacrifice. The author notes numerous similarities between the mythologies and rituals of disparate civilizations.