The Seven Basic Plots

....remarkable parallels between the structure of the modern film Jaws and that of the Old English Beowulf. * Writing Magazine * If you have any interest in fiction and the way it works, you will enjoy this exploration of the seven basic plots and how they have been adapted and developed across the centuries. * Writing Magazine * This magisterial volume really does offer readers a genuinely fresh and exciting perspective on virtually every tale ever told. -- Bookmark Fantastically entertaining -- The Times This book...has mind-expanding properties. Not only for anyone interested in literature, but also for those fascinated by wider questions of how human beings organise their societies and explain the outside world to their inmost selves, it is fascinating. -- Katherine Sale * FT * Christopher Booker's mammoth account of plot types, archetypes, their role in literary history and where Western culture has gone horribly wrong. * Times Literary Supplement * His prose is a model of clarity, and his lively enthusiasm for fictions of every description is infectious...The Seven Basic Plots is...one of the most diverting works on storytelling I've ever encountered. -- Dennis Dutton * The Washington Post * This is the most extraordinary, exhilarating book. It always seemed to me that 'the story' was God's way of giving meaning to crude creation. Booker now interprets the mind of God, and analyses not just the novel - which will never to me be quite the same again - but puts the narrative of contemporary human affairs into a new perspective. If it took its author a lifetime to write, one can only feel gratitude that he did it. -- Fay Weldon An enormous piece of work...nothing less than the story of all stories. And an extraordinary tale it is ... Booker ranges over vast tracts of literature, drawing together the plots of everything from Beowulf to Bond, from Sophocles to soap opera, from Homer to Homer Simpson, to show the underlying parallels in stories from what appear to be the most disparate sources. If stories are about "what happens next", this book sets out to show that the answer is always "the same things", then to explain why. I found it absolutely fascinating. -- Ian Hislop * Private Eye * This is literally an incomparable book, because there is nothing to compare it with. It goes to the heart of man's cultural evolution through the stories we have told since storytelling began. It illuminates our nature, our beliefs and our collective emotions by shining a bright light on them from a completely new angle. Original, profound, fascinating - and on top of it all, a really good read. -- Sir Antony Jay, co-author of Yes, Minister I have been quite bowled over by Christopher Booker's new book. It is so well planned with an excellent beginning and the contrasts and comparisons throughout are highly entertaining as well as informative and most original - and always extremely readable. -- John Bayley Booker's knowledge and understanding of imaginative literature is unrivalled, his essays on the great authors both illuminating and stimulating. This is a truly important book, an accolade often bestowed and rarely deserved in our modern age. -- Dame Beryl Bainbridge ...some splendid links between story and reality...enjoyably provocative -- Gordon Parsons * The Morning Star * It's hard not to admire the commitment of any writer whose book has taken 34 years to evolve. And there can be no doubting that Christopher Booker's 700-page, exhaustive examination of "Why we tell stories" - the book's subtitle - is a labour of love. -- Gordon Parsons * The Morning Star * one of the most brilliant books of recent years -- Bel Mooney * The Times *

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.

Introduction and historical notes PART ONE: THE SEVEN GATEWAYS TO THE UNDERWORLD 1 Overcoming the Monster 2 The Monster (II) and the Thrilling Escape from Death 3 Rages to Riches 4 The Quest 5 Voyage and Return 6 Comedy 7 Comedy (II): The Plot Disguised 8 Tragedy (I): The Five Stages 9 Tragedy (II): The Divided Self 10 Tragedy (III): The Hero as Monster 11 Rebirth 12 The Dark Power: From Shadow into Light Epilogue to Part One: The Rule of Three (the role played in stories by numbers) PART TWO: THE COMPLETE HAPPY ENDING Prologue to Part Two 13 The Dark Figures 14 Seeing Whole: The Feminine and Masculine Values 15 The Perfect Balance 16 The Unrealised Value 17 The Archetypal Family Drama (Continued) 18 The Light Figures 19 Reaching the Goal 20 The Fatal Flaw PART THREE: MISSING THE MARK 21 The Ego Takes Over (I): Enter the Dark Inversion 22 The Ego Takes Over (II): The Dark and Sentimental Versions 23 The Ego Takes Over (III): Quest, Voyage and Return, Comedy 24 The Ego Takes Over (IV): Tragedy and Rebirth 25 Losing the Plot: Thomas Hardy - A Case History 26 Going Nowhere: The Passive Ego. The Twentieth-Century Dead End - From Chekhov to Close Encounters 27 Why Sex and Violence? The Active Ego. The Twentieth-Century Obsession: From de Sade to The Terminator 28 Rebellion Against 'The One': From Job to Nineteen Eighty-Four 29 The Mystery 30 The Riddle of the Sphinx: Oedipus and Hamlet PART FOUR: WHY WE TELL STORIES 31 Telling Us Who We Are: Ego versus Instinct 32 Into the Real World: The Ruling Consciousness 33 Of Gods and Men: Reconnecting with 'The One' 34 The Age of Loki: The Dismantling of the Self Epilogue: The Light and the Shadows on the Wall Author's Personal Note Glossary of Terms Bibliography Index of Stories Cited General Index