James Joyce has been noted for what some have called the "Mythic Method".
It's most easily recognisable in Ulysses, where he uses Homer's Odyssey as "scaffolding" for his narrative.
This
connection to Homer isn't overt, and is only clearly made in the titles of chapters, which are based on the events of Homer's epic.
Yet this link is much more than scaffolding. It manages to draw out the mythical and profound from otherwise mundane, everyday events.
In Mimesis, Erich Auerbach describes the Homeric form:
“...fully externalized description, uniform illumination, uninterrupted connection, free expression, all events in the foreground, displaying unmistakable meanings, few elements of historical development and of psychological perspective."
He contrasts this with an example of the narrative form that superseded it: the Old Testament's Sacrifice of Isaac, which he instead characterises as:
“...certain parts brought into high relief, others left obscure, abruptness, suggestive influence of the unexpressed, ‘background’ quality, multiplicity of meanings and the need for interpretation, universal-historical claims, development of the concept of the historically becoming, and preoccupation with the problematic”
But the "Homeric" forms have been slowly re-emerging over the past ~150 years.
The character of this writing, Joyce or later Tolkien being great examples, all share these former qualities.
There is a joy of description. It's as though there is an innate pleasure in the writing. Think of the way Joyce's prose moves along almost musically: "Stately, plump Buck Mulligan".
This sense of detail, depth and feeling is everywhere, especially in simple acts, such as buttering a piece of bread or walking down the street.
The textured worlds that writers of Endless Narrative create exists for its own sake, not for the purpose of delivering a message.
They resist straightforward interpretation, and in doing so become endlessly interpretable. It is mythic in the sense that it is fully complete in itself.
You are not outside of these worlds, you enter into them.
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