On the Origin of Stories: Evolution, Cognition, and Fiction

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On the Origin of Stories: Evolution, Cognition, and Fiction

3.8 of 5 stars 3.80 · rating details · 109 ratings · 23 reviews

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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Mar 23, 2013 Kai Teorn rated it 5 of 5 stars

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

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Nov 17, 2012 Tissuereligion rated it 3 of 5 stars

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

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Jun 27, 2012 Jesse rated it 3 of 5 stars

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

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Oct 13, 2012 Keith rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

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 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 statement about the future of literary analysis. We’ve had Jungian readings, Freudian interpretations and Marxist studies. We have Theory (with a capital T), women studies, cultural studies and post-colonial interpretations. An evolutionary reading of literature is just like those – except it is based on fact.

Personally, I’m more interested in studies of form rather than interpretation. “How does the artist achieve this effect?” is a more compelling to me than a dozen interpretive statements like this: “Because this balancing act militates against the totalizing logic of ideology, it offers an alternative to the reification of self by unsettling such primary binary oppositions as those that hold between subject and object, reading and author.” What the -- ?

The primary theme of Boyd’s book is that fiction (and art in general) offers a survival advantage and is thus favor by natural selection. The author has some interesting points about attention and the role it plays in art.

I can’t help but think there are better books about Darwinian literary studies. (Boyd calls it evocriticism.) The life sciences and the arts will continue to be coming closer together, like it or not.

I’ll end with a wonderfully ironic quote that Boyd features in his book:
“Criticism seems to be badly in need of a coordinating principle, a central hypothesis which, like the theory of evolution in biology, will see the phenomena it deals with as parts of a whole.”
– Northrop Frye, Anatomy of Criticism
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Jun 10, 2010 Adam Floridia rated it 2 of 5 stars

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 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, almost no-brainers. For example, animals engage in play in order to hone key survival skills. Art is cognitive play, so it is pretty much brain exercise. Human minds respond to patterns, which art provides. Human minds also respond strongly to novel ideas and the sensational, which fiction provides. Okay.

Next “innovative” idea: we draw comfort and strength from our physical and emotional attunement, which is bolstered by shared attention and cooperation. Art provides a focus of attention. Producing art also earns the artist attention. People like attention, so they tell stories to make themselves the centers of attention. Okay.

Here’s where my criticism will seem contradictory. While I understand the need to provide scientific evidence, especially when attempting to prove an evolutionary claim, Boyd simultaneously offered way too much information and, conversely, not enough good information. As I said, so many of his claims seemed intuitive, that 200 pages of proof seemed superfluous. (Here’s where I’m too lazy to seek out specific examples). However, so much of his proof was based on animal observations THAT WERE NOT REPEATED TESTS that they were hardly strong proof. Seeing a monkey or a dolphin act in a certain way proves nothing; what if the individual animal is NOT representative of its species? Then there are when discussing early art leads to “we can only presume that works as elaborate as this bespeak a long prior process.” Presume?!

Still, the first half of the book proves, albeit laboriously, that telling fictional stories is a biological adaptation in humans. What I was more interested in when I bought the book is what effect, according to Boyd, this would have on LITERARY CRITICISM. Despite two “case studies” (The Odyssey and Horton Hears a Who) and another 300 pages, Boyd offers only the most cursory explanations. He argues, accurately, that for the past few decades, since Barthes and Foucault pronounced the death of the author, Theory has heard its own death knell. Evolutionary/Biocultural Theory may actuate its revival; however, he does so in such a pell-mell manner that one is still left wondering “how?” His new theory is a hodgepodge of old modes of criticism, most notably the following: cultural, biographical, and reader response.

In his case study of the Odyssey, he picks out all the examples of dramatic irony and explains how they would pique “readers’” interests. He also notes patterns in character and plot and the purported effects they have on an audience—“revenge elicits intense emotions.” All of this ties into his the evolutionary instinct to earn attention (for Homer) and share attention via culture (the audience). So what? I could certainly BS many a paper explaining why readers might be drawn to (attention!) ANY piece of crap. He also spends way too much time explaining how characters in The Odyssey behave in evolutionary ways that he described in the first half of the book. So what? How does any of this enhance our understanding of The Odyssey???

Much like reading the book, I am quickly growing tired of reviewing the book. His dumb analysis of Horton Hears a Who looks at the biographical impetuses that prompted Seuss’s writing it. He takes into account the individual, local, and universal factors that went into it. He also explains how it expresses universal human values. (I suppose a big part of his theory is this: There IS universal human nature, thanks to evolution.) Again, though, so what?? It’s like this whole case study promoted the “bullshit method of answering CAPT question 4” that we teach sophomores to answer. When asked “What is ‘good literature’?” they are told to reply “Good literature is universal and timeless.” That amounts to finding a theme (usually grounded in a human emotion) that is both universal and timeless, all of which is the MOST BASIC level of literary criticism.

There are a few interesting ideas here and there throughout the book (for personal reasons, I enjoy the secular slant of it), but you can gain whatever is to be gained from it by reading the conclusion (NOT the afterward, which is complete shit). On page 397 of the conclusion, you will find the most summative sentence of the book: “Evolutionary criticism offers no set questions, let alone set answers.” In other words, evolutionary criticism offers NOTHING new, but it does warn against buying into one of the very reductive theories.

Boyd’s writing also does not have the attention-keeping qualities that it does in his Nabokov biographies. Very disappointing.
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Oct 27, 2012 Monica rated it 2 of 5 stars

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 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 order to memorize large bodies of information and be able to recite them from memory at will.

