sonicdonutflour's review against another edition
reflective
medium-paced
3.0
The first half of the book was a quite interesting history of gift exchange (even if white anthropologists were sited uncritically) but the second half is primarily just an examination of boring white dude poets and lost me a bit.Flf
chairmanbernanke's review against another edition
4.0
The sections on gifts and gift-giving are quite good. Discussions of money weren’t, and seemed not to grasp the critical quality of it.
erin_jones's review against another edition
4.0
How difficult to review this book! I loved it...except for the chapters on Whitman and Pound, which I started and then skipped. (If you quibble with me marking this as "finished" that's fair.) Those felt stylistically and thematically like they didn't fit; at some point in the Whitman chapter I started to feel as though I was reading an English term paper. Perhaps this was my own taste.
But!
All the other chapters!
So many concepts that blew my mind. My favorite was the chapter about the cobbler and the elves, which I thought about for weeks afterward and the main concept behind which will stick with me and my art forever. I loved reading about gift economies and thinking about cultures, including my own, through a lens I never had before. So much here to chew on and, you know? gifts.
But!
All the other chapters!
So many concepts that blew my mind. My favorite was the chapter about the cobbler and the elves, which I thought about for weeks afterward and the main concept behind which will stick with me and my art forever. I loved reading about gift economies and thinking about cultures, including my own, through a lens I never had before. So much here to chew on and, you know? gifts.
deepfreezebatman's review against another edition
2.0
I started off strong with this book.. but by part two I completely lost interest. Some chapters, such as the one on philosophy, were pretty fascinating.. but I'm just not that into poetry.
rumbledethumps's review against another edition
2.0
Some interesting ideas about art and the marketplace, but overall not for me. Too much talk about creativity being an ineffable gift from the universe or whatever.
timmyr's review against another edition
Got through the intro and first chapter. Enjoyed it a great deal, but this book is dense with myths and what I'd consider Jungian deconstruction of those myths. After a certain point, I couldn't hang.
kjboldon's review against another edition
4.0
Useful, but overlong and dated with so.e questionable cultural references ("the Jew of the Old Testament"?). But the question of how art and commerce can coexist , the examples of Whitman and Pound, are worthwhile. I would seriously skim the section on usury, though.
deanjean_reads's review against another edition
challenging
informative
inspiring
reflective
slow-paced
4.0