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The Gift: Creativity and the Artist in the Modern World Paperback – December 4, 2007
“A manifesto of sorts for anyone who makes art [and] cares for it.” —Zadie Smith
“The best book I know of for talented but unacknowledged creators. . . . A masterpiece.” —Margaret Atwood
“No one who is invested in any kind of art . . . can read The Gift and remain unchanged.” —David Foster Wallace
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. 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.
- Print length464 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherVintage
- Publication dateDecember 4, 2007
- Dimensions5.2 x 0.96 x 8 inches
- ISBN-100307279502
- ISBN-13978-0307279507
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Editorial Reviews
Review
“The best book I know of for talented but unacknowledged creators. . . . A masterpiece.” —Margaret Atwood
“No one who is invested in any kind of art . . . can read The Gift and remain unchanged.” —David Foster Wallace
“Few books are such life-changers as The Gift: epiphany, in sculpted prose.” —Jonathan Lethem
“A manifesto of sorts for anyone who makes art [and] cares for it.” —Zadie Smith
“This long-awaited new edition of Lewis Hyde's groundbreaking and influential study of creativity is a cause for across-the-board celebration.” —Geoff Dyer
About the Author
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Product details
- Publisher : Vintage; 25th Anniversary edition (December 4, 2007)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 464 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0307279502
- ISBN-13 : 978-0307279507
- Item Weight : 11.7 ounces
- Dimensions : 5.2 x 0.96 x 8 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #352,341 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #930 in Arts & Photography Criticism
- #1,062 in Literary Criticism & Theory
- #1,269 in Creativity (Books)
- Customer Reviews:
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Customers find the book thought-provoking and inspiring. They describe it as an excellent read that is well-written and worth their time. Readers appreciate the insights into the creative process and gifting.
AI-generated from the text of customer reviews
Customers find the book thought-provoking and inspiring. It opens a new way of understanding the creative process and provides a context for purpose, pleasure, and reciprocation. Readers appreciate the practical wisdom and insights.
"...The depth of his insights are staggering, and in the end they recontextualized a good portion of my own liberal arts education...." Read more
"...But this book was in there first, is still better to my mind, full of sudden insight, easy to read, beautifully written, life changing...." Read more
"...THE GIFT: CREATIVITY AND THE ARTIST IN THE MODERN WORLD is a thought-provoking read for those who seek an understanding of the unseen forces that..." Read more
"...I did enjoy the histories and the folk tales. I got the premise of the book. I thought there was a pitch for the Warhol foundation at the end...." Read more
Customers find the book easy to read and engaging. They say it's a great resource for creative people looking to connect. The writing is beautiful and expresses thoughts well. Readers appreciate the insights and quality of the text.
"...This meant that I had plenty of time and less reason to be distracted...." Read more
"...But this book was in there first, is still better to my mind, full of sudden insight, easy to read, beautifully written, life changing...." Read more
"Honestly one of the best books I’ve ever encountered...." Read more
"...It is a great asset to creative people looking to get in touch with a deeper sense of meaning when it comes to presenting their work to their..." Read more
Customers appreciate the book's insights into gifting and its importance in various societies. They find it helpful for understanding the purpose, pleasure, and reciprocation of giving art.
"...The gift economy is spiritual in nature, and the primary difference between it and commercial economy is that grasping at or hoarding a gift..." Read more
"...fact, the first 2/3 of the book is filled with marvelous revelations on the subject of gifting, revelations that would certainly help anyone who's..." Read more
"...purpose, pleasure and reciprocation aspects of giving art, giving your gift of talent, and puts you in touch with how we all should be giving more,..." Read more
"...Marcel Mauss wrote a great, short Essay on the Gift, and many anthropologists including Levi-Strauss have wrestled with it, and I think it's fabulous..." Read more
Top reviews from the United States
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- Reviewed in the United States on October 3, 2009I 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 Lewis Hyde 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...
- Reviewed in the United States on December 23, 2014Deserves a constellation of stars. I have read this book many times, and just recently read it again, and it is even better than I remembered. There is now an entire literature on the relationship between a gift economy and a market economy, spawned in part by work of Jacques Derrida and others in the higher reaches of theology (e.g. the grace of God as a gift). But this book was in there first, is still better to my mind, full of sudden insight, easy to read, beautifully written, life changing. The amusing thing is that the author is under the impression that it is about artists: that is a tiny fraction of its insight -- it is really an attack on the entire world view in which we operate, and opens up whole ranges of spiritual understanding. A well run society would send a free gift copy to everyone.
