The Seven Basic Plots: Why We Tell Stories [Hardcover]

Christopher Booker (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 31, 2005

From The Epic of Gilgemesh to Jaws and Schindler's List, Christopher Booker examines in detail the stories that underlie literature and the plots that are basic to story telling through the ages. In this magisterial work he examines the plots of films, opera libretti and the contemporary novel and short story. Underlying the stories he examines are Seven Basic Plots: rags to riches; the quest; voyage and return; the hero as monster; rebirth and so on. Booker shows that the images and stories serve a far deeper and more significant purpose in our lives than we have realised. In the definition of these basic plots, Booker shows us we are entering a realm in which the recognition of the plots proves only to be the gateway. We are in fact uncovering a kind of hidden universal language: a nucleus of situations and figures which are the very stuff from which stories are made. With Booker's exploration, there is literally no story in the world which cannot be seen in a new light: we have come to the heart of what stories are about and why we tell them. Here, Christopher Booker moves on from some of the themes he outlined in his hugely bestselling book The Neophiliacs. Seven Basic Plots is unquestionably his most important book to date.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Many writing guides have suggested that fiction contains a limited number of basic plots, and Booker offers his version at great length. Furthermore, he claims all of these plots, from "overcoming the monster" to "rebirth," are variations on "the same great basic drama," a Jungian archetypal representation of the development and integration of the mature self. The meticulous detailing of this theory in plot summaries (of everything from Beowulf to Jaws, ancient comedy to modern tragedy, Western culture and Eastern) is an imposing enough task, but Booker is just warming up. In the book's second half, he explains how the psychological shortcomings of modern authors such as Shaw and Joyce led them to reject archetypal truth in favor of writing out their own sentimental and morbid fantasies. The biographical analysis is simplistic, however, and Booker makes numerous errors in the sections on film. The transition from literary criticism to Jungian psychology might be more bearable were it not saddled with an overabundance of academic cliché surprising in a writer of Booker's extensive journalistic background (he now contributes to England's Daily Telegraph). Clearly striving for the intellectual respectability of Northrop Frye, he falls far short, and accusing those who disagree with him of suffering from "limited ego-consciousness" doesn't help his case. (Apr.)
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Review

"…It's a tribute to the ease and fluency of his writing that at no point does it seem impenetrable or unwelcoming….full marks to Christopher Booker for recognising that genre fiction (detective stories, horror stories, romances) can be written about in the same breath, as it were, as the great masterpieces of literature." --Adele Geras, Times Educational Supplement (UK), November 2004

"…Scholarly but very readable….His book is a fascinating one…." --Leicester Mercury (UK) November 2004

"…the achievement is monumental and a tribute to the passion with which he [Booker] has pursued his interest in fiction and in story-telling…a compelling read." --Wells Journal (UK) November 2004

"…This is a work of voracious reading and unstoppable enthusiasm" --John Mullan, Evening Standard (UK) November 22, 2004

"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 acolade often bestowed and rarely desrved in our modern age" -Dame Beryl Bainbridge, author of Every Man for Himself and winner of the Whitbred Novel Award

'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, Financial Times (UK), October 22, 2004

'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, novelist

'An enormous piece of work, not really one book at all but at least three … 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, editor of 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

"Christopher Booker has written a book of considerable value. I doubt whether any single volume has ever drawn on a wider range of stories, plays, novels and films than his…" --Sunday Telegraph (UK) November 2004

"No critic [other than Booker] could have a more penetrating sense of why the great and the good in literature have earned their classic status, or a better nose for detecting a comparable excellence in new or unexpected places….Booker has been at work on this deep-flowing masterpiece of critical assessment for 34 years. His readers are the ultimate beneficiaries, and should be grateful to be so." --John Bayley, The Spectator (UK) November 13, 2004

"For me as a fiction writer it was the first time in my life that anybody had explained to me why the hell I do what I do…these are questions I've never heard discussed before…thank God he's told me why I do what I do." --Susan Elderkind, novelist

"fascinating…a book a lot of people will enjoy reading." --Cathal Dallat, poet

"a wonderful undertaking…I am happy that people are once again looking at stories in this way." --Margaret Atwood, novelist

"a vast and heroic piece of work" --Bea Campbell

"an extraordinary tour-de-force" --John Pilger, journalist and author

"…this is the book you should put at the top of your list. It ranks alongside Aristotle's Poetics. Booker's volume is a work of monumental scholarship, research, and deduction" --John Jenkins, Writers' Forum (UK), 11/2/04

"The Seven Basic Plots takes its reader on an epic journey. It is as essential for anyone studying literature at degree level (not least because Booker is such an exemplary writer) as it is for anyone with the slightest interest in the world around them…" --Duncan Wu, Professor of English Language and Literature, Oxford University, Times Higher Education Supplement (UK)

