The Harry Bosch Novels: Volume 3 (A Darkness More Than Night, City of Bones, Lost Light)

The mythological approach conditioned by an in-depth» psychological analysis is not levelled at social types or individual characters but at some everyman emancipated of social context. Here the catalyst was psychoanalysis especially its Jung variant, which is nothing but a paradox since the true origin myths are still aimed at unconditional subordination of personal emotions to the social cosmos. The gap between the unhealthy psychology of a lonely or oppressed individual of the 20th century and the pre-reflective, extremely social psychology of archaic communities could be only bridged at the expense of modernization of the origin myth; the awesome span separating a modern man from authentic original creators of myths is mollified by irony and selfirony. A deeper understanding of myth in the 20th century novel (as compared even to the 19th century romantic novel) is blended even more than in ethnology (but backed by modern theories of myth and analytical psychology and ritualism in particular) with modernization tendencies characteristic of the 20th century social situation ...»