The Storytelling Animal: How Stories Make Us Human by Jonathan Gottschall

May 17, 2012 Audra (Unabridged Chick) rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: books-on-books, favorites, human-evolution

I loved Gottschall from the first line of this book; I quickly saw he was a book fan geeking out about how awesome fiction is and I cheerfully followed along.

I'm always going to fangirl over books on books -- I can't help it. I love readers and I love reading about reading. Gottschall takes joy in not just reading, but all forms of storytelling, from country music songs to commercials and films. He examines how fiction -- storytelling -- helps us individually and globally.

Trivia fans will love t...more

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Apr 13, 2012 Tristan Yi rated it 4 of 5 stars

Humans are the storytelling animal. Everything we see, hear, feel, dream, and experience is a story. Every single moment we live is a part of the confluence of the haphazardly interconnected vignettes and events that we weave into the story we call our Lives.

The reality of dreaming, the frailty of memory, and the reason for our perpetual hunger for story, whatever form it takes, are all covered in Jonathan Gottschall's magnum opus of wonder, experience, and the pseudo-figurative human condition...more

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Aug 02, 2012 Zack Rock rated it 1 of 5 stars

What a weird book. The thrust of the author's arguments could have been stated in a long article. Instead, he decided to pad his interesting points with needless photographs, narrative asides, and pointlessly graphic examples (he seems to be particularly stuck on the image of an evil elf masturbating in a laundry room). This is all in lieu of a more satisfying engagement with his primary sources, which are too often tacked onto anecdotal examples to grant them additional credence. Moreover, he t...more

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May 14, 2013 Gordon rated it 5 of 5 stars

If I could give a book a six-star rating, I'd probably give it to this book. Written by an Engish professor at Washington and Jefferson College, Jonathan Gottschall, it's as good as anything you will ever read about stories and how they mold us as individuals and hold our societies together. It is, I think, quite brilliant.

Gottschall romps through a huge range of psychology, evolutionary theory, anthropology, media studies, and even the sociology of online multi-player gaming communities in spin...more If I could give a book a six-star rating, I'd probably give it to this book. Written by an Engish professor at Washington and Jefferson College, Jonathan Gottschall, it's as good as anything you will ever read about stories and how they mold us as individuals and hold our societies together. It is, I think, quite brilliant.

Gottschall romps through a huge range of psychology, evolutionary theory, anthropology, media studies, and even the sociology of online multi-player gaming communities in spinning his analysis. It's often hugely insightful and almost always persuasive. More importantly, it's a great story. Because, after all, it's stories that persuade us, not facts or reason on their own.

The author's foundation belief is that "we are, as a species, addicted to story. Even when the body goes to sleep, the mind stays up all night, telling itself stories." In fact, he thinks that our species would be more aptly called "homo fictus" (fiction man), the great ape with the story-telling mind. He says emphatically that "Neverland is your home, and before you die, you will spend decades there."

Gottschall observes that anthropologists have yet to find a culture that does not tell stories. Moreover, these stories are all very similar across cultures, and deal with the universal themes of sex, love, struggle for power, good and evil, death ... The plot line always contains some form of Trouble with a capital T. The structure of the stories is also near-universal, following the formula of story = character + conflict + attempted resolution.

From this set of cultural universals, it is tempting to conclude that we are wired for stories. That's the theory that Gottschall essentially embraces. In particular, he embraces the view of David Sloan Wilson in his book "Darwin's Cathedral: Evolution, Religion, and the Nature of Society" that cultures that tell stories out-compete those that don't. Stories hold societies together, providing them with a set of common, shared myths: foundation stories, religious stories, patriotic stories, and so forth. A cooperative, united society kick ass against the every-man-for-himself society.

Gottschall does a wonderful job of drawing on the world of story-telling to illustrate how life can imitate art, on a grand scale. Some stories promote greater racial understanding or greater wariness of authoritarianism, such as To Kill a Mockingbird or Animal Farm or Darkness at Noon. Some, on the other hand, promote hatred, such as DW Griffith's silent classic film Birth of Nation, which created a renaissance for the Klu Klux Klan in the early 20th century by painting that organization as the savior of the white race in the post-Civil War southern U.S. And at least one book has even triggered a major war: Uncle Tom's Cabin increased opposition to slavery but also helped unleash a civil war that slaughtered a good part of an entire generation of young American men. A century and a half later, the effects of the war still linger.

Gottschall does not just focus at the societal level. At the level of individuals, he analyzes the role of our addiction to made-up stories in writing the history of our own lives. It's a well-studied phenomenon that our memories of the actual facts of our lives are notoriously unreliable. Even our deeply held conviction that we remember exactly where we were and what we were doing when a disaster occurred -- 9/11, the assassination of John F Kennedy -- turns out to be self-delusion. The accuracy of our recollection fades, but our confidence does not. The majority of Americans confidently and precisely remember seeing video of the first plane striking one of the World Trade Centers on the morning of 9/11. So did George Bush, when he described his reactions just three months after the events. No such video was available at the time. But faulty memories are not necessarily a weakness. Since our memories are so unreliable, this frees us to write our own, improved versions of our lives. Happy people write happy stories. Happy stories create happy people.

