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186 reviews for:
The Storytelling Animal: How Stories Make Us Human by Jonathan Gottschall, Mariner Books
Jonathan Gottschall, Jonathan Gottschall
3.6 AVERAGE
186 reviews for:
The Storytelling Animal: How Stories Make Us Human by Jonathan Gottschall, Mariner Books
Jonathan Gottschall, Jonathan Gottschall
3.6 AVERAGE
speranta's review against another edition
3.0
The book talks about the way our brains are wired for stories - and that most likely the evolutionary roles these played in survival have been group cohesion and logic enhancement.
It was okay as a book - easy to follow, but because of the title I think I was hoping for more details on how stories change our brains.
It was okay as a book - easy to follow, but because of the title I think I was hoping for more details on how stories change our brains.
jpsbooks's review against another edition
2.0
Interesting, but it probably would have been better as a long magazine article.
surfpark's review against another edition
4.0
Gottschall flips it when he tells us that the reader is really the animal he's referencing. The book includes everything from the possible evolutionary benefits of storytelling to the cultural significance of narratives. I came into this thinking it would be a history of the oral tradition, leading to literature. Instead I was learning about the psychological benefits to storytelling I've never considered.
bookwormmichelle's review against another edition
3.0
Interesting ideas, but not really riveting reading, and the chapter on how we invent religions to feed our dependence on story left a little to be desired. :-)
ogrenoah's review against another edition
4.0
A very interesting book on the evolution of storytelling and its current trajectory. It's well written, easy to digest quickly, and backed up with many facts from psychological experiments exploring the affects of stories on the human brain, especially on memory, emotions and morals. Anyone interested in how storytelling has shaped and been shaped by both human and technological evolution might want to give it a read.
snukes's review against another edition
4.0
Let me tell you a story.
I spent a decade of my life in the fundamental depths of Christianity, where the promise of an afterlife was the promise of living forever in perfection - no sickness, no death, no being double-crossed by your cheating former best friend right at the crucial moment in your new romantic relationship. Some of my non-religious friends suggested that such an afterlife would be boring - where's the intrigue? Where are the shades of gray? But I was never troubled. It's a matter of scale, I reasoned. Just because you take away some of the extreme aspects of badness doesn't mean the remaining experience within the scale of neutral to mind-blowingly-good wouldn't be amazing.
(Incidentally, I still believe that and occasionally spend a little time mourning for my lost afterlife.)
But one thing always concerned me. Would the abolition of pain and suffering necessarily include the abolition of conflict? What would life be like without conflict? Sure, some aspects of the answer to that question sound nice - see above note on cheating former best friends - but isn't conflict and its resolution what makes a story so interesting? What would become of story in this paradise world? I felt like I could live happily enough without conflict, but an eternity of reading stories that go "she was beautiful and healthy and fell in love with a man who loved her back and they lived happily ever after" sounded... well, awful.
While yearning for eternity and perfection, I was also dreading what eternity and perfection would do to my beloved art of storytelling.
Later, my religion and I had a falling out. I looked at my expectation for an eternity of perfection, and could no longer make the belief hold water. I went into mourning. I WANT eternity. I want to try everything and do everything and see everything and maybe invent some new things.
And I want to know how the stories end.
Is America ever going to recover from the political nightmare it's currently in, or will it go down in flames and pave the way for the next, new civilization? What will become of my nephews, of any children I might have, and their children? Will my lineage fizzle or evolve to become monarchs of that next world power? WILL SOMEONE FINALLY PLEASE INVENT TIME TRAVEL?
And thus (she finally rambles on to the point) was my obsession with story revealed.
I actually found this book while doing research into this small spark of an idea that I'd had, that story equals humanity, that without story we are nothing more than animals or robots. I thought it was a new, shiny idea, but this book is pretty much exactly the book I would have written if I'd beaten Gottschall to the punch and actually done something with my idea.
I highlighted about half the sentences in the book, so I'll spare you all my notes and individual thoughts, but here are a few of my favorites:
I was fascinated by the scientific concept of "mirroring" that Gottschall discusses, where a brain's reaction to experiencing something directly (by doing it) or vicariously (by watching or reading about it) is identical. I've been thinking about that nonstop, particularly as I've been consuming some first-rate video media lately (Bladerunner: 2049 just about ruined me last week). I also loved his exploration of the fantasy that is memory, and how as humans we are not a compilation of facts, but rather the story that we tell ourselves about ourselves. The rest of the book was also interesting but not surprising to me, since apparently Gottscall has just been living in my brain for the past five years.
Gottschall's narrative style occasionally struck me as strange (maybe because the ideas felt so much like mine, but the writing style wasn't?), but I think this would be an interesting read for anyone intrigued by the role story plays in our lives, the future of fiction, and human psychology in general.