"A work of monumental scholarship, research and dedication….this is a book you should put at the top of your list. It ranks alongside Aristotle's Poetics." Writers' Forum (UK)

Booker compiles a Jungian taxonomy of stories, distilling the entire history of the fictive arts into a handful of flexible but unbreakable archetypes…and then extracts from those seven imaginative drops a single battle royal between Dark and Light." Jessica Winter, Village Voice Education Supplement, January 11, 2005

….”it’s a tribute to the ease and fluency of his writing that at no point does it seem impenetrable or unwelcoming.…full marks to Christopher Booker for recognising that genre fiction (detective stories, horror stories, romances) can be written about in the same breath, as it were, as the great masterpieces of world literature.”--Times Literary Supplement (UK) (Times Literary Supplement )

Chosen by Ronald Harwood as favourite reading of 2004 in ‘Books of the Year’ feature.--Sunday Telegraph

“….Scholarly but very readable….[Booker's] book is a fascinating one….”--Leicester Mercury (UK) Nov. 16, 2004

“…good….stimulating, ambitious” -- Adam Mars-Junes, Observer (UK) November 21, 2004

“The basic plot of The Seven Basic Plots is the quest. Booker writes as if intent on recreating for the reader his own (34 year) experience of travelling ‘a long and complex journey.’ ---Kasia Boddy, Daily Telegraph (UK), November 20, 2004

“I salute his hatred of soap operas, and the many sloppy films and TV shows and novels which have lost touch with the fascinating and emotionally satisfying business of story.” ---A.N. Wilson, Daily Telegraph (UK) Nov. 8, 2004

“Christopher Booker has written a book of considerable value. I doubt whether any single volume has ever drawn on a wider range of stories, plays, novels and films than his….” -- Sunday Telegraph (Review)

“Continuum may be deeply conservative in its view of modern storytelling as a reflection of society’s moral decline, but this enormous tome is worth the work.” --New Statesman

"I shall be rattling this secret weapon, this golden key to all mythologies, in every door I come across for months to come." --Noonie Minogue, The Tablet (UK) Jan. 8, 2005

“….the achievement is monumental and a tribute to the passion with which he [Booker] has pursued his interest in fiction and in story-telling…..a compelling read….”

“….This is a work of voracious reading and unstoppable enthusiasm….” -- Evening Standard

"This astonishing, enthralling, addictive and vastly referenced volume about the birth of imaginative literature belongs on every writer's desk. After reading it you'll see every novel you open in a different light." --Christopher Fowler, Independent on Sunday (UK) Dec. 26, 2005

"The Seven Basic Plots shows how influential these stories are: how deeply we are programmed to be receptive to them and how they help to give meaning and narrative to our thinking….[and is] hugely enjoyable." --Mary Kenny, Irish Independent (UK) January 3, 2005

"Booker's work is sweeping in its scope, and impressive in its appreciatin of story in all its many manifestations….a thought-provoking contribution to the party played by classical and contemporary storytelling in human culture; it will open up the value of narrative to all who venture between its covers." --Rev. Dr. Vaughan Robertrs, Church Times (UK) Dec. 24, 2004

"I warn you, if you open this book, you'll find it hard to shut." --Peter Mullen, Northern Echo (UK) December 2004

"The achievement if monumental and a tribute to the passion with which (Booker) has pursued his interest in fiction and in story-telling….a compelling read which explains why a good work of fiction is far more than a comfort on a dark winter's evening or a companion on a train, and why it demands a psycholgical and emotional response on the part of the reader. For in some ingenious way, by setting up a conversation with the human psyche, a good book reads us, just as much as we read it. And in this work Christopher Booker has explained wny." --Lavinia Byrne, Cheddar Valley Gazette (UK) Nov. 11, 2004

"Booker, a regular contributor to the Sunday Telegraph and Daily Mail, began work on this massive book over 30 years ago. It is an impressive achievement, in both its vast scope and its readability. Exploring all genres of storytelling--from the Bible to recurring folktales to high and low literature, as well as plays and movies--Booker manages to incorporate the work as such great minds as Dr. Johnson, Jung, and Freud without ever sounding dry. His treatment of the evolution of comedy (a genre notably resistant to explication) since ancient Greek plays is excellent. The third, very interesting chapter offers stories that fail to satisfy our often nebulous sense of good storytelling, showing precisely how and where they fail. Geared more to undergraduates than graduates, this useful overview will prove valuable to writers as well as scholars. Highly recommended for academic libraries, especially those supporting a literature and/or film studies program." --Felicity D. Walsh, Emory University, Library Journal, Feb. 1, 2005 (Library Journal )

