Some still treat it as a Theory of Everything for literature, even when we take ourselves aside to agree, "We're only pretending it's sound because it's a good model, alright?" Key word here is "some." I don't have numbers for how many scholars or academics take the Monomyth seriously, nor how many recognise it for the literary tchotchke that it is. What I do know is that it keeps fucking coming back, not just in academic circles, and it needs to be reburied and sealed away in concrete.

Sure, Nessie is not the only reason people travel to Loch Ness, but suffice it to say for many a one who goes, even if you know for a fact it's not real, your imagination begs you, kicking and screaming, to believe it is, just for a bit. You can tell by the way people talk about Nessie whether their imagination shows through or not. It's not good irony if everyone agrees it's not real*.

The #Monomyth is literature's #cryptid. As long as we continue to concede that it's "at least a good model," it remains in that liminal state between being a universal measurement for stories, or the overgeneralisations of a man who, as he admitted himself, was just spitballing. That is, the effect of the Monomyth has on our studies is to learn to compare stories by stripping them down to their symbols, and what they have in common. Curiously, on symbols, Campbell wrote (next post 👇):

> "[They] are only the VEHICLES of communication, they must not be mistaken for the final term, the TENOR, of their reference. No matter how attractive or impressive they may seem, they remain but convenient means, accommodated to the understanding… no-one should attempt to read or interpret [them] as the final thing."
- The Hero with a Thousand Faces, pp. 518-9 (emphasis my own)

And in the epilogue:

> There is no final system for the interpretation of myths, and there will never be any such thing.
- Ibid., pp. 767-8

Models, insofar as I understand, are structures defining simple rules for analysing a single work, and or comparing several works in tandem. Like metaphors, they are not an actual, objective representation of something. They're not meant to be detailed; if it makes comparison easier to work through in our heads, or in dialogue, as many argue the Monomyth does, then it follows that it's a good model, doing its job - and many follow that no further inquiry is required.

(And it's this cynical layer that, through the consent of both tourists and the folk who work at Loch Ness to keep Nessie alive, keeps this from being a con. In your mind, Nessie might as well be as real as the memories of the water, the glens, and the photos you take home with you. But it's not. And you know it's not.

Did you know that Amazon had a secret pricing algorithm project code-named 'Project Nessie?' I find that incredibly sardonic:

https://geekdom.social/@bigolifacks/112554754116975286
)