{"id":717,"date":"2007-11-15T15:41:26","date_gmt":"2007-11-15T19:41:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/grace-ed.org\/blog\/archives\/717"},"modified":"2007-11-15T17:27:38","modified_gmt":"2007-11-15T21:27:38","slug":"a-story-is-told-a-thousand-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/grace-ed.org\/blog\/archives\/717","title":{"rendered":"A story (is) told a thousand times"},"content":{"rendered":"

My son\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s pretty excited about the new Beowulf movie<\/a> coming out soon. He\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s been a fan since reading the myth in high school. You don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know how good it feels to actually be able to say that my son read something worthwhile by way of literature in high school given some of the other things I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve seen come home as assigned reading. But, I rant. The movie looks like it will be slick and a feast for the eyes, but I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m hoping that they stick with the story,<\/em> something Hollywood seems to have difficulty with. <\/p>\n

A friend of mine and I have a conversation now and again about \u00e2\u20ac\u0153originality\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and creativity in stories, books, and films. My contention is that there are only about eight stories in the world and everything is a variation on a theme of one of those or a combination of those. In writing circles these are sometimes know as \u00e2\u20ac\u0153master plots.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Like the Preacher said, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s nothing new under the sun.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Once you know the master plots you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll recognize every story in any media. That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s something my youngest son seems able to do keenly. Often, sitting before the t.v. after popping a rented DVD into the player on \u00e2\u20ac\u0153movie night\u00e2\u20ac\u009d it won\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t be fifteen minutes into the film when he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll insist on announcing where the movie plot is going. It can be annoying sometimes. <\/p>\n

Here\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s an interesting short article titled, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153On Myth,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d <\/a>by historian Marina Warner, in which she states, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Writers don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t make up myths; they take them over and recast them.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d I think the same can be said of role\u00e2\u20ac\u201dplaying video game producers although they display even less imagination than many contemporary writers. But, I rant. <\/p>\n

Warner makes mention of Jorge Luis Borges, one of my favorite poets and writers: <\/p>\n

Borges liked myth because he believed in the principle of \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcreasoned imagination\u00e2\u20ac\u2122: that knowing old stories, and retrieving and reworking them, brought about illumination in a different way from rational inquiry. Myths aren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t lies or delusions: as Hippolyta the Amazon queen responds to Theseus\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 disparaging remarks about enchantment: \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcBut all the story of the night told o\u00e2\u20ac\u2122er, \/ And all their minds transfigured so together, \/ More witnesseth than fancy\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s images \/ And grows to something of great constancy\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 (A Midsummer Night\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Dream, V.i.24-7).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Here’s hoping we won’t be disappointed by another myth-based film. <\/p>\n

galindobanner5.jpg<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My son\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s pretty excited about the new Beowulf movie coming out soon. He\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s been a fan since reading the myth in high school. You don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know how good it feels to actually be able to say that my son read … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-717","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book-reviews-recommendations","category-reviews-and-recommendations-on-movies-and-films-about-faith-life-systems-etc"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/grace-ed.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/717","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/grace-ed.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/grace-ed.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/grace-ed.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/grace-ed.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=717"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/grace-ed.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/717\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/grace-ed.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=717"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/grace-ed.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=717"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/grace-ed.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=717"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}