“The central weakness of this book is that it fails to defend the very Jungian tenets upon which its entire argument is constructed…while quite enjoying the long plough through, I found by the end that I had not agreed with a single word of it.” –Literary Review, Alexander Waugh, 1st February 2005

“Booker, a British columnist who was founding editor of Private Eye, possesses a remarkable ability to retell stories. His prose is a model of clarity, and his lively enthusiasm for fiction of every description is infectious. He covers Greek and Roman literature, fairy tales, European novel and plays, Arabic and Japanese tales, Native American folk tales, and movies from the silent era on. He is an especially adept guide through the twists and characters of Wagner’s operas. His artfully entertaining summaries jogged many warm memories of half-forgotten novels and films…The Seven Basic Plots is nevertheless one of most diverting works on storytelling I’ve ever encountered. Pity about Jung, but there’s no denying the charm of Booker’s twice told tales.” –washingtonpost.com, May 8 2005

"This magisterial volume really does offer readers a genuinely fresh and exciting perspective on virtually every tale ever told." --Bookmark, July 2005 (Bookmark )

'Unusual... the author shows that stories can be seen to chart the psychological development of mankind.' Good Book Guide

Like the previous reviewer, I didn't find the later parts of the book to be as convincing as the first, particularly the explanation of each of the seven plots.

However, that first part is absolutely breathtaking in its scope and originality. I genuiunely felt that "watcher-of-new-planet-in-the-skies" feeling on numerous occasions.

Bearing in mind it took Booker over 30(!) years to write, this is a seminal achievement. It also made me want to read, or re-read a number of the books he refers to.

Well worth the money. Came in very handy on a recent return trip to New Zealand (50+ hours potential reading time ) as aircraft reading.

"one of the most brilliant books of recent years" (Bel Mooney Times )

"It...needs considerable time to read and digest a book of such a size...Booker gives good arguements...[and] there's certainly enough here to digest and think about."

(Geoff Willmetts, SFCrowsnest )

"If you have any interest in fiction... you will enjoy the exploration of plotting with Seven Basic Plots"

(Writing Magazine )

"This magisterial volume really does offer readers a genuinely fresh and exciting perspective on virtually every tale ever told." --Bookmark, July 2005 (, )

"one of the most brilliant books of recent years" (, Times )

"It...needs considerable time to read and digest a book of such a size...Booker gives good arguements...[and] there's certainly enough here to digest and think about."

(, )

"If you have any interest in fiction... you will enjoy the exploration of plotting with Seven Basic Plots"

(, )

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 736 pages
• Publisher: Continuum (January 31, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0826452094
• ISBN-13: 978-0826452092
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.5 x 2.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (23 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,384,460 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

76 of 83 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Such a big book, October 11, 2005

By 

Allen Smalling "Constant Reader," (Chicago, IL United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Seven Basic Plots: Why We Tell Stories (Hardcover)

and so inefficient. Truly I felt that underneath this persnickety and overwrought tome of literary archetypes and movements lies a slimmer, more cogent and helpful book screaming to be let out.

The problem is not really apparent with the book's first half, in which Booker analyzes his seven different kinds of plot themes and finds some wonderful coincidences between, say, our commercial culture and long-banished civilizations. (Dr. No and the Gilgamesh both feature solitary heroes going to the far side of the world to vanquish fearsome and bizarre monsters.)

As far as that goes, the book is useful and will painlessly teach genre studies and even a bit of comparative literature to the eager reader. The problem comes about halfway through the book when Booker, who appears eager to stamp out not only interpretations of books but discussion of books themselves that don't fit his seven-fold structure, condemns so much of modern literature as "romanticism." Well, writers as diverse as Victor Hugo, Ayn Rand and E.T.A. Hoffman have all proudly described themselves as "romantic," and even that unwieldy tent under which to house those disparate authors is more helpful than Booker's cant, who damns the "romantic" canon as distracting literature (and its readers, of course) from its real purpose; i.e., to fit his seven-fold canon.

Not only is the argument circular, it is absurd. It is like saying that candles provide the best and most consistent indoor illumination, because that damned "electricity" isn't really a form of illumination, because . . . well, just because it isn't. In this case what started out to be a purposeful and useful argument turns into a circular begging of the issues and, for a moral Aristotelian, a singularly unsympathetic ways to limn out a canon, based on one man's experience, or should I say OPINIONS?

There are many, many books that have to do with the construction of a novel and its many themes. I think offhand of E.M. Forster's ASPECTS OF THE NOVEL; of course there are tons others. Despite its initial promise, this book, I think, is best left alone unless the reader cares to spend 600-ish pages at first reinforcing, then undermining his/her knowledge of what makes a novel tick.

