From a Certain Point of View
I was taught a sincere – and arguably well-deserved – disdain for Joseph Campbell when I was at Cal. My undergraduate degree has a mythology emphasis and my professors all pointed out that Campbell glossed over important cultural elements in his work and showed poor scholarship. We were given other examples to admire, such as Dumézil, Ellis Davidson, and Eliade.
I am not currently seeking a PhD in Mythology, though, but an MFA in Creative Writing, and one of my textbooks for this semester is The Writer’s Journey by Christopher Vogler. If you have any familiarity with Campbell’s work, that title will call to mind his idea for The Hero’s Journey. If it doesn’t, it should because that is exactly the point of the author – he posits the use of Campbell’s work as a guide for storytelling.
The professor has asked us to read this textbook before the residency begins, from which I infer that she finds great merit in these ideas, and that they will be instrumental to our study of the fantasy genre this semester.
Isn’t this a lovely conflict? If I were writing it, the character would be in for an interesting time. I prefer to think of myself as a writer, though, not a character – if only to avoid the ontological implications – so I need a way to resolve this without an epic struggle.
It could be that what looks like criminal oversimplification to the mythologist presents a wealth of opportunities for a storyteller. The key, I think, is perspective. Lumping Coyote and Loki together as Tricksters may be a terrible disservice to both characters in terms of their distinct roles and importance in their respective mythographies, but it may teach the storyteller a great deal in terms of functions within a specific story and scene. Taking this view may invert what causes problems for the mythologist: instead of whittling distinctions down to a general result, it may demonstrate the vast array of solutions for a common story problem.
This is my hope, that by using Campbell’s tools as a lens to examine the art of storytelling, not the study of myth, I will find in them a source of wonder and inspiration.
Of course, this could be why she assigned us a writer’s interpretation of Campbell, rather than a book by the man himself, like The Hero with a Thousand Faces.
(Oh, and for those who read the title of this entry in the voice of Alec Guinness: there are many Star Wars references in the book. That’s not likely to hurt either.)
