The Pleasure of Reading J G Frazer

Frazer is, of course, a great writer when he wants to be. There is an incredible amount of repetition and attention to detail, lists of examples that just seem to go on for page after page, but when he begins to focus on one aspect of the wider narrative or another, and to tell a story, or to paint a picture (often fanciful and highly romantic) of some tradition or another, then the language begins to soar and I am caught up in it all.

It is not just the language, however, that draws me in. I know that so much of the theory, the ideas that attempt to bring the whole text together, are idle speculation. At some point, as I work through the other eleven volumes, I will no doubt address that in more detail. I also know that he is dependent on half understood tales from non-specialists, each with their own motivations and biases, of events and ideas from across the world. There is little here that you could safely rely on as ‘ethnography’. Finally, Frazer is a colonial figure, an evolutionist, and a racist. Ideas that are clearly offensive in today’s world permeate the text and its language in a way that sometimes does make it difficult to read without getting utterly annoyed and angry.

Despite all this, however, I find the flow, the accumulation of ‘fact’ and the slow building of evidence to be captivating. There are probably two or three things that do appeal to me. The first is the knowledge and evidence from the classical world. I know this far less than the ethnographic material that Frazer quotes between the classical examples. I guess that if I did know the works he is referencing, then I might find this material just as problematic as the ethnographic work. The interpretation of the texts is probably way off the mark. I do not know whether, as evidence of any particular practice, it is a correct interpretation or not. I guess the examples are highly unlikely to reflect any real practice, at least as Frazer has interpreted them.

Again, it is not the detail, the factuality, that appeals. It is the recognition in Fazer’s writing of complexity. There is a very real sense of a diverse, complex, and constantly changing ancient world, with very few fixed points. There is no sense of simplification in this text. The work begins with a particular ritual, in a specific place, just outside Rome, and it expands out to take in so much of the rest of the ancient world. Communalities are recognised and celebrated, but always with difference and always with local variation and colour. Even in one place things are seen to change and to evolve. There is a fluidity to the reality that Frazer is describing that I have to say that I did not expect. I have no idea how accurate it is (I know the ‘pre-histories’ are entirely speculation, either Frazer’s or that of the authors he is quoting) but the variety, the complexity, and the sophistication of ancient ritual (it is not ‘religion’ that is being looked at here, but that is another story), I find fascinating.

More broadly than this sense of complexity, however, it is the way in which Frazer is consistently changing focus that I find most appealing. Frazer’s work is often described as ‘comparative’ and there is a long debate about the value, or otherwise, of comparative analysis (be it of religion or any other elements of culture). Frazer does not address that. He simply takes it for granted that the comparative method can produce interesting and provocative results. However, beyond the comparative, it is the way in which Frazer moves from the detailed, tightly focused analysis of a specific ritual, story or religious context, at one moment, to a broad-brush speculation on what it is to be human, at another. He is clear that one or other of these approaches can never be enough in and of itself.

The detailed analysis may be based on limited evidence, and even on misreadings. But it is, within the limitations of its own time, detailed, disinterested and part of a real attempt to understand and express what is going on, often from the participants own point of view. There is a recognition that this is a different world, a different thought process, a different understanding of reality from that of the reader, and Frazer does his best to make it explicable and even ‘familiar’ to the reader. He does have an eye for detail, and it is this, I would suggest, that underpins the sense of complexity that I get from the engagement with the classical literature and ethnographic examples.

On the other hand, however, Frazer’s focus can quickly move onto the larger, or even the largest, stage and he can begin to bring together large quantities of data, from many different sources (never questioning of analysing the sources as such) to make bold and challenging statements about the way humans engage with nature, with the world as they understand it, with each other, and with spiritual forces. It is the balance, the tension between the detail and the comparative that I find so compelling, the constant movement and flow in ideas. It is surprisingly easy to follow (so long as you have a good memory for pages and pages of specific examples) and each section is carefully constructed. As a reader you feel that you are being led on a journey that is at times looking at the details of a particular rite or village and at others opens out to vast, expansive views. It is exhilarating, and while it may all be absolute twaddle, it is a masterpiece of extended academic writing, perhaps even of nineteenth century myth making.