- Reviewed in the United States on October 11, 2014"It is an assumption of this book that art is a gift, not a commodity."
Hyde opens his treatise on the nature of Art as a gift with anthropological studies of gift exchange coupled with folklore. The diverse sources provide an excellent depiction of the two economies in which the artist (and her art) must participate. One economy is the visible, capitalistic one of which we are all aware in a daily, accounting-ledger way. This is the economy of commerce, and Hyde traces the origins of capitalistic wealth and usury, plumbing the disconnect between the "evergreen value" of art and the banal "exhaustible" value of capitalistic wealth. In opposition is the second economy, that of the gift. The gift economy is spiritual in nature, and the primary difference between it and commercial economy is that grasping at or hoarding a gift destroys the gift economy. The gift must move to participate in the economy, and many of the folktales illustrate that treating a gift as a commodity results in loss, sorrow, or even death.
Perhaps understanding how opposed such an economy is to our (Western) way of coalescing and amassing fortunes, Hyde provides a modern day example of the gift economy: Alcoholics Anonymous. In AA, the newcomer is taught that to keep the gift of sobriety, she must someday pass the gift of her hope, strength and experience to someone else. Like the gifts in the various anthropological studies, the value of the AA teachings are in the sharing of them, to wit the AA saying, "You have to give it away to keep it." In terms of an artist and her art, however, issues become blurry because there is the persistent need of the artist to clothe, feed, and shelter herself. If art is to be her living, how can she avoid killing the divinity of the gift and still traffic in it as a commodity? Hyde proposes that the artist must split herself into two modes of interacting with the different economies. Whitman and Ezra Pound are presented as cases studies of (somewhat) modern artists encountering the modern world impinging on their gifts. Whitman, it seems, stayed truer to his gift whereas some unnamed disappointment led Pound to pervert his gift into a hateful ideology. Hyde's point here is that the artist, much like the ill-fated daughters of the opening folktale, will be damaged if he does not find a way to be true to his gift - despite all societal pressure to the contrary. A lost artist is one who cannot fulfill the gift by giving their art away, or who twist their art to some other purpose . This doesn't mean an artist must never accept money for her work, but that she must maintain the purity of her pursuit of producing and sharing the gift separate from her pursuit of money.
How to do this, how to create and earn a living without subverting the nature of the gift? Hyde doesn't answer the question of <i>how</i> to preserve the gift in the modern world. Instead, he illustrates why it is imperiled by modern commerce. The epilog describes some common solutions for artists, including a long section on the rise and fall of American patronage (hint: it owes much to the Cold War). This section is the only place where the book, which was originally published in 1983, shows its age by failing to address the mechanism of crowdfunding. The employ of an agent is another common solution to the problem of working in two economies; the agent handles the commerce economy, thus freeing the artist to remain exclusively in the realm of the gift. The vast majority of modern artists, though, have solved the problem of money by having a "second job." As a writer myself, I love that Hyde puts the emphasis on the secondary nature of doing anything that is not a direct effort towards my gift and craft. THE GIFT: CREATIVITY AND THE ARTIST IN THE MODERN WORLD is a thought-provoking read for those who seek an understanding of the unseen forces that can cultivate or kill an artist's gift.
- Reviewed in the United States on August 19, 2013This book has done more to add to my insight into the human experience than any other this year. Hyde explores the difference between the gift society in anthropological terms, and the exchange society in which we live. He ties religious/spiritual life and the flow of gifts, sacrifice and the artist's vocation. He uses The Elves and the Shoemaker as an example of a wisdom tale portraying the emergence of a creative vocation, and connects the artist's creative flow with the sort of gifting that is intrinsic to gift societies as opposed to exchange society. The last section of the book on Whitman and Pound wasn't as interesting to me, basically literary criticism with a twist. Despite this fact, the first 2/3 of the book is filled with marvelous revelations on the subject of gifting, revelations that would certainly help anyone who's confused, frustrated, or just curious about the embedded human experience of gifting, which can be pretty tough to deal with in contemporary American culture as it was for me.
Top reviews from other countries
- CraigReviewed in Germany on February 14, 2021
5.0 out of 5 stars The Gift
Excellent
- Amazon CustomerReviewed in Canada on December 4, 2016
5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
Excellent book on creativity and gift culture. A wonderful inspiration for any aspiring writer or artist.
