Heros like us

Think of it as a kind of hiatus: Your writer (me) standing at the threshold of another novel, deliberating whether to go on, thinking I would make better use of my life doing something more appreciated by society, such adopting a highway. (You and I both know that as I have the writing disease, this is only so much crap, as I’ll keep writing these things until I die though I probably will never make any money at it. Just goes to show ya’; one doesn’t have to be undead to exhibit zombie-like mindless behavior.)

Anyway, it’s at this time, I always try to make an outline and fail. But I typically do a lot of reading,, some of it background, some of writers I’d like to be as good as. Currently, I’m reading something old and something new. The old thing is a work of fiction, “Parasites Like Us,” by Adam Johnson, and the something new (to me) is “The Hero with a Thousand Faces,” by Joseph Campbell.

I’ve read Johnson’s book two, maybe three times before, which makes me a fan, I guess. Several years ago, I found a hard cover edition of the book on the local B&N’s bargain table for like $5.95 or something. I read the first time in one sitting, and my only question was “why haven’t I heard of this guy before?” Moreover, he seems to be a one-novel wonder, which to me is a mystery — both the one-book thing and why the one-book, after winning a couple of awards, apparently didn’t sell well.
Johnson’s prose is at once dark, insightful and humorous, his story-telling compelling. More important, it’s one of those works that taps some unseen mystical place in my imagination. Yes, it’s a cliche, but the book speaks to me and makes me enjoy it as it does so.

I wasn’t sure why Johnson’s book is so effective a work until I began reading Campbell’s book. Now I’m enlightened. Written in 1948, “The Hero with a Thousand Faces,” posits how the great myths, from Grecian to Hindu, the world religions, from Christianity to Islam to Buddhism, fairy tales and fables, all share a common structure. The over-structure — or rather story line is thus: Separation –> Initiation –> Return. Each of these major divisions — think three-scene structure, is further divided by Campbell into subsections, such as the hero’s call to adventure, separation, atonement with the father-God, etc.

What’s was enlightening to me was 1) that this is probably the reason that Johnson’s book works so well,not just on a surface plot, but yielding sense of telling basic, fundamental truths about human nature. And more amazing, is that (2) as this structure is archetypical (in a Jungian sense) I realize that I’ve been trying, subconsciously, to reconstruct it in my writing. Moreover, when I look back on a novel, say Messengers of an Alien God, and pick out the places that I had trouble with, where the plot or the psychology of the characters just didn’t seem to ring true, that was where I diverged from the archetypical story line of Campbell’s universal hero.

More on this later…..