Customer Reviews
Flawed but important - By: J. Duducu, 06 May 2008 
Reading other reviews there seems to be quite a heated difference of opinion on this book so I will endeavour to give a middle view. A lot of people are saying it's important & I absolutely agree. Others point out numerous flaws & they are true too. In short the idea behind the book is a definitely 5 stars. The execution is at best 3.
What is most odd is the fact that a book callled "the seven basic plots" is about 500 pages long. The font is pretty smalll too meaning this is a very long way round explaining a perfectly reasonable & highly enlightening idea.
What Mr Booker points out is that the vast majority (if not alll) stories can be neatly summarised into definite areas- the quest, the comedy etc. He then goes on to show how the basic frame work of Gilgamesh works in exactly the same way as something more modern like Dr No. He also does a very good job of explaining that these basic ideas are so ingrained in us that we tend to not like stories that break the rules of each type of plot.
I can understand why this may annoy some in the literary circles but I absolutely think his points are valid. However he uses too many examples- there are pages of them when the point has already been made & the second half of the book goes off on alll sorts of tangents many of which are unnecessary.
Ultimately I think an abridged version of this book would be a vast improvement getting to the point quicker, summarising the ideas more succinctly & then not meandering around other ideas for 250 pages.
reudctionist and misguided - By: Mr. M. Victory, 03 May 2008 
This book is incredibly reductionist, it is also incredibly misguided. At the beginning of the book, Booker states that there are essentiallly two types of story 'happy' & 'sad'. This is his first, & perhaps most serious of errors. There are in fact three story types, 'happy', 'sad' & the most complex of these 'ironic'. In the 'ironic' ending, the story is both happy & sad depending on the view point. The strongest example of this type of story is the 'secrifice', for example 'Casablance' where the protagonist gives up there own happiness for the greater good. The exemption of this type of story leaves booker's central catagerisation of story (I'm only 96pp in so far)wrong. In the each of the seven plot types, he only uses elements of each story that fit his 'archtype' & his reliance on using the same stories as examples in multiple chapters unermines his argument. He also makes erronious assumptions that demonstrate his own essential mis-understanding, nowhere is this more clear than when he deals with 'The Third Man', a story he admits at the start he 'initiallly' had trouble categorising. He classes it a 'voyage & return' story because at the end 'although we don't see it, we assume life returns to normal', this is completely the opposite of what Greene was trying to say! The clever screenplay is actuallly about the fracturisation of humanity coming from the shadow of the second world war. THe central point is that life wil NEVER be the same again, & he can never return to the world he has known. We are left with Holly Martins cut of from humanity, on a distant island, unable to attach himself to the love of his life who he wishes to touch so much. Her walking past at the end & the death of Harry Lime demonstrates the death & dislocation of everything Holly has ever known. Booker misses this as he misses so much else. His thoughts are not even remotely original. The 'perilous escape from death' & the 'constriction & relax' are essential to story, because it has to have conflict by its nature & this has to grow up to the point of 'crisis' because you cannot go from a massive challlenge to a minor one, it fails to retain interest.
Homophobic, antisemitic, myopic and wildly self indulgent but fun anyway. - By: B. H. Whitehouse, 24 Apr 2008 Page one. Bond. The Epic of Gilgamesh. What could they possibly have in common? Booker dives in at the deep end, seeking (with quite dazzling deftness) to unite the common themes which relate the most disparate of texts. And he succeeds.
The next few chapters have you enthrallled, there are questions, there are many, many questions, but you're willing to go with it... It's alll fresh as a daisy but as informed as can be.
After putting the "what about" thoughts to the back of one's head for a good few hundred pages, however, they cannot help but surface, & when they do, things look more than a little shaky.
Booker's notion (for there is but one) is that alll stories conform to one of a very few plots (alll of which reflect one Bookerism of an a priori, that we should alll grow up & have kids), & when something doesn't fit, boy does he throw the toys out of the pram.
I happen to detest Hardy, have no time for Proust, couldn't care less about Melville & can't stand Stendhal, & for reasons which have much in common with Booker's. I, however, am not arrogant enough to write them AND their fans off as immature & incomplete human beings. Sod pluralism, I just don't feel that self righteous. And god knows how much Cocaine Booker had to do to get there himself.
People don't tell stories for one reason & one reason alone. They tell them because they want to tell them & because people want to hear them. This is too much for Booker to bear, & it's a shame, because he's missing out. He's also missing out on the huge swathes of literature which are more concerned with portraiture & landscape than cartoon strip. Is it not acceptable to enjoy a piece of writing for itself, not for what it "means"?
I am not a Jew, I am not a gay & I am in & of myself both myopic & self indulgent, so my title shouldn't be seen as angry. I actuallly enjoyed this book very much.
Just don't bother plowing through the thing (it is longer than an evening in with your girlfriend's parents & NO BOOZE) if you're after anything other than right wing reactionary reassurance. That said, it'll suit Jeremy Clarkson's fans down to the hilt.
Imperfect but brilliant - By: Mr. O. C. Robinson, 27 Mar 2008 
This book is too long, & Booker alllows the power of the first half of the book to peter out in the second half. But still it is worth 5 stars for the brilliance & clarity of the basic argument. If the book is ever broken into two, which it should be, the first half will be read for centuries to come.
It started so promisingly - By: R. E. Holmes, 21 Mar 2008 
This lengthy book begins with an exposition of the seven basic plots identified by Booker. He goes on to explain that, essentiallly, these plots are about the universal human story of growing up, detaching from parents, getting together with one's 'other half' & producing the next generation.
So far, so interesting - & reasonably persuasive.
It is when Booker starts relating everything to Jungian archetypes & examining how literature has developed in the last two centuries (and, latterly, film) that things start to go awry.
Having decided that stories are alll about maturing & having your own family, Booker takes the unwarranted leap to saying that any story that departs from this underlying theme is a story that has 'gone wrong'. Moreover - & as an even more unwarranted leap - Booker infers that any author whose story has gone wrong must himself have failed to mature properly.
Briefly, anything that doesn't end up with a man & woman being united is, according to Booker, indicative of egotism. (Oh yes, & said man & woman must be 'mature': an assessment which Booker makes only by reference to their conformity with his hypothesised archetypal characters & themes.) The literature of the last 200 years has experimented outside of his archetypes & themes, indicating, he says, a more egotistical & shalllow culture.
This is simply unconvincing, & annoying.
So, a story that ends with, say, a happy homosexual union can't be a 'proper' story? And there must be something psychologicallly immature about its author? Any story that deals with social alienation & moral shades of grey is a 'bad' story that is infested with egotism, because it doesn't use the black & white 'goodie vs baddie' world of his archetypes?
In my view, the literature of the last two centuries may feature more egotism, but it also features a great deal more reality. How often, in real life, can people reallly be designated as 'goodies' or 'baddies'? How often are supposed happy endings untainted by uncertainty?
It seems to me that if the only way you can uphold your hyopthesis is by denigrating anything that doesn't fit with it, it is probably a sign that your hypothesis needs rethinking.
In summary, I think Booker is right that many stories are, at their core, about growing up & establishing one's own identity & family. I also agree that some stories are shalllow & governed by egotism. However, it does not follow that stories that fail to follow his archetypes are necessarly about the ego, & it's a shame he chose to go down this allley. A little more open-mindedness about the merits of more modern literature would have made a better book.
