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The Seven Basic Plots

The Seven Basic Plots

The Seven Basic Plots
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The Seven Basic Plots Papeback -

by Christopher Booker

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This seller has earned a 3.76 of 5 Stars rating from internet customers.
3.76 / 5 (1803 total reviews)
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Bloomsbury Publishing , pp. 736 . Papeback. New.
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Details

  • Title The Seven Basic Plots
  • Author Christopher Booker
  • Binding Papeback
  • Condition New
  • Pages 736
  • Volumes 1
  • Language ENG
  • Publisher Bloomsbury Publishing
  • Publication date pp. 736
  • Features Bibliography, Index
  • Bookseller's Inventory # 6376345013
  • ISBN 9781472976185 / 1472976185
  • Weight 2.1 lbs (0.95 kg)
  • Dimensions 9.2 x 6 x 2.1 in (23.37 x 15.24 x 5.33 cm)
  • Category Language Arts / Linguistics / Literacy
  • Library of Congress subjects Literature - Stories, plots, etc, Plots (Drama, novel, etc.)
  • Dewey Decimal Code 809.924
  • Quantity available 4

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Reader reviews for The Seven Basic Plots

Review summary

This seller has earned a 3.76 of 5 Stars rating from internet customers.
3.76 / 5 (1803 total reviews)

Christopher Booker's "The Seven Basic Plots" is a 700-page literary analysis that proposes all stories derive from seven archetypal plot structures rooted in Jungian psychology. The book received sharply divided opinions. Supporters praised its ambitious scope, original insights into narrative structure, and practical value for writers seeking to understand storytelling mechanics. Critics argued the work is repetitive, overly long, marred by outdated Jungian theory presented without rigorous academic support, and undermined by the author's conservative ideological biases regarding gender roles, sexuality, and modern literature. Many readers found the first section on the seven plots genuinely useful, but grew increasingly uncomfortable with later sections where the author judges modern fiction and culture through a moralistic lens.

Readers say this book is:
thought-provoking ambitious repetitive dogmatic sexist insightful useful for writers reactionary illuminating infuriating

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From the publisher

This remarkable and monumental book at last provides a comprehensive answer to the age-old riddle of whether there are only a small number of 'basic stories' in the world. Using a wealth of examples, from ancient myths and folk tales via the plays and novels of great literature to the popular movies and TV soap operas of today, it shows that there are seven archetypal themes which recur throughout every kind of storytelling.

But this is only the prelude to an investigation into how and why we are 'programmed' to imagine stories in these ways, and how they relate to the inmost patterns of human psychology. Drawing on a vast array of examples, from Proust to detective stories, from the Marquis de Sade to E.T., Christopher Booker then leads us through the extraordinary changes in the nature of storytelling over the past 200 years, and why so many stories have 'lost the plot' by losing touch with their underlying archetypal purpose.

Booker analyses why evolution has given us the need to tell stories and illustrates how storytelling has provided a uniquely revealing mirror to mankind's psychological development over the past 5000 years.

This seminal book opens up in an entirely new way our understanding of the real purpose storytelling plays in our lives, and will be a talking point for years to come.

About the author

Christopher Booker writes for the Sunday Telegraph and is the bestselling author of The Seven Basic Plots, The Real Global Warming Disaster, The Great Deception and Scared to Death (all published by Bloomsbury Continuum). He has been an author and journalist for nearly 50 years, and was the founding editor of the satirical magazine Private Eye.

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