The Trickster - by Paul Radin (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

The myth of the Trickster--ambiguous creator and destroyer, cheater and cheated, subhuman and superhuman--is one of the earliest and most universal expressions of mankind. Nowhere does it survive in more starkly archaic form than in the voraciously uninhibited episodes of the Winnebago Trickster Cycle, recorded here is full. Anthropological and psychological analyses by Radin, Kerényi, and Jung reveal with Trickster as filling a twofold role: on the one hand he is "an archetypal psychic structure" that harks back to "an absolutely undifferentiated human consciousness, corresponding to a psyche that has hardly left the animal level" (Jung); on the other hand, his myth is a present-day outlet for the most unashamed and liberating satire of the onerous obligation of social order, religion, and ritual.

With commentaries by Karl Kerényi and C. G. Jung
Introduction by Stanley Diamond

Review Quotes

"A fascinating excursion into one of the more curious byways of the mind . . . The Trickster should interest many besides professional anthropologists and psychologists."
--Times [London] Literary Supplement

About the Author

PAUL RADIN (1883-1959), was an American cultural anthropologist and folklorist of the early twentieth century specializing in Native American languages and cultures, with a focus on the Winnebago Tribe. He was head of the Department of Anthropology at Brandeis University.

Stanley Diamond is a Professor at the New School for Social Research.