Greetings, all --

Allow me to quote from Pamela's excellent suggestion of a few months ago that 
we read James  Wood's "How Fiction Works". In the initial pages, Wood quotes, 
in turn, Henry James:

There is only one recipe - to care a great deal for the cookery

I believe this suggests that indeed we are likely (bound? in all its meanings) 
to find common themes.

I'm unaware of a companion text on "How Fact Works", which could mean that it's 
somehow different if we're talking IRL, as the kids say.

- Claiborne -


On Apr 23, 2011, at 22:31, Leigh Fanning <[email protected]> wrote:

> Shouldn't Love be on this list, even though it has context as a subset
> of at least comedies and tragedies?
> 
> Leigh
> 
> On 23 Apr 2011 at 08:40 PM, Jochen Fromm related
>> Can everything ever written boiled down to a few fundamental stories?  
>> Christopher Booker argues in his book
>> "Seven Basic Plots: Why We Tell Stories "
>> that everything can be classified by just seven plots:
>> 
>> 1. Overcoming the monster
>> 2. Rags to riches
>> 3. A journey - the quest
>> 4. A journey - the voyage and return
>> 5. Comedies
>> 6. Tragedies
>> 7. Rebirth 
>> 
>> Or is there just one: "there once was a problem, and it got resolved" 
>> which
>> includes all detective and adventure stories - "there once was something 
>> to find out, and someone did it". What do you think? Can life really be 
>> distilled to a few basic stories?
>> 
>> -J.
>> 
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> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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