Notoriously, we also see patterns in events even where none exists. There are thousands of conspiracy sub-cultures that have woven together random bits of flotsam and jetsam to assemble simple theories of how the world works. We don't like randomness. We don't like to believe that shit just happens. We don't like to think that four American diplomats got killed in Benghazi in Libya because, well, bad things do just happen in chaotic war-torn countries where lots of people hate the U.S. and that have no functioning government. Instead, we see a vast cover-up orchestrated from the top. It's easier to believe in handful of bad guys hatching a plot than it is to conceive of the real life, complex maelstrom of post-Gaddhafi Libya.

The last chapter, on the future of story-telling, is particularly good. If you've ever heard of World of Warcraft, you should read that chapter. It almost made me want to play the game. Almost.

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May 21, 2013 Dawn rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: audio, education, non-fiction, read-2013

This was a really fascinating book where Gottschall discussed the central role stories play in the lives of humans such as evolutionary process, the simulation model where stories act as virtual reality technology, the story telling mind's role in conspiracy theories, dreams, regulating social activities and ethics and books that have changed the world.

For me, the most interesting aspect of the book was the discussion of the power stories have to change us as we experience stories as if they are...more

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May 11, 2013 John rated it 4 of 5 stars

A 4.5

I heard about this book on NPR about a year ago and was very interested. I got it as a gift for Christmas, but waited until I knew I was ready to read it. After recently reading some A. S. Byatt, I knew I was ready for it. Byatt put my brain into a mode where I was already thinking about stories.

The book focuses on something that is so obvious, but something I never stop to think about, that stories permeate our lives as humans. Our brains are wired in such a way that we must (must!) have...more A 4.5

I heard about this book on NPR about a year ago and was very interested. I got it as a gift for Christmas, but waited until I knew I was ready to read it. After recently reading some A. S. Byatt, I knew I was ready for it. Byatt put my brain into a mode where I was already thinking about stories.

The book focuses on something that is so obvious, but something I never stop to think about, that stories permeate our lives as humans. Our brains are wired in such a way that we must (must!) have a story. From early childhood’s “make believe” on, we never stop creating fiction around our lives. Some fictions might be closer to the truth, but we all live in separate fictions where we are the protagonist. This brain action shapes everything we do. It is profound to examine.

One of the obvious observations the book makes, (obvious, yet something I did not think about) is how our fictions almost always involve danger and disaster. This really comes out in dreams and make believe. In dreams something is frequently horribly awry. Monster, catastrophes, loved ones in danger, these are the themes of dreams. And children’s make believe is all about bad guys, monsters, sickness/injury, being lost or separated. Why is this? Gottschall says we run these fictions in our mind to prepare us for real life choices. Not that we are always likely to have to face any specific choice our mind can imagine, but it teaches us how to make choices, and shapes our choice-making process.

This book hurt my brain. It was not hard to understand, the material was presented in a very well organized and accessible manner. Instead, it challenged me throughout to examine what I believed to be true, versus what studies have shown to be true. Especially challenging was the second to last chapter which focuses on memory making. Studies have shown again and again how inaccurate our memories are, and how easy it is for false memories to invade.

I appreciated that Gottschall pulled story examples from such a wide source, from reality shows to War & Peace to video games to Wagner’s operas. Speaking of video games, I was very impressed by his frequent mentioning of them. Gottschall makes a strong case that they are a continuation of the human storytelling, and every bit as valuable as books or TV. I could not agree more. I also found great delight in his slight teasing of people who read Proust!

The book is meticulously researched and documented, the author did his homework and then some. But I have a small complaint, that I often wanted his analysis to go one more step. I am not sure exactly how, but several times I felt he left an idea before I was ready to be done with it. This is a very high praise at how interesting the book is. But it is also a slight knock that the book could have flushed out some ideas a little more.

This book is highly recommended! Since I own a copy, I am plotting on who I will loan it to and “force” to read it. I think it has changed the way I think about humanity, entertainment, fiction, and my own self-narrative. And I know it will make me observe my young nieces and nephews differently. And, I am sure I will reread it in the coming years.
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Feb 23, 2013 Jeff rated it 4 of 5 stars

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, an...more

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Feb 17, 2013 Andrea McDowell rated it 5 of 5 stars

I always find it humourous when people try to distinguish themselves by claiming that they never waste time reading fiction, just non-fiction.

Listen: ALL animal species communicate non-fiction. Bees tell each other where the flowers are, ants leave pheremone trails to food, and mammals, birds and amphibians of all varieties advertise mate-seeking status, warn kin of predators nearby, and announce food availability. To be sure human non-fiction communications are more detailed, various and knowle...more I always find it humourous when people try to distinguish themselves by claiming that they never waste time reading fiction, just non-fiction.

Listen: ALL animal species communicate non-fiction. Bees tell each other where the flowers are, ants leave pheremone trails to food, and mammals, birds and amphibians of all varieties advertise mate-seeking status, warn kin of predators nearby, and announce food availability. To be sure human non-fiction communications are more detailed, various and knowledgeable, but that is a difference in quantity, not quality, and places us squarely with our evolutionary kin.

However, humans are the only animals that talk about things that never happened to people who never existed. As a universal trait that exists in all cultures, appears spontaneously in childhood, and where parents spontaneously encourage this behaviour by engaging their children in pretend play and story-telling, one might think that it is an adaptative trait--no?--that confers evolutionary advantages. And one would be right, as this book describes. Fiction enhances social skills and enables people to practice problem-solving skills; it coheres societies around common sets of moral values and principles (the author places religion with fiction, which he uses as a prime example of this tendency, but not the only one); it bonds social groups; and along the way it provides people with a tremendous amount of pleasure, although, as the author points out, this is beyond odd as successful stories are almost always about trauma and trouble. Why should that be pleasurable?