- david cowleReviewed in the United Kingdom on January 11, 2015
5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
prmpt delivery in good condition.very satisfied
- Standards GeekReviewed in Japan on July 2, 2016
5.0 out of 5 stars The Gift of Art: Does What Goes Around, Come Around?
"The Gift" is a great book, though deeply flawed according to its own goal. The analysis of artists and their art in part 2 does not persuade. Indeed, Whitman and Pound suffer a compulsion to write poetry which they gave to the world, and they were gifted to write great poetry. But the concrete notion of gift economy that the author take such great pains to develop in the first half remains there, and becomes an abstraction not grounded in the reality of those authors' lives or work in the second.
The book is great because the author paints a very persuasive picture of the gift economy in the first half of the book. After 20 years of observing the gift economy known as "open source software development", 15 years after Eric Raymond made the point that it is a gift economy, 10 years after Steven Weber identified the "right to distribute" as the fundamental legal structure of open source, and 5 years of my own formal study of an open source development community, this philistine, card-carrying market economist finally has a useful model for the gift economy. Hyde assembles a wide variety of anthropological and sociological evidence demonstrating the reality and internal functionality of gift economies, and provides a sociological theory of "the gift" as a transfer of value that "remains in motion". Obviously the anthropology is not Hyde's, as he documents sources carefully. I don't care if the sociology is original, because his writing brings it alive, and clearly demonstrates the link between the copious anthropological data and his manifold philosophy of the gift. Its several manifestations range from the systematic gift economies of "potlatch" to the testimony of creative people that their "creations" do not originate in them, but originate "elsewhere" and merely "pass through" them.
The second part is not so satisfying. As a pair of "portraits of the artist as the whole man", the vignettes of Whitman and Pound are given life by the author's warmth. Yet they are unsuccessful in drawing the connection between the gifted individual and a surrounding gift economy. We learn that Whitman was compelled to give not only through his poetry, and that Pound was very generous to young artists. But what convinces in the first part is the picture of entire societies where gifts slowly orbit from person to person or clan to clan, eventually to return to the giver. This kind of gift economy reaches its purest form in the ritual gifts of the Kula ring, where armshells and necklaces revolve through the islands in opposite circles.
There are two problems in the second part. The first is the distraction of the term "gift exchange", which in this context is an oxymoron. My epiphany in the first part was the realization that these systematic gifts did constitute "an economy", that is, a social mechanism for determining the allocation and distribution of value in a closed system. But it is not an exchange economy. In the case of the Kula ring, it's true that gifts are "exchanged" in the sense that armshells move in one direction and necklaces in the other around the ring. Yet the value is not compared, and it is important that the rings are closed. Thus this exchange is merely formal, and exchange is not the fundamental mechanism: the gift is.
The second problem is more essential. Any description of the gifting of individuals is necessarily incomplete: we do not see the circle closed (unless it really is an exchange of value for value!) Even in the folk tales of the first part, we see where the gifts come from, and we learn that they eventually return to the source. In the portraits of Whitman and Pound, we catch glimpses of such processes, but they are not well-documented. What are the bounds of the gift economies that the poets participated in? What mechanisms ensured that "what goes around, comes around"? What are we to make of the "leakage" of the gift of art into the wider society? The flaw is not that these questions aren't answered (Hyde did not set that goal for himself). It's that they aren't raised. (I owe the construction of these questions to a recent reading of Merton's essay, "Paradigm for a Sociology of Knowledge.")
I won't bore you with the usual metaphor about flaws in great works, just repeat: this is a great book. I spent many more letters on the problems than on the merits -- because the first part is a a work of art, trying to explain it would be something of a "spoiler", and I couldn't do it justice, anyway. Just read it! As for the second part, I admit that it may be my own training and habits of thought that limited me to "glimpses" of the gift economy in which artists live. But I think it was more generally obscure. Thus, by raising the questions in some detail here, I hope to provide a focus for the perceptions of others, perhaps in that way contributing to a future elaboration of the philosophy of a gift economy of art.
- sharon eReviewed in Canada on November 17, 2015
3.0 out of 5 stars A hardcopy of this book would be worth if for any author/artist
This novel looses some of its aesthetic appeal in kindle form. The author clearly sought to present a visually appealing object when placing quotes, which is lost in the digital format. Long quotes do not appear indented, and it is often misleading when they start and stop. Some of the illustrations did not make it into the kindle file as well. Content wise, a must read for any artist/author, but Hyde can be repetitious and bland at times. He gets lost in hermeneutical circles and seems to lack the literary power to get himself out or clarify some of his points.