DON’T KNOW MUCH ABOUT MYTHOLOGY: EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT THE GREATEST STORIES IN HUMAN HISTORY BUT NEVER LEARNED

BY KENNETH C. DAVIS

HARPERCOLLINS, 560 PAGES, $26.95

IN 1987, Dan Gookin’s “DOS for Dummies” tried to explain the DOS computer program in a simple and funny way that most educated adults could get. Since then the “For Dummies” series has become a media franchise inspiring spin-offs like the “Idiot’s Guide” and Kenneth C. Davis’ series “Don’t Know Much About,” which includes a truncated version of American history, the bible, Civil War, geography and outer space.

Davis’ latest, “Don’t Know Much About Mythology,” attempts to parse Asian, Greek, Celtic, African and American Indian mythologies in nine straightforward chapters.

Now, it may be correct that “Don’t Know Much About Mythology”serves a useful purpose; most readers would never learn the first thing about Chinese or Native American mythology without a book like this. But somewhere in the middle of the Greek mythology chapter I began to wonder why you couldn’t just skip this book and go directly to Ovid.

Knowledge of mythology is more or less essential for the serious study of literature. Anyone can appreciate Shakespeare and James Joyce, but their feats become so much more impressive after reading Ovid’s “Metamorphoses” and Homer’s “Odyssey.” All the struggles, searches and transformations that obsessed the Greeks are just as relevant and unanswered to these authors.

The deconstruction of folklore and mythology, moreover, was profoundly relevant to Freud, Jung and countless others who saw so much of human experience in these stories.

So what is the use of paring down Homer? “The Odyssey” is about the entirety of Odysseus’ efforts to get back home; reading some sort of “Cliffs Notes” version would seem to miss the point.

Davis does a proficient job of relating the basics. And the book has some marvelous tidbits. I knew virtually nothing about Japanese, Chinese, African and American Indian mythology, and it’s difficult not to be enthralled with the African creation myth about Bumba who essentially vomits up the earth, sun and stars into existence, or the Cain-and-Abel-like struggle between the Japanese god Amaterasu and his brother Susano. (Sibling rivalry is, indeed, a universal condition. One sees why Freud loved mythology so dearly.)

Davis has also charged himself with the admirable and (forgive the word) Herculean task of trying to capture a huge assortment of cultures and folklore. He peppers the text with titles from anthropology, literature and psychology. At the very least, readers will take away a great reading list.

But Davis’ writing can be lazy; in discussing Celtic mythology he writes, “Unlike the great civilizations before them, the Celts left very few indelible marks . . . [There was] no Gilgamesh, no Book of the Dead, no Iliad, no Holy Bible.” Two paragraphs later Davis writes: “There are large gaps in the record. The Celts did not leave behind pyramids and temples, libraries filled with cuneiform tablets and ancient cities waiting to be unearthed.” We got the idea the first time. And Davis adds little depth to these tales.

A friend spotted the book under my arm one morning and said, “Do they talk at all about Norse mythology?” He then proceeded to outline the Manichean struggles between good and evil of Norse mythology so vividly and emotionally that I was really excited to get to the appropriate chapter.

Davis dutifully described the collection of Norse gods – Thor and Odin and Loki – but his enthusiasm was definitely cooler than my friend’s.

Max Gross’ last review for The Post was “1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus.”