It's also a very well-written, entertaining and compulsively readable book--one of the first non-fiction books in a long time I stayed up late to finish. Did you know that exposure to even just one short story or short TV show (fiction) can alter someone's moral stance on an issue, or even alter the person's results on a personality test? Fiction is potent stuff.

Fun book. If you're a big fiction-reader (or fiction-viewer, or both), read it--and the next time someone gives you a hard time for wasting so much of your life on fluff when you could be engaged in serious, productive pursuits like reading about the history of braille or baking a loaf of bread or spending the time working so as to make more money etc., you'll have the perfect riposte. Fiction is one of the things that truly sets humans apart from the other animals. Without fiction, we're beavers or ants, running around looking for mates and food and building houses and alliances.

But fully evolved human beings can generally be found, at least sometimes, loafing around with a good novel or watching a good movie. And that is just as it should be.(less)

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Jan 31, 2013 Robert Bidinotto rated it 5 of 5 stars

As both a nonfiction author and a bestselling novelist, I’ve pondered certain puzzles for decades.

Why do people find certain ideologies and philosophies appealing, but not others? Why do we so often hold to our points of view dogmatically, intractable to all facts, reason, and logic? What is the source of dreams? Why do certain common myths seem to be indelible and universal, across cultures and throughout history? Why does music conjure in us mental imagery? What is the key to the kind of motiv...more As both a nonfiction author and a bestselling novelist, I’ve pondered certain puzzles for decades.

Why do people find certain ideologies and philosophies appealing, but not others? Why do we so often hold to our points of view dogmatically, intractable to all facts, reason, and logic? What is the source of dreams? Why do certain common myths seem to be indelible and universal, across cultures and throughout history? Why does music conjure in us mental imagery? What is the key to the kind of motivational commitment that impels some people to face and triumph over incredible odds and obstacles? Why do we find certain people, at first glance, overpoweringly attractive, and others repulsive? Why do we love some books and movies, and hate others?

These and many other mysteries of the human mind and personality are central to the concerns of the artist, psychologist, historian, or person plying any field of communication or persuasion. But is there anything that links together all of these apparently disparate things?

In his brilliant and engrossing The Storytelling Animal, Jonathan Gottschall reveals the central, essential, and seminal role played by story – or “Narrative,” as I’ve called it — in human thought, action, and culture. Moving with seemingly effortless creative ease from riveting personal anecdotes to abstract sociological theories, from baffling historical phenomena to intriguing psychological experiments, Gottschall offers a key to understanding much that has baffled man throughout the ages.

For decades, I had believed that philosophical ideas and ideologies reigned paramount in the culture. But over time, events and experience began to collide with that assumption. I began to wonder, for example, why people holding the same ideas, nominally, could live so differently — and why some philosophies seemed to have more cultural traction and durability than others. I was introduced to the extraordinary power of stories when reading the works of mythologist Joseph Campbell. Aspiring to write fiction, I also became fascinated by how timeless, transcultural myths found their way into fiction and film. Building upon Campbell, “script doctor” Christopher Vogler even uses mythological archetypes to help craft hugely popular movies, and — in his book The Writers Journey: Mythic Structure for Writers — to school authors in the craft of fiction-writing. (Let me add that I employed some of these concepts in writing my debut thriller HUNTER; the novel’s success is at least in part a testament to their validity and usefulness.) While conducting research on a nonfiction book project about the roots of the contemporary environmentalist movement, I also came to realize how certain ancient, mythic storylines served as the basis for modern ideologies and major religions. (Gottschall himself demonstrates this latter truth with his sobering account of the career of Adolph Hitler, who was inspired and guided decisively by the heroic operatic dramas of composer Richard Wagner.)

The Storytelling Animal touches upon all of this, and much, much more, drawing the kinds of interdisciplinary and personal connections that most of us would never make in a hundred years. Yet even so, I think Gottschall has barely scratched the surface of the far-flung implications of narratives and stories in our lives. To take just one example, I believe our current president has understood intuitively, and for years, the power of crafting a compelling “personal narrative” in order to launch and propel his political career to wildly improbable success — and how he relied on crafting a similar “morality play” about himself and his opponents in order to win re-election in 2012. But that is just one of the important implications to be drawn from this extraordinary work.

Let me add that Gottschall himself is a wonderful writer and storyteller. A book that could have been an imposing intellectual chore and bore never flags for a moment in holding the reader and keeping him turning pages. So as not to distract or interrupt his own narrative, he sequesters a formidable array of endnotes and a vast, impressive bibliography unobtrusively, after the text.

I love books like this — books that upend my previous understanding, books that augment my grasp of the world, books that draw breathtakingly unexpected links among apparently unrelated things. For all these reasons, I can’t recommend The Storytelling Animal strongly enough. A joy to read and ponder, it’s the most intellectually fertile nonfiction work I’ve read in years.(less)

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Jan 16, 2013 Deb rated it 5 of 5 stars

**The story behind story**

Jonathan Gottschall’s book beautifully narrates the story behind story. Enthralling, engrossing, and engaging, this plot of the book reveals how story is far more than just a source of entertainment and escape. Story is core to our human essence and has heroically been rescuing us with its evolutionary, neurological, social, psychological, and existential advantages since the beginning of time.

