The Seven Basic Plots: Why We Tell Stories Book

Addendum: the New Yorker cartoonist Emily Flake implicitly argues there are only six basic plots.

Back to the regularly scheduled quasi-review…
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All in all, there is some incredibly worthwhile information here. Too bad it's overlong, and much worse: it shows a nasty writer at his opinionated nastiest.

But it looks like I never got around to constructing an actual review. So here are my notes. They'll have to do.

Recommendation:
◼︎ Read all of Section 1, containing descriptions of the seven basic plots in erudite detail.

◼︎ Skip to Chapters 21 through 24 of Section 3. These explore the "dark" and "sentimental" variations of the foregoing.

◼︎ Skim Chapters 26 and 27, wherein the author is revealed to be a sexist reactionary. Keep in mind that if one can enjoy the music of Frank Sinatra while ignoring the fact that he was a sexist jerk, one can read the balance of Booker's book with the same forbearance.

◼︎ Either read or skim Section 2, which explores commonalities of all the plot archetypes, including character archetypes. But it will probably feel pretty redundant.

◼︎ Finish with Chapters 28, 29, 25 and 30 in that order. The first two of those introduce and analyze two modern plot types; the third explores Thomas Hardy's psychological novels; the final goes into a fascinating analysis of Oedipus and Hamlet.

Some explicit details:

Section I: the seven basic plots are:
1) Overcoming the Monster (incl. subgenre "The Thrilling Escape From Death");
2) Rags to Riches;
3) The Quest;
4) Voyage and Return;
5) Comedy (not necessarily funny!);
6) Tragedy; and
7) Rebirth.

Section II: what they all have in common: the character archetypes.

Section III: "Missing the Mark" discusses how the plot archetypes go awry.

First examines each of the plots in their "Dark" and "Sentimental" versions. In the "Dark" versions, the protagonist never achieves "enlightenment" in symbolic form due to an egoistic focus. In the "Sentimental" versions, the story and ending appear happy, but without ingredients necessary for archetypal closure. (Chapters 21 to 24).

Then to Thomas Hardy (Ch. 25), documenting how his oeuvre shifted from "light" to "dark" in parallel with his increasingly frustrating and dysfunctional personal life.

p. 382: "[George:] Lucas drew on the knowledge of Joseph Campbell ... in an effort to ensure that his story matched up as faithfully as possible to their archetypal patterns and imagery. [...:] But however carefully Lucas tried to shape his script around these archetypal ground rules ... it had not got the pattern right."

Then the worst two chapters (26, 27), reeking of personal biases and opinions regarding nihilism, violence, sex and the appropriate roles for women.

First of three "modern" archetypes (mostly unseen in classic literature): (Ch. 28:) Rebellion against "The One" (except Job); then (Ch. 29:) The Mystery (actually diagnosed as usually a sentimental comedy with a hero unintegrated into the basic story).

Finally, best chapter of the book, on Oedipus and Hamlet.

Section IV: "Why we tell stories", pretty boring, unless you want an examination of how religious texts can be perceived in archetypal patterns.

Ch. 27: points out many books and films pushed out the boundaries of what was acceptable in terms of sex and violence (e.g., Texas Chainsaw Massacre). But he conflates this with a fundamental shift in the center of gravity of story-telling, ignoring that many of these extreme works have a narrow public appeal and are not considered as having intrinsic lasting importance. Frankly, his reactionary rage (notable in his columns) is barely suppressed.

Ch. 27: Sexism. In discussing the movie Alien, he states "the basic plot is very similar to that of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" (p. 486). He astonishingly ignores the fundamental distinction between mayhem performed by humans, acting as monsters, and that performed by actual monsters. The perverse horror of Chainsaw is in the very disturbing transformation of humans into monsters ' even into a family of cooperating monsters. Being killed and "consumed" by the Alien is basically no worse than an attack by a shark, or a lion.

Also, he is quite sexist here. "The image of women was becoming de-feminised. No longer were the styles of women's clothing intended to express such traditional feminine attributes as grace, allure, prettiness, elegance: they were designed to be either, in a hard direct way, sexually provocative, or sexlessly businesslike." [Frankly, I find Trinity in The Matrix (which he doesn't discuss) to be an paragon of grace, allure and elegance as well as sexually provocative.]

Apparently an archetypal hero must be masculine, and thus to portray a woman in heroic terms is a contradiction of the archetype. He sounds outraged: "There was now a premium in showing animus-driven women capable of competing with men and outperforming them in masculine terms. Female characters were expected to be show as just as clever and tough as men, mentally and physically." His only saving grace is the uncertainty whether he believes (prescriptively) that women should properly behave only in a ladylike way, or whether he believes (descriptively) that the fundamental archetypes in our psyches are limited thus. I don't think he ends up on the right side of that, though.

But, frankly, his chapters on the modern subversion of the archetypes display more irritation than admiration, and so we're left with a sneaking suspicion that the author is a social reactionary, which also seems to be evident in his columns for the Telegraph.

Consider: the author makes a strong case that these plot archetypes are fundamental and universal (as, I understand, Jung had attempted to establish with personality archetypes?). But does this make them eternal and unchanging? And even if that is given, does it make them good and true? Many inheritances from our evolutionary past are dysfunctional; perhaps it is proper that we should rebel against aspects of these archetypes, especially those that are arbitrarily constraining. Booker doesn't perceive this possibility, implicitly treating any deviation from his perception of these rules as dysfunctional. Although he isn't consistent: The fact that the heroic Ripley in Alien is a woman he finds distressing; the fact that Oedipus marries and has children with his mother is brilliance. The distinction here is that Oedipus is punished for violating the norm, which Booker approves of, while Ripley is rewarded for being heroic. (I'd previously seen this as inconsistent, but belatedly recognized it's all about the norms, whether they're neurological or cultural.)

Ch. 31 (beginning of Part IV): "[If:] there is one thing we have seen emerging from the past few hundred pages it is the extent to which the stories told by even the greatest of them are not their own." The stories told by Shakespeare, Dickens, Hugo ' not their own? Because they have been influenced by ghostly skeletons of plots and characters in their subconscious? This is incredibly arrogant. Booker has spent so many decades in his labors that he can't see the forest for the trees.

Side note illuminating arrogance: fn. 3, p. 553: "Various attempts have been made in recent years to provide a scientific definition of the difference between human consciousness and that of other animals. A *fundamental flaw* in all of them lies in their failure to take account of the consequences arising from the split between ego and instinct…." Booker ' a journalist and author ' apparently believes himself competent to evaluate and judge any effort, regardless of the expertise involved.

Minor annoyance: Q: does the quote attributed to Churchill belongs to Bernard Shaw? (p. 576)