Great book that takes some of the famous christian authors and looks into the area of mythmaking. Inspiring.

First let me try a working definition of myth: take a value such as heroism, love, sacrifice, struggle, hope, and a quest, and weave a story around it, a story populated with humans and/or nonhumans, and magic outside of time or space. For Christians include faith and trust and the battle between good and evil.

This author says, "Myth is something people desperately need, cannot, in fact, live without. No other demand profoundly defines our humanity...The imagination in its highest reaches must have myth; it is a bridge that spans the gap between man and the eternal."

I cannot disagree. My favorite chapters were the ones about Tolkien and Lewis.

This is a hard book to review because in a lot of ways it's only as interesting as the author he's discussing. So, the section on Bunyan was mostly dull and dry, but Tolkien was fascinating.
Rolland Hein's basic premise is engaging and he examines it thoroughly in the work of various authors. Taken as a counterpoint to Joseph Campbell, it's really interesting.

But I was disappointed in the balance of authors discussed. He goes into great detail with Dante and Bunyon and Chesterton and MacDonald and Williams but doesn't discuss Lewis' Narnia series at all and doesn't even devote an entire chapter to Madeleine L'Engle, even though her name is on the cover (even before Tolkien). I enjoyed being able to glance through the history of the older authors and seeing the effect they had on later storytellers. But, I then wanted more time spent discussing those modern authors whose work is more widely known to a modern audience.

Particularly, Lewis and L'Engle. I understand The Chronicles of Narnia are less mythological than Lewis' other books, but they are his widest read fantasy and I think it would have been interesting to bring them into the conversation. L'Engle also, I think, deserved more discussion of her various works. Especially since, like Tolkien and Lewis, she wrote quite a bit of non-fiction discussing myth and art and faith so she had a great perspective on her own work.

"Whether or not people are aware of the fact, they cannot live without myth, nor can they reach full stature as people without true myths. Wrong myths destroy lives; those only partially true affect the human spirit like disease. A proper response to true myth is necessary to moral and spiritual health."

Interesting insight into several key authors who wove their faith into their fiction. I enjoyed learning about a few favorites and added a couple more authors to my TBR pile based on the information about them.

MYTHOPOEIA is the word used by Rolland Hein to describe the writing styles of the authors reviewed and the analysis is excellent.

C.S. Lewis George MacDonald
G.K. Chesterton J.R.R. Tolkien
John Bunyan Madeleine L'Engle
Charles Williams Walter Wangerin

"Making and experiencing myth are universal human realities. Hein, ever aware of the fact, leads us on a tour of Christian mythmaking from Bunyan to Wangerin. An enlightening, refreshing, and motivating work." J.I. Packer,professor of Theology, Regent College.

Christian Mythmakers is an overview of the modern myths (in the higher sense of stories tapping into universal truths) created by the authors in the title. Hein's insight and criticism oscillate between piercing and cursory, depending on the author and work in question. Despite enjoying some of the sections and passages, I had some issues with Hein's choices of author and the varying levels of consistency in his examination of myth in their works.

Bunyan's inclusion is odd, as his influence on the others is almost negligible aside from Lewis' Pilgrim's Regress and Hurnard's Hind's Feet on High Places. However, Hein's notes on Bunyan's life and its influence on Pilgrim's Progress were helpful in gaining a better understanding of both man and story.

His section on MacDonald was surprisingly not his best, despite the fact Hein's other books are almost exclusively about MacDonald. His best section -- the most insightful and deepest roving -- is the section on Charles Wiliams, which examines Williams' works in a mythic sense both individually and as a whole.

Hein's chapters on Tolkien and Lewis are surprisingly lacking. Tolkien's works are given a piecemeal examination wherein Hein touches on his chosen themes (such as the roles of women, nature, and language) in a less than comprehensive fashion. As for Lewis, while the bulk of his fiction is addressed, Narnia is absent, despite its intense mythic ties.

The final chapter covers L'Engle, Wangerin, Siegel, and Hurnard, and none of them are given even a third of the attention the rest of the authors are. L'Engle is given the most time of the four, and even then Hein's practice of covering less than he ought to continues. The first two of her Murry family books are examined, but the third (A Swiftly Tilting Planet) is ignored despite its continuance of the themes Hein points out in the previous two books. Wangerin is given a page or two devoted to one of his lesser known books, while his mythic duology (The Book of the Dun Cow and The Book of Sorrows) isn't even mentioned. Siegel's inclusion seems odd given his lack of connection to a string of authors who are otherwise connected by inspiration, influence, and personal relationships. Hurnard's allegory (despite its acknowledged connections to Bunyan) is given a brief but uninspiring examination.

This was a perfectly fine work and I am glad I read it. I was a little distracted by the authors biases which he made abundantly known. I also wish he would have interacted with some of the lesser known mythic works of some of these great authors. At times it felt like he was just summarizing works the reader is likely to have already read.

I did learn several things from this book though, and there was a lot of content I suspect to be revisiting.

“The imagination in its highest reaches must have myth; it is a bridge that spans the gap between man and the eternal.”

I read this every once in a while, and probably walk away with the same feeling each time. I can't sit and read through the entire thing. It's full of information but it is dry. It almost reads like a thesis, which maybe it is but I feel as if it is missing something. The best way for me to go to this book is to scan the different sections and focus on one or two authors at a time. That helps me to take in the information and figure out what I want to do with it without feeling overwhelmed.