As Gottschall summarizes:
“Humans are creatures of Neverland. Neverland is ou...more

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Jan 09, 2013 Constantine rated it 3 of 5 stars

Easy read....definitley non-academic. Breezy, but to me,at any rate, an entertaining and simultaneously thought provoking exploration of the role of story in human development. Story telling, as viewed by Gottschall,is the fundamental structuring mechanism that enables our human brain to negotiate a chaotic and meaningless universe, this fictive power is an evolutionary neurological response that imposes a workable lie or fiction that is, ultimately, a means for enhancing our chances for surviva...more

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Sep 02, 2012 Caren rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: adult-nonfiction

I really enjoyed this light-hearted little book. At just 200 pages, it's an easy, fun read with quite a few well-chosen illustrations to enliven the text. As a professor of English, the author is immersed in story for his work. He shows us, however, that we are all creatures of story: it's our human condition. He asks the question of why humans need stories, given that evolution is so apparently utilitarian (pg. 24). He presents some theories about the purpose of stories, but offers that it coul...more I really enjoyed this light-hearted little book. At just 200 pages, it's an easy, fun read with quite a few well-chosen illustrations to enliven the text. As a professor of English, the author is immersed in story for his work. He shows us, however, that we are all creatures of story: it's our human condition. He asks the question of why humans need stories, given that evolution is so apparently utilitarian (pg. 24). He presents some theories about the purpose of stories, but offers that it could also be just a quirk, or as he puts it, "just lucky accidents of the mind's jury-rigged construction"(pg. 29). Throughout the book he relates amusing and sometimes touching little anecdotes about his two young daughters. One of the first ideas he explores is that stories are ways for children to learn. He launches into a description of the different sorts of play boys and girls initiate. Referring to the work of Vivian Paley, who worked as a kindergarten and preschool teacher from the 1950s through the 2000s, he gives examples of the sorts of stories/play that engage boys and how they differ form girls' play. Even with attempts to redirect their play, each gender reverts to its chosen focus. Boys would take over the block corner and stage battles, while girls set up the housekeeping/dress-up corner with their dolls and princess tiaras. As a modern dad, he winces at such stereotypes, but acknowledges that "sex differences in children's play reflect the fact that biological evolution is slow, while cultural evolution is fast" (pg. 41).
The author moves on to note that we humans seem to prefer stories with some sort of threat or trouble. The best stories deal with how a protagonist deals with trouble and grows from it. He says a reader becomes caught up in a good story, living along with the characters, to such an extent the reader is actually changed by the experience. He says, in fact, that reading fiction (as opposed to nonfiction) makes a person more socially adept. After speaking a bit about mirror neurons, he concludes this chapter by saying, "The constant firing of our neurons in response to fictional stimuli strengthens and refines the neural pathways that lead to skillful navigation of life's problems." (pg. 67)
Later chapters look at dreams, at the mind of a storyteller (is some sort of mental illness a prerequisite to great art?), at the moral of a story and how thoroughly a story can change the direction of a person's life (using the example of Hitler's love for the stories in Wagner's operas), at depression and the fact that a healthy person's brain tells itself not entirely true stories in order to deal with life, and finally, the future of story.
The author closes the book with a few tips for keeping stories alive in your life:1) read and watch fiction. 2) don't over schedule children; leave a little unstructured time for play and imagining 3) let yourself daydream 4)be skeptical of believing extreme stories (such as conspiracy theories)5)embrace cultural (whether national or religious) myths(pgs. 198-199).
If your greatest pleasure is getting lost in a good book, read this one for a few insights as to why.(less)

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Aug 16, 2012 Michael rated it 1 of 5 stars

Is Jonathan Gottschall padding a portfolio for tenure? That's about the only excuse I can come up with for the waste of paper used in printing this book. The many photographs and illustrations (poorly reproduced) add absolutely nothing to the arguments advanced by the author -- they merely take up space in in a book that is already as short on pages as it is short on original ideas. As far as I can tell, the author drew on the works of real scholars, augmented his summaries thereof with musings...more

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Jul 06, 2012 Damian rated it 5 of 5 stars

The Story Telling Animal is a master work.

Gottschall argues that our constant fictional consumption shifts who we are and also makes us adept storytellers in our own lives. Gottschall's book unlocked something in me. The realization that I am a walking work of fiction, albeit a constantly evolving one. FASCINATING!

I am a consumer of all things Non-Fiction and love Pinker, Gladwell and Dawkins. As I read this I could see the torch being passed and realized that I was reading the words of the next...more

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Jun 02, 2012 Kristine rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: non-fiction

Jonathan Gottschall has written an easy-reading, fairly engaging non-fiction book using insights from psychology, biology, and neuroscience to give a theory of storytelling.

Humans have evolved to crave stories, he says, to "help us navigate life's complex social problems -- just as flight simulators prepare pilots for difficult situations."

He goes on to say that societies mostly benefit by, and become more closely bound together by, having a set of common values and culture reinforced in ---...more

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May 27, 2012 Tracy rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: found-interesting

I ran across an interesting book at the library last week called The Storytelling Animal: How Stories Make Us Human by Jonathan Gottschall.

His research delves into our inherent love of stories. Our ability to express ourselves with narratives has allowed us to share ideas, relate events, illustrate philosophies, and teach lessons. I think most people agree that things are easier for us to remember when we hear it through a story. We naturally pay greater attention to stories because they engage...more I ran across an interesting book at the library last week called The Storytelling Animal: How Stories Make Us Human by Jonathan Gottschall.