I spent a decade of my life in the fundamental depths of Christianity, where the promise of an afterlife was the promise of living forever in perfection - no sickness, no death, no being double-crossed by your cheating former best friend right at the crucial moment in your new romantic relationship. Some of my non-religious friends suggested that such an afterlife would be boring - where's the intrigue? Where are the shades of gray? But I was never troubled. It's a matter of scale, I reasoned. Just because you take away some of the extreme aspects of badness doesn't mean the remaining experience within the scale of neutral to mind-blowingly-good wouldn't be amazing.
(Incidentally, I still believe that and occasionally spend a little time mourning for my lost afterlife.)
But one thing always concerned me. Would the abolition of pain and suffering necessarily include the abolition of conflict? What would life be like without conflict? Sure, some aspects of the answer to that question sound nice - see above note on cheating former best friends - but isn't conflict and its resolution what makes a story so interesting? What would become of story in this paradise world? I felt like I could live happily enough without conflict, but an eternity of reading stories that go "she was beautiful and healthy and fell in love with a man who loved her back and they lived happily ever after" sounded... well, awful.
While yearning for eternity and perfection, I was also dreading what eternity and perfection would do to my beloved art of storytelling.
Later, my religion and I had a falling out. I looked at my expectation for an eternity of perfection, and could no longer make the belief hold water. I went into mourning. I WANT eternity. I want to try everything and do everything and see everything and maybe invent some new things.
And I want to know how the stories end.
Is America ever going to recover from the political nightmare it's currently in, or will it go down in flames and pave the way for the next, new civilization? What will become of my nephews, of any children I might have, and their children? Will my lineage fizzle or evolve to become monarchs of that next world power? WILL SOMEONE FINALLY PLEASE INVENT TIME TRAVEL?
And thus (she finally rambles on to the point) was my obsession with story revealed.
I actually found this book while doing research into this small spark of an idea that I'd had, that story equals humanity, that without story we are nothing more than animals or robots. I thought it was a new, shiny idea, but this book is pretty much exactly the book I would have written if I'd beaten Gottschall to the punch and actually done something with my idea.
I highlighted about half the sentences in the book, so I'll spare you all my notes and individual thoughts, but here are a few of my favorites:
I was fascinated by the scientific concept of "mirroring" that Gottschall discusses, where a brain's reaction to experiencing something directly (by doing it) or vicariously (by watching or reading about it) is identical. I've been thinking about that nonstop, particularly as I've been consuming some first-rate video media lately (Bladerunner: 2049 just about ruined me last week). I also loved his exploration of the fantasy that is memory, and how as humans we are not a compilation of facts, but rather the story that we tell ourselves about ourselves. The rest of the book was also interesting but not surprising to me, since apparently Gottscall has just been living in my brain for the past five years.
Gottschall's narrative style occasionally struck me as strange (maybe because the ideas felt so much like mine, but the writing style wasn't?), but I think this would be an interesting read for anyone intrigued by the role story plays in our lives, the future of fiction, and human psychology in general.
jregensburger's review against another edition
4.0
As human beings we find ourselves surrounded by stories; the stories we read and watch, the stories we tell each other, and the stories we tell ourselves. Our earliest forms of play involve stories. Our daydreams are stories. Even in sleep, our stories continue unabated through the unconscious flow of dreams.
Clearly stories get to the very heart of what it means to be human. Their ubiquity demonstrates the critical role they play in how we make sense of the world. But how did this come to be, and why? Are stories a form of evolutionary adaptation, or are they simply an evolutionary side effect? Do they simulate reality (and therefore teach us), or do they shape it?
In "The Storytelling Animal: How Stories Make Us Human" Jonathan Gottschall sets out to understand the place of stories in our lives. Drawing from research in sociology, psychology, media and neuroscience Gottschall examines our very human penchant for story-making. He explores the evolution of stories, their similarities across cultures (they are legion) and the possible future of storytelling. "The Storytelling Animal" is an engaging and thoughtful book. Through Gottschall's skillful narrative we learn as much about stories as we do ourselves.
Clearly stories get to the very heart of what it means to be human. Their ubiquity demonstrates the critical role they play in how we make sense of the world. But how did this come to be, and why? Are stories a form of evolutionary adaptation, or are they simply an evolutionary side effect? Do they simulate reality (and therefore teach us), or do they shape it?
In "The Storytelling Animal: How Stories Make Us Human" Jonathan Gottschall sets out to understand the place of stories in our lives. Drawing from research in sociology, psychology, media and neuroscience Gottschall examines our very human penchant for story-making. He explores the evolution of stories, their similarities across cultures (they are legion) and the possible future of storytelling. "The Storytelling Animal" is an engaging and thoughtful book. Through Gottschall's skillful narrative we learn as much about stories as we do ourselves.
siendo's review against another edition
4.0
I thoroughly enjoyed this book, which I read with my book club. The author shares fascinating research from psychology and other fields about the human propensity for story. In addition to a universal grammar for human language, that holds across geography and culture, book there also seems to be a universal grammar for stories (protagonist overcomes obstacles and is rewarded for virtuous behavior). The author explores evolutionary explanations for this and other findings.