The first manual in writing fiction that isn’t about writing fiction but about human myths: The hero with a thousand faces
It is a book. Yeah, sure. Any manual should be or at least be a bunch of stapled copies. Right?
It is one of those books recommended by other authors in different places as a basic referral on how to write fiction. Robert McKee being one (and the only one I remember at this precise minute in spite of remembering vaguely it was mentioned related to the magical object given to the hero in some Google search).
The thing, also recommended by marriage therapist psychologists[1] , was written by a said Joseph Campbell (who later founded a society under his name focused into the research of myths) and it is some kind of rustic divan session applied to different human myths and its structure. Why to read it and why not to read it? Books are double edged swords, aren’t they?
CONS:
- It speaks about the anxiety and problems akin to human beings before the digital revolution… According to Nuval Yoah Harariin “Homo Deus”: that what worried humans as species and takes them to get excited with stories like the Bible has changed. The worries of the species are different and much more individual than what they used to be.
- But of course COVID 19, came to remember us some of those worries from ancient times (the plague, war and death). We haven’t changed to the point of speaking about millennials and z generation as if we’re talking of aliens. There is no way to really know if one belongs to this or that group when you’re in the border ages mentioned in definitions. And since definitions are anything but clear, it’s kinda preposterous to assume the average youngster will not worry about the meaning of life, their mortality and armed conflicts. Not to mention, the only ones obsessed with dividing people into these groups, Zweitgeist like style, are Caucasian.
- Occasionally, the stories turn up being mystical since they speak about the psychological human relation to the universe through more elevated purposes.If the elevation depends on stairs or rockets, it beats me. I mean, they go on about the meaning of life. So to say so, it becomes a little bit religious instead of psychological and yet… That’s cause religions are some kind of human mind control which requires psychology.
- It analyzes a bunch of stories so if you haven’t read them already, you might feel kinda ignorant or lost.
PROS
- It establishes a relationship myth (story) to the psychological need of the three most life passage ceremonies there are: birth, initiation to adulthood and dead. Which explains why Harry Potter is as popular. It is a hero that goes through all them (the last implies Voldemorth and his own death so he can be reborn into a normal human being again) thanks to parental love. This reality is taken into account in videogame design and other stories to get our empathy.
- If like me, you’ve never assisted to any of the Ivy League schools and your education doesn’t include the classical Greeks or Latin ones; you will find (unfortunately incomplete or fragmented), some of the most basic morsels of classical literary education so you can look them up somewhere else. With a lot of brainy and wise opinions around the story body. Few times translated to Spanish or maybe I didn’t look them up sufficiently.
- The list of the mentioned books comes around like the 100 books you gotta read before dying. Better said, it is an idea of how to start acquiring ideas and/or which kind of stories to look up as models in spite of their age.
Are you reading it? Is there any other book with this kind of approach you know and can share with a review?
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[1] As single as I am, that doesn’t help me from getting to know stuff. No, the source is privately confidential since I’ve already forgotten their names.