Seven Basic Plots review
It would be cheating to claim that I've read the whole of The Seven Basic Plots in the last couple of days. I actually borrowed it from a friend over a year ago, read most of it at Christmas and then bought my own copy to finish it off after I'd given it back to him.
It's a monster of a book, but very entertaining and makes for an interesting read. I'm not sure I agree with everything the author posits, but it has good analysis of lots of great books in it, and it's not difficult to follow at all. Credibility is threatened by several glaring factual errors scattered throughout, and it gets a bit woolly and pretentious towards the end, but I really enjoyed it.
It also makes for a fun car journey game where one person will list as many stories/books/films, etc as they can think of and the other person will identify which of the basic plots they are.
It's a monster of a book, but very entertaining and makes for an interesting read. I'm not sure I agree with everything the author posits, but it has good analysis of lots of great books in it, and it's not difficult to follow at all. Credibility is threatened by several glaring factual errors scattered throughout, and it gets a bit woolly and pretentious towards the end, but I really enjoyed it.
It also makes for a fun car journey game where one person will list as many stories/books/films, etc as they can think of and the other person will identify which of the basic plots they are.