His research delves into our inherent love of stories. Our ability to express ourselves with narratives has allowed us to share ideas, relate events, illustrate philosophies, and teach lessons. I think most people agree that things are easier for us to remember when we hear it through a story. We naturally pay greater attention to stories because they engage us both intellectually and emotionally.

In The Storytelling Animal Gottschall presents findings from neuroscience studies. Brain scans are proving to be very illuminating in a number of fields, and Gottschall reported that when our minds experience fiction they light up like the individual is actually experiencing the action and feelings directly instead of indirectly. We empathize with the characters instead of sympathize because we feel what they are going through. This is why when I am immersed in a narrative (either fiction or nonfiction) the world around me drops away and I am transported into the details and feelings of the story. Gottschall described our capacity for experiencing fiction as a computer flight simulator in our brains. We can imagine a situation in great detail, feel what it will be like, and think about what the outcomes may be without actually risking ourselves through direct action. Hearing or reading the stories of other people also lets us experience events and feelings beyond our personal experiences. This expands our knowledge and our ability to cope with new things.

Gottschall wrote "Fiction is a powerful and ancient virtual reality technology that simulates the big dilemmas of human life."

As a fantasy author, I know that my fiction genre is typically described as escapist. This is true, but Gottschall makes the point that escapist fiction does not appear to be whisking us away to happy worlds of foot massages and rainbows. Fiction focuses on problems, sometimes huge horrific dangerous problems like zombies have taken over and want to eat your brains. The author proposes that we seek fiction as a way of exploring big scary problems and thinking and feeling about how we might deal with them.

Gottschall wrote "...if fiction offers escape, it is a bizarre sort of escape. Our various fictional worlds are -- on the whole -- horrorscapes. Fiction may temporarily free us from our troubles, but it does so by ensnaring us in new sets of troubles -- in imaginary worlds of struggle and stress and mortal woe."

I absolutely agree with him. These imaginary worlds of struggle and woe are so engaging for me as a writer and a reader. I want to think about what it would be like if I had to fight for my life. Or what it would feel like to be sold into slavery. Or what dealing with magical creatures might be like, and so on.

I found The Storytelling Animal to be both informative and validating. In chapter after chapter he shows how our entire species is hardwired for telling and enjoying stories. Experiencing things through our imaginations instead of only direct contact is a great human strength. Even when we sleep our dreams continue to generate experiences, and some of them are very intense.

Gottschall made the point that people really can't stand to be without stories. We like to hear them and we like to tell them. Throughout humanity's existence there have been people who were storytellers. They were a little better or at least more inclined to develop narratives for the enjoyment of others. Storytelling is natural to our species. We do it much more elaborately than a honeybee dancing out directions to some good flowers. Reading The Storytelling Animal let me know that I am not weird. Our species needs storytellers to feed the constant craving within all of us to experience feelings and challenges beyond our personal lives. Everyone wants to hear a story so some people have to step up and deliver. (less)

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Jul 25, 2012 Caroline rated it 4 of 5 stars

This is a fascinating exploration of just how central the concept of 'story' is to the human animal, how much the idea of creating a narrative form is to our existence. Humans have been telling stories as long as we have been recognisably human: early cave paintings are telling a story of hunting and conflict; all religions at their core are based on stories, whether those stories be truth or fiction; our memories involve telling stories, filling in blanks based on extrapolation and conjecture;...more This is a fascinating exploration of just how central the concept of 'story' is to the human animal, how much the idea of creating a narrative form is to our existence. Humans have been telling stories as long as we have been recognisably human: early cave paintings are telling a story of hunting and conflict; all religions at their core are based on stories, whether those stories be truth or fiction; our memories involve telling stories, filling in blanks based on extrapolation and conjecture; solving crimes involves creating a plausible narrative from the evidence available. Our brains even weave stories as we sleep! And humans aren't the only animals that dream, so there must be some kind of evolutionary imperative for story.

So why? Gottschall argues that the act of storytelling is intrinsic to humans because it allows us to 'act out' or experience things without the inherent perils involved. Studies have shown that our brains react identically to an emotion or experience regardless of whether we are reading about that experience, watching someone else go through it or experiencing it ourselves. To our brains there is no difference between reality and 'story'. So storytelling creates a safe environment for us to practice, for lack of a better world, to experience a multitude of dangers and conflicts from a secure vantage point.

At its heart, he argues, all story is about conflict, about overcoming obstacles, about triumphing over disaster or evil. Even from an incredibly young age, childrens' play involves moral dilemmas, good guys v. bad guys, fighting dragons, protecting the innocent, defending one's own. And since the brain adapts based on repeated experience, repeated exposure to these kind of fictional occurrences can actually help our brain learn how to deal with them in reality, to be ready.

He also looks at how story has evolved, from what was for millennia a purely visual or oral form of delivery, through to today's story where we are exposed to a narrative structure in everything from novels to video games, advertisements to songs, news reports and our not-entirely reliable memories. Story is everywhere, and it's not going away. Indeed, story is becoming ever more immersive, to the point, he argues, where we could find ourselves in danger of immersing ourselves in the story world to the exclusion of the real world. We're already getting there, with people spending hours and hours immersed in MMORPGs, and sooner or later the kind of virtual reality technology seen in Star Trek's holodecks will become a reality.

