142nd out of 284 books
—
178 voters
On the Origin of Stories: Evolution, Cognition, and Fiction
by
Brian Boyd
A century and a half after the publication of "Origin of Species, " evolutionary thinking has expanded beyond the field of biology to include virtually all human-related subjects--anthropology, archeology, psychology, economics, religion, morality, politics, culture, and art. Now a distinguished scholar offers the first comprehensive account of the evolutionary origins of...more
Hardcover, 540 pages
Published
May 1st 2009
by Belknap Press
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The thrust of this book is simple: a human is not a clean slate, but a social animal shaped by evolution. Most of the things humans do, including art, make a lot more sense if viewed in light of this. Moreover, culture itself, including art, is a subject of its own mutation pressure, selection, and inheritance - that is, its own evolution.
This book is a critical element in the ongoing "evolutionary revolution" in science, which may in the long term rival the Copernican revolution by its depth a...more
This book is a critical element in the ongoing "evolutionary revolution" in science, which may in the long term rival the Copernican revolution by its depth a...more
If you've read the Selfish Gene or otherwise have some understanding of natural selection, you can probably guess with rather good accuracy at the main lines of argument of this book. Which isn't to say that it's bad at all, just that I found the writing a little bit too leisurely (which is to say, I spent too much time in engineering school. the writing is good.)
But if you haven't read the selfish gene or anything else on natural selection, I would HIGHLY RECOMMEND READING THIS, because the aut...more
But if you haven't read the selfish gene or anything else on natural selection, I would HIGHLY RECOMMEND READING THIS, because the aut...more
a pretty good book that i felt sabotaged itself from the get-go, by picking such an ostentatious title. the book is really literary theory through the lens of evolutionary psychology (which he labels evocriticism) - and the idea itself is interesting and somewhat original. but, by picking that title he falls into the trap that all evolutionary psychologists fall into, namely, acting as if you theory is some how provable. boyd does mumble something about how his idea can be falsifiable, but negle...more
A book about evolution. A book about literature. A book about Homer and Dr. Seuss. All things I’m very interested in. Yet, somehow, Brian Boyd’s book was just not very compelling reading. It was, in fact, a difficult book to read -- it was a struggle taking me months to finish. I don’t know if it’s just the writing style or the content. Some of the evolutionary background was certainly redundant to me, but I can see why he needed it in the book.
Regardless of that, the book has an important stat...more
Regardless of that, the book has an important stat...more
After finishing this, I wanted to take the time to mull over what I had read so that I could write a specific, detailed review. Instead, I’m going with the lazy list of overarching ideas that I had while reading.
One of Boyd’s goals is to prove that art, especially narrative, is a specifically human adaptation that is biological part of our species. In this, he succeeds. However, he does so tediously. Maybe it’s because I buy evolutionary theories in general, but his conjectures were all logical,...more
One of Boyd’s goals is to prove that art, especially narrative, is a specifically human adaptation that is biological part of our species. In this, he succeeds. However, he does so tediously. Maybe it’s because I buy evolutionary theories in general, but his conjectures were all logical,...more
In writing a book about fiction and evolution, the author should have spent time to make his text much more illustrative of his points.
We humans need fiction, he says. Our brains have, for better or for worse, evolved to see our world in terms of stories. So, it is likely that seeing our world this way gives out species a part of the evolutionary advantage which we now enjoy.
He's not the first human to observe this. In antiquity, sages figured out how to build a "cathedral of the mind" in orde...more
We humans need fiction, he says. Our brains have, for better or for worse, evolved to see our world in terms of stories. So, it is likely that seeing our world this way gives out species a part of the evolutionary advantage which we now enjoy.
He's not the first human to observe this. In antiquity, sages figured out how to build a "cathedral of the mind" in orde...more
An argument synthesized from what must have been years of research and interest and also of disciplines: human fictional storytelling is an evolutionary adaptation that provides an evolutionary benefit to humankind.
Like any academic, Boyd marshals his evidence and arguments methodically, tracking human and other animal developments that build the foundation for his claim, before moving on to explicating it.
Intriguing, certainly, and he didn't fall into any of those evolutionary pitfalls that aff...more
Like any academic, Boyd marshals his evidence and arguments methodically, tracking human and other animal developments that build the foundation for his claim, before moving on to explicating it.
