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A review by vertellerpaul
Into the Woods: A Five Act Journey Into Story by John Yorke
4.0
“It is only through story that we are able to bring our inner selves in line with the world.” This is almost the last sentence of Into the Woods and hammers home the point Yorke makes: stories bring order to a basically chaotic world. It’s an encouragement to create and consume stories and the best reason I’ve seen so far. It’s also the reason stories exist in the first place. And it’s the reason story structure gets an archetypal shape, the three act structure.
I approached this book with caution: it seems to be the umpteenth final theory of all stories. I mistrust every writer who claims to have found the string theory of storytelling. However, I largely agree with Yorke and he brings his points across clearly, albeit forcefully. He can be repetitive, sometimes exceeds the number of examples we actually need and occasionally gets caught up in his extensive metaphors and analogies. Even though he writes about each and every kind of story and claims his theory is applicable to almost everything in life, his examples mainly come from film and television.
Several times Yorke starts a long essay on the ways of the human mind. To quote an apt Dutch expression, this seems to be cold-soil-psychology (psychologie van de koude grond): theories developed by non-psychologists with a tentative grasp on psychology. And yet, Yorke is convincing. Even when he seems to talk about the metaphysical, almost mystical side of things, he keeps his feet firmly on the ground and is still believable and understandable.
String theory? As Yorke modestly admits in his final chapter, many have claimed to find a scientific holy grail, only to be refuted by a new, better story. He might be no exception. Still, in a long row of works on story theory this one both unifies a great many older theories and is refreshingly original. And isn’t that how stories work? What exists is confronted by its opposite, subsumes it and becomes a new whole. According to Yorke, at least.
(By the way: the cover to this book is made of something weird: it feels strange to the touch and smudges terribly…)
I approached this book with caution: it seems to be the umpteenth final theory of all stories. I mistrust every writer who claims to have found the string theory of storytelling. However, I largely agree with Yorke and he brings his points across clearly, albeit forcefully. He can be repetitive, sometimes exceeds the number of examples we actually need and occasionally gets caught up in his extensive metaphors and analogies. Even though he writes about each and every kind of story and claims his theory is applicable to almost everything in life, his examples mainly come from film and television.
Several times Yorke starts a long essay on the ways of the human mind. To quote an apt Dutch expression, this seems to be cold-soil-psychology (psychologie van de koude grond): theories developed by non-psychologists with a tentative grasp on psychology. And yet, Yorke is convincing. Even when he seems to talk about the metaphysical, almost mystical side of things, he keeps his feet firmly on the ground and is still believable and understandable.
String theory? As Yorke modestly admits in his final chapter, many have claimed to find a scientific holy grail, only to be refuted by a new, better story. He might be no exception. Still, in a long row of works on story theory this one both unifies a great many older theories and is refreshingly original. And isn’t that how stories work? What exists is confronted by its opposite, subsumes it and becomes a new whole. According to Yorke, at least.
(By the way: the cover to this book is made of something weird: it feels strange to the touch and smudges terribly…)