The Storytelling Animal: How Stories Make Us Human

Jonathan Gottschall looks into how and why humans are pulled to stories, making various cases and presenting interesting theories along the way. In my opinion, this book is a solid introduction to the subject, but not a fleshed out exploration. In this review, I would like to go through the most engaging parts for me and why I have come to certain conclusions or opinions.Neverland never leaves usThe book begins by setting up the stage for this fascinating topic. It starts guiding us through various ideas (and even a test) to prove how bewitching stories can be. Gottschall uses the idea of Neverland throughout the book and it is mentioned in the first chapter. He starts by noting that children love spending time creating stories and enacting them. Then, he writes, "We may leave the nursery, with its toy trucks and dress-up clothes, but we never stop pretending. We just change how we do it. Novels, dreams, films, and fantasies are provinces of Neverland." He points out that humans never stop their involvement with stories. This seems quite true since there are many executives and producers that use story to move their customers and audiences. From the old ages where storytelling was mainly word-of-mouth to now where storytelling takes form in TV, movies, and even video games, stories have attracted us and I think they always will.Why does Neverland never leave us?The true question is why story has not been eliminated from human life through evolution. Basically, there has to be some sort of purpose for story. Otherwise, it would not have pursued to stay with us for so long. Some people think that fiction is used for a lot of things, like exercising the mind, passing down experiences, or forming a social glue among people. However, what if the alternative is considered? In my opinion, Gotschall introduces one of the most interesting theories here. Perhaps fiction is for nothing at all. It serves no purpose. At first, I thought this was a very poor argument to make. After all, story is all around us. If it was for nothing, wouldn't it have been eliminated through evolution, like mentioned before? Then, he makes his case, "Story may educate us, deepen us, and give us joy. Story may be one of the things that makes its most worthwhile to be human. But that doesn't mean story has a biological purpose." Although it seemed hard to believe (and I didn't want to think all my hours reading books were wasteful), it opened my mind. Maybe stories are for the sole purpose of enjoyment. We do many things that we have no value or need for, so maybe story is one of them.Not just empathy, but sympathyHumans cannot have stories if there is no conflict. If there is a story with no problems or interesting scenarios, the story is not at all engaging. The story does not elicit a response. Here, Gottschall finally started to bring in some science. As a current student in an introductory neuroscience class, I had been waiting for a neurological and scientific inquiry into why stories charm and move us. In one case, scientists used fMRI machines to monitor audience reaction. While watching the movie The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, it was discovered that "When Eastwood was angry, the viewer's brains looked angry, too. When the scene was sad, the viewers' brains also looked sad." With brain scanning, scientists were able to see that mirror neurons started firing in the brain. This caused the audience to have real, strong emotional responses that coincided with the story being told. They would not just empathize with the characters, but sympathize with them. However, this exploration into mirror neurons was short. There is not much more that Gottschall included, not that there needed to be any more with the point he was making. Still, I would have liked a little more meat, a little more scientific background into this topic. Also, there are some cases where audiences react more strongly to one scenario than another. It would have been great to learn the reasoning behind this. After all, not all movies elicit brilliant responses and become box office hits.Jouvet's CatsIt is really strange to think about dreams, how they occur, why they occur, what causes one dream compared to another, etc. Gottschall explains some well known theories, such as one from Freud and the random activation theory (RAT). Jouvet's cats were intriguing to read about (again, my bias towards neuroscience coming into play). Jouvet severed the connection in the brain stem that signaled for paralysis in sleep in a few cats. During sleep, the cats would experience many scenarios of capturing prey or avoiding predators. Apparently, the dream world is filled with trouble. Again, there seems to be no story without conflict and since dreams are riddled with stories, they are riddled with conflict. Now that I think back to my own dreams (or those that I remember), it seems like they are all filled with trouble, sadness, or some sort of mission to resolve a dilemma. Perhaps dreams act as simulators then, preparing us for problems in the real world. This is something to think about.To clean the chicken coop, of course!The mind likes to invent stories, even if they are not real. An experiment conducted by Gazzaniga with split brain patients truly entertained me. Because of the way the visual system works, many split-brain patients were able to process images presented to both their left and right visual fields. One patient was shown a chicken's foot to the left and a snowy scene to the right. He was told to pick up two cards with pictures on them with both hands. He chose a chicken card with his right hand and a shovel card with his left hand. When asked why, he said he chose the chicken card because he saw a picture of a chicken's foot. However, he said he chose the shovel card not because he had seen the snowy scene, but because a chicken coop can be cleaned out with a shovel. It seems as if the initial images had been processed correctly in the brain and his hands chose the correct cards. However, the reasoning for one of the cards was a subtle lie. The brain didn't understand why the left hand had chosen a shovel due to the severed connection between the two halves of the brain. So, it made a reason up, to clean the chicken coop. This result was seen with other images and tests with different patients as well. It seems like the brain needs to create links. If it does not know the truth or reason behind something, it will create one. The brain will create stories naturally. This idea is quite