184 of 213 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Blame the romantics, April 24, 2005

By 

O. Buxton "Olly Buxton" (Highgate, UK) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Seven Basic Plots: Why We Tell Stories (Hardcover)

This book, which by all accounts has taken Christopher Booker 30 years to write, isn't the first attempt to distil all of storytelling down to a few archetypes. I dare say it won't be the last, either. While it's a fantastically learned, well-read, and at times insightful entry on the subject, it encounters the same problems others like Joseph Campbell have: that that the facts of actual literature tend to sit uneasily with the unifying theory, and that the unifying theory itself tends to rest on an analysis of human psychology which sounds like it might be so much bunk, and a particular world view - moral objectivism - which definitely is.

Both Jungian psychoanalysis and moral objectivity are taken as read by Christopher Booker and as such he spends no time justifying them (perhaps understandably - the arguments for and against each would fill this book many times over). Nonetheless, in my view, he's simply wrong about both of them, and it blows a Big Hole in his Big Idea.

Booker's Big Idea is this: when you boil them down, there are only seven archetypal stories in all of literature, and further that if you boil those archetypes down, they are in many ways the same story viewed from different perspectives. This is perhaps intuitively understandable: in the broadest sense all stories are a variation of "there once was a problem, and it got resolved" - but the kicker is this: Booker asserts that any story which fails to follow his prescription is - objectively - flawed. Now that sounds like a recipe for disaster, doesn't it.

The first observation to make is that this significantly undermines his claim to have found a unifying theory: Suddenly, it's not all literature that follows the archetype, but all *good* literature. As a moral objectivist, that doesn't seem to Booker like much of a concession, but from any other perspective it is: what Booker is saying is that all literature *which he likes* meets one of the seven archetypes. What seemed to be a bold assertion about the nature of literature is instead a simple indictment of Booker's appreciation of it.

That seems more plausible, anyway: the point and content of a story, you would think, cannot be straight-jacketed in this way. The fact that popular stories tend to have similarities speaks to our cultural heritage, the common dilemmas of life and death we share, and perhaps to our lack of imagination, not to some cosmic rule of fiction. This has been borne out in more "enlightened" times (literally - since the enlightenment), as Booker notes to his dismay that these similarities have tended to fade. But even without that modern interference, Booker notes that the seven archetypes tend to fragment under the weight of closer analysis - there are "dark inversions" of each, and inversions of various characters. So, the seven become fourteen or more.

The second problem is that, as mentioned, the last couple of centuries have seen stories fail more and more to keep to the archetypes. Booker blames this on romanticism, and is required by his theory to claim that these divergent stories are intrinsically flawed. That might not be a problem were these flawed stories not to include almost all the classics of modern literature, except perhaps Lord of the Rings and the Narnia chronicles (both of which, quelle surprise, have a fundamentally Christian, and therefore morally objectivist, subtext).

So, you can write off Melville, Nabokov, Balzac, Lawrence, Stoker and Shelley, or write off Booker's theory.

For me, it isn't a difficult choice.

Olly Buxton

27 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A great resource to help you write a bestselling novel or highly successful movie screenplay., September 23, 2007

By 

Jeff Lippincott "JLIPPIN" (Princeton, NJ USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Seven Basic Plots: Why We Tell Stories (Paperback)

I liked this book very much. It was kind of longwinded. But since it is a resource book and not a mere how-to on writing, I could overlook how long it was. The more content the better because it gave me more examples and things to think about regarding the subject matter.

The book is broken into four basic parts:

1. The 7 basic plots
2. Stories told well
3. Stories not told well
4. Why people tell stories

And the 7 basic plots are as follows:

1. Overcoming themonster
2. Rags to riches
3. A journey - the quest
4. A journey - the voyage and return
5. Comedies
6. Tragedies
7. Rebirth

This book took 34 years to write (so says the author). But I think it took so long because the author was not motivated to finish it a lot sooner. This is true even though the book is kind of heavy at 728 pages. There are many stories cited throughout the book as examples of what the author discusses. And all the stories cited are referenced in an index at the end of the book.

What I liked the most about the book was how logical and informative it was. I particularly liked the fact that I could look at the Table of Contents and pretty much tell what the book was about. As a result, reading the book was a pleasure. However, I did have to dig a little when it came to Chapter 12. At first glance I thought the author had added another plot and forgotten to tell me about it or to redo the title of the book. I probably would have liked the book better if Chapter 12 had been put someplace else.

When I read this book I also read The Writer's Journey (ISBN: 193290736X) and Story (ISBN: 0060391685). All three books compliment each other and relate to the art/process of writing a bestselling novel, drama, or movie script. I recommend if you read one, then go ahead and read all three.

At the end of this book there is a glossary of terms. I found it to be a little helpful. In fact, I found it to be very helpful when reading The Writer's Journey because that book failed to have a glossary. 5 stars!