Intriguing, certainly, and he didn't fall into any of those evolutionary pitfalls that aff...more
A summer's worth of reading and I've finally finished Brian Boyd's On the Origin of Stories, a colossal treatise on the intersection of literature and cognitive science. Boyd, a prominent Nabokov scholar, dives head-first into the world of evolutionary biology in an effort to understand what it is about stories that appeal to us, why we expend so much time and effort in telling them, and why some endure for generations while others barely register at all on our cultural radars. His main theory i...more
Nov 16, 2009
Nancy Mcgartland
is currently reading it
A major difference btwn humans and other mammals is that humans have learned to "control the urge for dominance , by collaborating to resist being dominated, and that this power has unleashed the unique power of human cooperation"(28).
Important text. I'm adding it as required reading for my Univ of Md undergrad course on Good Stories: Teaching Narratives for Peace & Justice. I've been blogging on this text in the course at http://dochorsetales.blogspot.com/201...
Mar 31, 2011
Bob
rated it
2 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
visitors from another planet
Recommended to Bob by:
New York Review of Books
150 years after Darwin's Evolution of Species, Brian Boyd applies evolutionary theory to literature, comparing Homer's Odyssey and Dr. Seuss's Horton Hears A Who.
No, I'm not making this up.
Yes, the library paid $35 for a hardcover copy of this epic tome.
Is it too late to get our money back?
SAMPLE TEXT: As we have seen in Part 2, the capacity to command attention in social animals correlates highly with status...We seek attention as a good in itself and compete to tell stories.
http://www.hup.harv...more
No, I'm not making this up.
Yes, the library paid $35 for a hardcover copy of this epic tome.
Is it too late to get our money back?
SAMPLE TEXT: As we have seen in Part 2, the capacity to command attention in social animals correlates highly with status...We seek attention as a good in itself and compete to tell stories.
http://www.hup.harv...more
This book is a slow read for me. I mean slow in the sense that I pick it up and put it down in the casual wandering that one has when a book causes the reader to stop and think. I have read a lot of books over the years, and I have read quite a few books on the craft of writing. What I like particularly about this book is that it explores our human need of story on a neurological and cognitive level for, as the author early on expresses, an evolutionary explanation for fiction.
The author sees art in general, and storytelling in particular to be socially adaptive phenomena. They can be regarded as formalized expressions of adult play. Not everything in the canon of evolutionary pscyhology is equally convincing to me, though. Hell, it doesn't bother me at all to think that art exists for its own sake, and leave it at that.
Boyd applies evolutionary psychology and research to literature, seeing stories as a human adaptation to develop theory of mind, cooperation, status and ideas of fairness as well as revenge, and then applies these to Homer's Odyssey and Horton Hears a Who (acknowledging Seuss' context of 1952 Japanese democratization).
Very cool idea, kinda difficult reading to get there. Boyd writes like the literature professor he is (and there's a reason why I left the English field). The analyses of The Odyssey and Horton Hears a Who are fascinating. I hope Boyd's ideas about theory catch on and we see more people analyzing literature in this way.
simply an astounding book.
http://paradoxography.tumblr.com/post...
http://paradoxography.tumblr.com/post...
The first half of Boyd's work is an interesting survey of the science behind an evolutionary perspective on storytelling. The second half consists of detailed readings of Homer and Dr. Seuss, both of which state the obvious for over 200 pages. We learn that Homer uses plot and character to -- wait for it -- capture the reader's attention. We learn that *The Odyssey* is about the need for self-restraint over human recklessness. The literary analysis did not need the evolutionary framework, and th...more
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Brian Boyd (b.1952) is known primarily as an expert on the life and works of author Vladimir Nabokov and on literature and evolution. He is University Distinguished Professor in the Department of English at the University of Auckland, New Zealand.
In 1979, after Boyd completed a PhD at the University of Toronto with a dissertation on Nabokov's novel Ada or Ardor: A Family Chronicle , he took up a p...more
More about Brian Boyd...
In 1979, after Boyd completed a PhD at the University of Toronto with a dissertation on Nabokov's novel Ada or Ardor: A Family Chronicle , he took up a p...more
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27 juin 13:55