This was done in part by creating and remembering little stories about the bits of information to be remembered and then locating them in a real or imagined place in a building or place you know well. Take an imaginary walk through the building in your memory and review the stories you've stored there - and flawlessly retrieve your memorized data.

Modern feats of memorization are done the same way. The method, rarely taught in this age of plentiful and instantly accessible reference materials, takes lovely advantage of our evolutionary affinity to story-telling.

Alas, the author failed to use the very principles he was describing. Had he done so, this book might have been a fascinating, enjoyable, and memorable read.

Instead it reminded me of long-winded dissertations by graduate students trying to buy a Ph.D with obscure language peppered with obtuse references, obscure jargon, and 10 dollar words in the hope that those evaluating the work will give up and grant the sought-after certification without bothering to slog through the mess that supposedly proves they have earned it.

He has other excellent points to make about the evolution of fiction itself, and about literary analytics and criticism, but alas - the writing was so bad that it really isn't worth slogging through it unless you are a glutton for this sort of punishment.

The style reminded me of certain modern authors whose claim to fame is in writing totally horrendous novels in extremely obscure modes so that the self-named intelligentsia can read them, praise them, and so feel superior to those like myself who feel very strongly that the best writing, fiction or fact, is clear, simple, unambiguous, and transparent - letting the story shine through like clear sunlight through glass.

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Jun 16, 2010 Ryan Mishap rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: science-natural-history

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

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Aug 11, 2009 Ashley rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: non-fiction

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 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 is that fiction, like much art, is a form of cognitive play—engaging attention and developing social intelligence with very little risk, just as physical play develops the reflexes and coordination that the young of many species will need as adults.

Boyd's central argument is compelling and the reach of his book heroic; where he starts to fall flat is in his analysis of The Odyssey, which he ostensibly uses to show the phylogenetic development of a story that has lasted generations, but instead turns into a line-by-line exercise in explication that doesn't go very far in supporting his thesis. He redeems himself, though, in his lively and engaging discussion of Horton Hears a Who!, where he describes the writing as a process of constant regeneration, a series of nested problems and solutions. Theodore Geisel, better known as Dr. Seuss, said that he wrote his children's books by "work[ing:] like hell—write, re-write, reject, and polish incessantly." Boyd takes the Seussian appeal to people of all ages, including those too young to understand all of the words, as evidence that there is a hardwired element in our attraction to stories.

Ultimately, Boyd suggests that "evocriticism," a biological approach to fiction, take over for capital-T Theory in academic English departments. His book is too cumbersome at 500+ pages for me to call it a manifesto, but he makes a very good case for his biolcultural perspective, which "connects literature, for so long our best repository of information about human experience, with ongoing research of various kinds that can refine and challenge our understanding of human nature and thought." Boyd is at his best when he concretely shows us how understanding some part of the science enhances some particular aspect of art, but because he spans such immense bodies of knowledge it takes a very long time to get to those argent moments. But they are there, and if you're paying attention, you'll find them.

I like his epigraph too much not to include it here:

We are absurdly accustomed to the miracle of a few written signs being able to contain immortal imagery, involutions of thought, new worlds with live people, speaking, weeping, laughing. We take it for granted so simply that in a sense, by the very act of brutish routine acceptance, we undo the work of the ages, the history of the gradual elaboration of poetical description and construction, from the tree-man to Browning, from the caveman to Keats. -Nabokov, Pale Fire

I wouldn't be surprised if this passage alone sparked Boyd's whole tome of an endeavor. He wants to know how it works, and why, and not in sweeping generalizations but somewhere down in the messy sequence of words that pulls us in. And that makes him very, very cool.(less)

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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).

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Dec 24, 2012 Frodo Santini rated it 4 of 5 stars

Part one is brilliant. I fell off the wagon when he Began his analysis of the Odyssey. But his fabulous speculations on the origin and development of stories and with that art are truly fascinating.

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Jan 13, 2011 Joseph Mccaleb rated it 5 of 5 stars

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...

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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

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Jan 06, 2010 Michael Bérubé rated it 4 of 5 stars

http://www.powells.com/blog/?p=12130

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Nov 26, 2010 Gabriel Orgrease rated it 4 of 5 stars

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.

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Nov 04, 2011 Gregg Sapp rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

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.

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Aug 18, 2011 Margaret Sankey rated it 3 of 5 stars

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).

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Dec 12, 2010 Jenny rated it 3 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Literary theorists who dig evolution

Shelves: owns, school

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.

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Apr 17, 2010 Tyler Steele rated it 3 of 5 stars

You can read this book a 1,000 times and still learn something new from it. Just so much information, most of which is pretty good. This book does get pretty complicated at times, meaning, lots of big words!

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Jun 17, 2012 Ann Michael rated it 5 of 5 stars

I love this book so far!

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Feb 15, 2012 Francis Norton rated it 4 of 5 stars

like the explanation of Play as adaptive behaviour for learning skills that will be needed in later life in a fully practised form

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May 24, 2012 Jen rated it 5 of 5 stars

simply an astounding book.

http://paradoxography.tumblr.com/post...

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Jun 26, 2011 Sarah Gerard rated it 5 of 5 stars

This book changed the way I read forever.

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Nov 11, 2010 A. J. rated it 3 of 5 stars

2.5 is what I would like to rate it (two in reality but wondering if it is just me).

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Jul 25, 2010 Matthew added it Recommends it for: those who like the obvious

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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About Brian Boyd

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

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Books by Brian Boyd

Nabokov's Pale Fire: The Magic of Artistic Discovery

Nabokov's ADA: The Place of Consciousness

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