This was a really interesting read, about an aspect of ourselves that we take so for granted. We don't even think about how intrinsic the concept of story is to our lives, and yet it is hardwired into our DNA.(less)

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May 07, 2012 Anne rated it 4 of 5 stars

I am an avid reader and love to get swept up in a story so I was excited to read this book about storytelling by Jonathan Gottschall. I was not disappointed, it is a great book about how are lives are shaped by stories. I was expecting a book that discussed different stories found in books but Gottschall made me see that there are stories all around us, not just the ones found in books. He talks about a wide variety of stories found in our culture today including books, movies, tv shows (even re...more I am an avid reader and love to get swept up in a story so I was excited to read this book about storytelling by Jonathan Gottschall. I was not disappointed, it is a great book about how are lives are shaped by stories. I was expecting a book that discussed different stories found in books but Gottschall made me see that there are stories all around us, not just the ones found in books. He talks about a wide variety of stories found in our culture today including books, movies, tv shows (even reality tv), video games, and the stories we ourselves tell about our own lives.

There are some interesting research that has been done on the subject that Gottschall discusses, I particularly liked the part with research on young children and the stories they make up while they are playing. It was fascinating to see the difference between the play of boys and girls and the examples shown of what the children said while playing was fascinating.

My favorite chapter was titled Ink People Change the World and it talked about how stories can have such a strong effect on people and can change history. Two examples that were given were of Hitler's going to see a performance of Rienzi by Wagner and how he said the performance revealed his destiny. The other example was the book Uncle Tom's Cabin and the effect the book had on American culture during the time of the Civil War. Here is a quote from the book that really makes an important point.

"If the research is correct, fiction is one of the primary sculpting forces of individuals and societies. Anecdotes about those rare ink people, such as Rienzi or Uncle Tom, who vault across the fantasy-reality divide to change history are impressive. But what is more impressive, if harder to see, is the way stories are working on us all the time, reshaping us in the way that flowing water gradually reshapes a rock."

I think Gottschall makes an important point about the power of stories in our lives.

The book gives lots of information along side examples and research that help Gottschall make his points. It is a great read about the power of stories and why we humans feel compelled to read them or watch them. I would highly recommend this one, especially to those passionate about reading.
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Dec 29, 2012 Jennifer Louden rated it 2 of 5 stars

I so wanted to love this book. It just didn't add up for me - or rather it did add up but not to enough. I wanted to know more about how our brains work on stories and how we can use that knowledge to create better civic, family, and personal stories. I did learn there is ample evidence for how important - central - story is to our well-being, our ability to learn, our cultural cohesion, and our mental health in particular. Gottschall makes a great case for the importance of story but because I...more

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Jul 16, 2012 Tony Heyl rated it 3 of 5 stars

I was already of the firm belief that storytelling was ingrained in the human psyche, so this book basically reinforced my beliefs. Gottschall shows how stories pervade all means of human interaction and that we really think, reason, emote and remember through stories more than anything else. Stories create social bonds, bring people together in common cultures with shared values, pass lessons down from generations, and help us make sense of the world. This book demonstrates how important storyt...more

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Feb 25, 2013 Juan rated it 2 of 5 stars

This book was a disappointment.

The subject of the book -that we live in an essentially fictional world of fabulation, misrepresentation, self-deception, duplicity, daydreaming, mythmaking and myth consumption- has momentous implications for things as abstract as the philosophical concept of truth or the purpose of national narratives to basic concrete applications such as the legal system's reliance on witness accounts.

Unfortunately, aside from a useful summary of the state of the art (or the sc...more This book was a disappointment.

The subject of the book -that we live in an essentially fictional world of fabulation, misrepresentation, self-deception, duplicity, daydreaming, mythmaking and myth consumption- has momentous implications for things as abstract as the philosophical concept of truth or the purpose of national narratives to basic concrete applications such as the legal system's reliance on witness accounts.

Unfortunately, aside from a useful summary of the state of the art (or the science, I should say, neuroscience) regarding our brain's compulsion to weave narratives from the data of everyday life, and an interesting bibliography that probably contains the books I was hoping this one would be, The Storytelling Animal is direly short of actual insights from the author.

The two places where Gottschall ventures actual propositions of his own are either simplistic and retrograde (stories are there to further morality) or platitudinous and slightly ridiculous (interactive stories are the vanguard of storytelling / in the near future we will all engage in live or virtual role playing games).

Authorities on the first theory are Gottschall himself referring to a study he will soon publish but of which contents or conclusions he supplies nil; Tolstoy, whose classic stance is hardly newsworthy; and Gardener, whose position is mentioned without comment as if it represented the definitive consensus on the subject.

Are stories, and literature in general, really supposed to underpin and foster moral behavior? Contrary evidence, that is to say, the vast majority of literature written during the XX century, is dismissed as a mere faux pas. Humbert Humbert? Dismissed with a shrug of incomprehension.

Not only is the book short on insight and useful or innovative conclusions, it is written in the typical pop science style of endless repetition, entertaining but obvious exemplar anecdote and condescending tone of the schoolmaster.

As a general primer, yes, competent but not great. As a vehicle of well considered theories, not quite. Look elsewhere first: possibly in Boyd or Iser.

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Jul 16, 2012 Cheryl rated it 3 of 5 stars

I'm having trouble deciding what this book is actually about. It covers a lot of ground, and I think that is one of the problems I'm having with it. Even though the book is listed at 248 pages, only 199 pages are actual text. The rest of the book is notes,a bibliography, acknowledgments, credits and an index.