scary... yet wondrous at the same time.How fiction influences realityI really liked reading the chapter on how "Ink People Change the World". It was interesting to learn of Adolf Hitler's fascination with Wagner's compositions and how they may have influenced his life of conquest. Although this chapter is more about speculation and theories that cannot be proven, I liked reading it since I do believe some stories compel and move people enough to make changes in reality. Gottschall says, "... when we are absorbing in a story, we drop our intellectual guard. We are moved emotionally, and this seems to leave us defenseless." Scientific explanations and research were not mentioned in abundance here. Yet, the idea that fiction can change real life doesn't seem difficult to believe after learning about how strongly we relate to it, feel it.Style, Structure, and Overall ReviewThe book starts off at a great pace, building excitement for the coming chapters. It sets up the stage for this mysterious thing only humans seem to do: storytelling. Of course, the book is made more interesting by the way the author writes. His personality is clearly woven into the writing as he tries to interact with his readers through tests and relate to them through his personal recollections. I could do without some unnecessary pictures. At times, the images did not even have captions or explanations in the main text of the book. Still, Gottschall relays information well and the experiments mentioned were complimentary to the theories discussed. I do think the subject is too broad to be captured in this number of pages and at times, I needed to clarify which idea was proving what. Perhaps if the number of topics were reduced and more thorough investigating was done, I would personally be more satisfied with the organization and explanation of the material. Moreover, I wanted a more neurological background to our storytelling nature. I wanted to understand what exactly in our mind clicks and turns with story. I believe addressing this would give the book more substance, but it works as a great introduction to the material without it. In summary, this book gave a brief yet enjoyable introduction to our fascination with story. The author does try to research various materials, as shown in the long bibliography at the end. So, I would definitely recommend this book to a friend or anyone interested in taking a dip in the subject.

This is, essentially, a solid read. It is what one of my editors called "a good book", not a conclusive study, not a magisterial investigation, not an encyclopedic guide. It looks at the importance of storytelling and the ways in which storytelling helps to define humanity itself. This it does quite well. It examines the world of storytelling, the reasons for the violence and conflict therein, the fact that stories may be `extreme' but still have conventional lessons at their core, and so on. The book looks at the future of storytelling and draws on interesting literary and personal examples. The book is filled with illustrations, many of them quite effective, and it is filled with anecdotes, many of which are engaging and compelling.At first I thought that this would be, first and foremost, a contribution to the literature/evolutionary science literature--the kind of work done by Brian Boyd, Lisa Zunshine, Joseph Carroll, et al. The author does move in that circle, and there are touches of such material here and there, but the overall focus of the book is far broader and the book's tone is very traditional, in the sense of a relaxed voice speaking to general readers. There are endnotes referring to passages in the book, but no footnotes per se. While informed by scholarship, this is not a scholarly book per se.The book makes use of much `scientific' material, examining, e.g., the many explanations for the existence and nature of dreams. It does not draw conclusions, however, but rather offers the reader a sample of current thought. Modest in its dimensions, I was surprised, e.g., that it did not consider some of the work of cognitive scientists, e.g. Daniel Willingham's discussions of the functions of memory and of the importance of stories for the brain--challenging enough to ward off boredom but not so challenging (like abstraction, e.g.) as to force the brain to labor. Using a measure like Goldilocks', stories are `just right' for the brain.One of the striking aspects of the book is that it utilizes contemporary materials to essentially confirm the traditional lessons of literary history. Aristotle's model for narrative arcs is shown to be rock-solid, as is Horace's belief that literary art at its best both teaches and pleases. One specific example: the author discusses the manner in which fMRI research demonstrates that readers/listeners/watchers share the emotions of the characters whose stories they are consuming. When the characters undergo certain experiences and emotions, comparable parts of the audience's brains light up. Thus, stories engender empathy, big time. Samuel Johnson, of course, made this point very explicitly, arguing that the novel was a very dangerous form because of the degrees of empathy that it engendered. It could change readers in dramatic ways, for good or ill. Another example: leaning on Pinker and an evolutionary orientation, the author argues that literary materials can equip us for living by building up in our brains a set of experiences/examples that can help us navigate the seas and shoals of real life. Kenneth Burke made that point in a celebrated essay (`Literature as Equipment for Living') in 1938.Bottom line: this is a delightful book that explores the nature and importance of storytelling. It is accessible to general readers and the kind of book that nearly every thoughtful person could enjoy. It does not represent a series of scholarly breakthroughs, though it brings interesting material to bear on old issues (with fairly predictable conclusions). Its secular/skeptical approach to religious stories will be offputting to readers of faith, but that represents a small segment of the book's general argument. It does not make use of upper-paleolithic cave paintings in the way that it might. Since these are the first `art', art from prehistory, one might ask why its representations of animals are so dazzling, its representations of humans so primitive (when such images exist at all). There is no narrative there, to speak of, but rather rapt attention to the stark beauty of the animal subjects. Why? Does a kind of pure mimesis precede narrative art by thousands of years?