Trickster Makes This World, By Lewis Hyde

Who or what is "trickster"? According to Lewis Hyde, trickster is a "boundary crosser". Wise fools, cross-dressers and creative idiots are all tricksters; characters who confuse distinctions; individuals who are the "mythic embodiment of ambiguity and ambivalence". Driven by strange appetites, tricksters such as the Coyote in Native American cultures, or the Greek god Hermes, are heroes of culture and often worshipped as its creators. Hermes, for instance, "doesn't simply acquire fire, he invents and spreads a method, a techne, for making fire".

Identifying themes central to the trickster myth, Hyde's energetically argued chapters slide from discussions of mythical heroes to modern-day tricksters such as Allen Ginsberg and Marcel Duchamp. Throughout, though, it's impossible to ignore the absence of women. A superficial chapter tucked away in the appendix hardly helps. It cunningly avoids the serious discussion of sexual difference which would, one imagine, give the entire project a different complexion.