The first few chapters cover the history of storytelling, the puzzle as to why it dominates human culture across the ages, always with the same components, and scientific studies. Lot of go...more

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Jun 09, 2012 Newengland rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: contemporary, finished-in-2012, nonfiction

The Storytelling Animal is another in a recent spate of Malcolm Gladwell-inspired essay collections, learned yet at the same time so breezy that your shirt might lose some starch. Middle-brow fun, these books entertain while they inform. In this case, Gottschall takes on all angles of "story" so that you can see that, like air, narrative is everywhere and everywhere is narrative. His thesis: Humans are hard-wired for story, from the oral tradition to the print era and beyond (hint: "beyond" equa...more The Storytelling Animal is another in a recent spate of Malcolm Gladwell-inspired essay collections, learned yet at the same time so breezy that your shirt might lose some starch. Middle-brow fun, these books entertain while they inform. In this case, Gottschall takes on all angles of "story" so that you can see that, like air, narrative is everywhere and everywhere is narrative. His thesis: Humans are hard-wired for story, from the oral tradition to the print era and beyond (hint: "beyond" equals the virtual borders we have crossed in the technological era).

If you are really interested in story and want to go deep for a hail Mary, consider Alberto Manguel's comprehensive A History of Reading. By comparison, this is more of a survey sort of deal with an "angle" that might leave you hungry for more. Gottschall talks about the nature of story, how a predicament and conflict is necessary, how similar all stories are at their fundamental roots.

Dreams? Stories. Memoirs? Stories with accent on the fictional aspect. On-line video games, reenactments on battlefields, reality TV shows? Story, story, story. One thing I do like is when Gottschall is willing to take a more controversial stand such as he does with video gaming fanatics. To him, they are not so much escapist nerds as wise people who are simply embracing a more palatable world (and story) at the expense of a more boring and despairing one (the story that is their lives in the "real" world). I place "real" in quotation marks because, Gottschall claims, the line between fictional story and real is blurring by the day. For some, this comes as good news! For others, it's further signs of the approaching apocalypse.

If you're a depth reader and a fan of reading, 3-star it and mine what you will. If you're a breadth reader and a fan of reading, 4-star it and share a few tidbits at the next cocktail party (where many stories are unfolding) you attend.

End of story. And yes, reviews -- as well as the persona developed by all reviewers -- constitute yet another story. Let's hope, in the case of this writer, it ends with the words, "And he lived happily ever after."(less)

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Apr 07, 2012 Penelope rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: goodreads-first-reads, non-fiction, spring-12

I received this book for free through Goodreads First Reads.

3.5 stars

I really enjoyed this book, although it went in quite a different direction than I expected. I was expecting more of a linear scientific examination of...well...how stories make us human. However, I made that assumption based on a pretty narrow definition of what "story" is. Gottschall's definition of story is broad, ranging from novels, to religion, to the narratives inside our heads about our day to day lives--essentially any...more

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Dec 13, 2012 Shay rated it 4 of 5 stars

For some people, to study literature at all is to pick it apart until the very magic of story is lost; it ruins the experience. For others, closer examination offers the opportunity to engage more deeply with the work. Jonathan Gottschall’s book The Storytelling Animal is decidedly for this second group. Gottschall, like Richard Dawkins in The Magic of Reality, argues that understanding the science behind a complex phenomenon makes it more beautiful and meaningful, rather than less. The Storytel...more For some people, to study literature at all is to pick it apart until the very magic of story is lost; it ruins the experience. For others, closer examination offers the opportunity to engage more deeply with the work. Jonathan Gottschall’s book The Storytelling Animal is decidedly for this second group. Gottschall, like Richard Dawkins in The Magic of Reality, argues that understanding the science behind a complex phenomenon makes it more beautiful and meaningful, rather than less. The Storytelling Animal uses psychology, neuroscience and yes, storytelling, to examine the significance of narrative in human lives, and interrogates a number of possible theories as to why story, which is often described as frivolous or escapist, might have continued to exist across cultures and time.

Gottschall’s first task is defamiliarization; he strives to make the reader aware of the “weird and witchy” power story has over us all. This is a formidable challenge; much like telling someone not to think about purple elephants, it is almost impossible not to be transported by narrative, even while struggling to consciously examine it. Story is so natural to us that even very young children instinctively engage in creating narratives. Only after the reader has been asked to consider story from this unfamiliar vantage point does the author proceed to demonstrate the manifold ways in which story influences many aspects of our lives. Child’s play and dreams are only the most obvious; Gottschall marshals a range of studies to demonstrate that our everyday lives are just as plastic and prone to fictionalization. From memory to social media, we strive to impose narrative order on chaos. Moreover, fiction has the power to spill over into our lives and influence our actions and opinions. Fiction has the ability to take us unawares that persuasive non-fiction can only envy.

Gottschall’s work is on the short side (200 pages) given the amount of ground covered by the book, and the extensive bibliography that stands behind it (15 pages). The book moves rapidly from illustrating how the brain works when it encounters a story, to considering the role of story in learning, to discussing the significance of morality and fear in narrative. Gottschall has correlated existing material into a tantalizing and engaging read, but no new research is presented. This is a comprehensible look at the neuroscience related to our narrative impulses, but it is only the beginning of the story.

http://shayshortt.wordpress.com/2012/...(less)

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Apr 27, 2012 Susanna rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: first-look, nonfiction

This proved to be quite a delightful read. The subject material and arguments covered are certainly fascinating, and Gottschall, through his quotes and supporting evidence, is clearly well-read both in this subject and in a more general sense. I did not expect the heavy dependence upon psychology, but it was well-explained and actually provided a great supplement to the psychology course I am currently taking. The evolutionary biology approach to explaining the purpose(s) of storytelling was als...more This proved to be quite a delightful read. The subject material and arguments covered are certainly fascinating, and Gottschall, through his quotes and supporting evidence, is clearly well-read both in this subject and in a more general sense. I did not expect the heavy dependence upon psychology, but it was well-explained and actually provided a great supplement to the psychology course I am currently taking. The evolutionary biology approach to explaining the purpose(s) of storytelling was also particularly fascinating.

The one thing about which I could complain, which is actually more of a personal problem than one of the author's, is that there is not a concrete set of knowledge I took away from reading this book. Gottschall explores a variety of ideas about the reasons behind storytelling that stem from a variety of academic disciplines, so the book comes off as more of an eclectic, chapter-by-chapter compilation than a concrete setting-forth of a single man's unified ideas. It's quite fascinating, and Gottschall adds an appropriate amount of humor to keep things moving, but the reader comes away with more general knowledge and less specifics that can be concretely explained. Not by any means unpleasant, but not what I had expected. Also, I had mixed opinions about the images included with the text. Many did add to the material being covered, but I felt that some came off as unprofessional in the general outlay of text and pictures. However, maybe this will be remedied in the final copy of the book.

Overall, The Storytelling Animal is a fun but also very informative read. It is perfectly written for a general audience, containing little academic jargon but still perfectly conveying its messages. Even for people not usually interested in the fields covered, the mix of occasional humor, references to well-known things from history and the media, and Gottschall's clear writing make for an interesting read.

Disclaimer: I received my copy of this book through First Look.(less)

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Jan 14, 2013 Penny rated it 2 of 5 stars

I took a long time to choose two stars instead of one. It should be one and a half. There were parts that were 'ok'. There were parts that made me want to throw the book at the wall [I didn't, because I didn't want to break any of my wall-hanging stuff]. I didn't choose to read the book, it was an assigned book for my course. I had an open mind when I read it though, and liked the questions posed, but I didn't like the fact that a)it all felt surface-dwelt. Sort of like a Daddy mentioning his da...more

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May 21, 2012 Amy rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2012

This was a decidedly popular rather than academic treatment of the subject--something akin to a Malcolm Gladwell or Stephen Johnson approach to storytelling than, say, a closely analytical approach. In terms of the breadth of topics covered, it is impressive, ranging from bipolarity/schizophrenia through dreams, myths, religion, conspiracy theory, and MMORPGs as the future of storytelling. Gottschall does treat these various topics with a deft, albeit somewhat superficial hand, managing--also li...more

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Jul 25, 2012 Ryan rated it 2 of 5 stars

This book was incredibly disappointing. The question of why humans are so inclined to view the world in narrative terms is fascinating, but aside from a handful of interesting scientific studies, this book fails to provide a well supported theory as to the answer.

Gottschall is a lecturer in English, and he writes very much from a cultural/literary perspective. Support for his points mostly comes from popular novels or cultural events. This would be fine if Gottschall was merely trying to enumera...more This book was incredibly disappointing. The question of why humans are so inclined to view the world in narrative terms is fascinating, but aside from a handful of interesting scientific studies, this book fails to provide a well supported theory as to the answer.

Gottschall is a lecturer in English, and he writes very much from a cultural/literary perspective. Support for his points mostly comes from popular novels or cultural events. This would be fine if Gottschall was merely trying to enumerate the different types of stories that appear in our lives. The problem lies in him arguing that he has answers which he in fact does not, and those shortcomings become painfully apparent as the book goes on.

It reads much like the primitive "research papers" that my fellow students and I were forced to write in high school. A basic thesis is chosen (usually a gut feeling about something), and any possible references are hauled out no matter if they support the thesis or are just related in some way. Yet in the mind of the student, the reference are there, so the point has been made.

This is a quote from the book that I find typifies the emptiness of its language and arguments.

The characters in fiction are just wiggles of ink on paper (or chemical stains on celluloid). They are ink people. They live in ink houses inside ink towns. They work at ink jobs. They have inky problems. They sweat ink and cry ink, and when they are cut, they bleed ink. And yet ink people press effortlessly through the porous membrane separating their inky world from ours. They move through our flesh-and-blood world and weird real power in it. As we have seen, this is spectacularly true of sacred fictions. The ink people of scripture have a real, live presence in our world. They shape our behavior and customs, and in so doing, they transform societies and histories.

The "ink people" metaphor isn't misleading or dishonest in any way, it just doesn't say much of anything. Only the last sentence is really saying something concrete, and it reads like the thesis of a 10th grade English paper.

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Mar 09, 2012 Steve rated it 4 of 5 stars

Jonathan Gottshcall discusses why stories are so pervasive in our lives, in a well written, compelling book that explores the science, history, and future of stories and storytelling. Among other things, the book covers why children and adults create and consume fiction, the science of dreams, the role of stories in influencing (and defining) history, and what technology means for the future of stories. Not just full of interesting facts, many chapters start out in the manner of a compelling sto...more

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