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The Storytelling Animal: How Stories Make Us Human
A New York Times Editor's Choice A Los Angeles Times Book Prizes Finalist "A jaunty, insightful new book . . . [that] draws from disparate corners of history and science to celebrate our compulsion to storify everything around us."
-- New York Times
Humans live in landscapes of make-believe. We spin fantasies. We devour novels, films, and plays. Even sporting events and criminal trials unfold as narratives. Yet the world of story has long remained an undiscovered and unmapped country. Now Jonathan Gottschall offers the first unified theory of storytelling. He argues that stories help us navigate life's complex social problems--just as flight simulators prepare pilots for difficult situations. Storytelling has evolved, like other behaviors, to ensure our survival. Drawing on the latest research in neuroscience, psychology, and evolutionary biology, Gottschall tells us what it means to be a storytelling animal and explains how stories can change the world for the better. We know we are master shapers of story. The Storytelling Animal finally reveals how stories shape us.
"This is a quite wonderful book. It grips the reader with both stories and stories about the telling of stories, then pulls it all together to explain why storytelling is a fundamental human instinct."
--Edward O. Wilson
"Charms with anecdotes and examples . . . we have not left nor should we ever leave Neverland."-- Cleveland Plain Dealer
-- New York Times
Humans live in landscapes of make-believe. We spin fantasies. We devour novels, films, and plays. Even sporting events and criminal trials unfold as narratives. Yet the world of story has long remained an undiscovered and unmapped country. Now Jonathan Gottschall offers the first unified theory of storytelling. He argues that stories help us navigate life's complex social problems--just as flight simulators prepare pilots for difficult situations. Storytelling has evolved, like other behaviors, to ensure our survival. Drawing on the latest research in neuroscience, psychology, and evolutionary biology, Gottschall tells us what it means to be a storytelling animal and explains how stories can change the world for the better. We know we are master shapers of story. The Storytelling Animal finally reveals how stories shape us.
"This is a quite wonderful book. It grips the reader with both stories and stories about the telling of stories, then pulls it all together to explain why storytelling is a fundamental human instinct."
--Edward O. Wilson
"Charms with anecdotes and examples . . . we have not left nor should we ever leave Neverland."-- Cleveland Plain Dealer
272 pages, Paperback
First published April 10, 2012
About the author
Jonathan Gottschall
10 books149 followersJonathan Gottschall is an American literary scholar, the leading younger figure in literature and evolution. He teaches at Washington and Jefferson College in Pennsylvania. He completed graduate work in English at State University of New York at Binghamton, where he worked under David Sloan Wilson.
His work The Rape of Troy: Evolution, Violence and the World of Homer describes the Homeric epic poems Iliad and Odyssey in terms of evolutionary psychology, with the central violent conflicts in these works driven by the lack of young women to marry and the resulting evolutionary legacy, as opposed to the violent conflicts being driven by honor or wealth.
Literature, Science and a New Humanities advocates that the humanities, and literary studies in particular, need to avail themselves of quantitative and objective methods of inquiry as well as the traditional qualitative and subjective, if they are to produce cumulative, progressive knowledge, and provides a number of case studies that apply quantitative methods to fairy and folk tale around the world to answer questions about human universals and differences.
Gottschall was profiled by the New York Times and The Chronicle of Higher Education. His work was featured in an article in Science describing literature and evolution.
His work The Rape of Troy: Evolution, Violence and the World of Homer describes the Homeric epic poems Iliad and Odyssey in terms of evolutionary psychology, with the central violent conflicts in these works driven by the lack of young women to marry and the resulting evolutionary legacy, as opposed to the violent conflicts being driven by honor or wealth.
Literature, Science and a New Humanities advocates that the humanities, and literary studies in particular, need to avail themselves of quantitative and objective methods of inquiry as well as the traditional qualitative and subjective, if they are to produce cumulative, progressive knowledge, and provides a number of case studies that apply quantitative methods to fairy and folk tale around the world to answer questions about human universals and differences.
Gottschall was profiled by the New York Times and The Chronicle of Higher Education. His work was featured in an article in Science describing literature and evolution.
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January 7, 2019
عندما قرأتُ هذا الكتاب، بالإنجليزية، سيطرت عليّ فكرة واحدة، وهي وجوب ترجمته.
لقد عشتُ حياتي بين الحكايا؛ في محاولة كتابتها، قراءتها، تأويلها والذهاب بذلك التأويل إلى مكانٍ من شأنه أن يجعل الحياة مُحتملة. أنا أؤمن، حقيقة، بأن القصص هي إحدى الأمور القليلة التي تجعل الحياة محتملة. ثمّ قرأت "الحيوان الحكّاء" وفهمتُ الأمر، فهمتُ شغفي بالموضوع، وأصيبت أفكاري بـ "سحر الترتيب" إن جاز القول. لقد أصبحتُ، بفضل هذا الكتاب، قادرة على فهم القصص من منظور علم النفس وعلم الدماغ، ناهيك عن المنظور الفلسفي والأدبي. إنه يقدم رؤية متععدة الأبعاد لسؤال واحد مفاده؛ كيف تجعل منا الحكايات بشرًا؟
وإذا كان ثمة جزء مني يشعر بالانتصار الساحق للقصص والروايات أمام تيار التسطيح الذي يرى بأنها "كتب بلا فائدة"، فإن الأهم بالنسبة لي هو أنه أعاد صياغة فهمنا للإنسان. لم يعد الإنسان حيوانًا اجتماعيًا، أو ناطقًا، أو غيره. إنه حيوانٌ حكّاء؛ لا يستطيع أن يفهم العالم إلا من خلال القصص التي تروى عنها، بتعبير بول ريكور.
يفسر غوتشل الأمر بيولوجيًا وسيكولوجيًا، من خلال القصص بصفتها حلبة للتعلم ومجابهة الخوف (للأطفال)، وهي الفكرة المركزية في مبدأ تعلم التفكير الفلسفي للأطفال بالمناسبة!، ناهيك عن كون العقل يخاطب نفسه (أو صاحبه) من خلال القصص طوال الوقت؛ الأحلام، الخيالات، حتى قصص النميمة وغيرها. إننا نحتاج إلى وضع العالم في منظومة سردية بهدف فهمِه. الإعلانات التجارية تعرف هذه الحقيقة جيدًا.. حتى الآن لا أستطيع نسيان إعلان الرز بطيء الطهو وكيف تسبب الأمر في انفلات الابن من الدراسة وتحوله إلى راقص شيلات على الفضائيات!
وبقدر ما يبدو الأمر بمثابة انحيازٍ للحكاية، إلا أنه ليس كذلك تمامًا. فبحسب غوتشل، العقل الحكاء هو عقل "مدمن على المعنى"، ولا يستطيع استيعاب "الصدفة والعشوائية وانعدام النظام"، وعليه فثمة نقطة ضعف حقيقية في عقولنا كبشر، وهي أن لنا قابلية عالية لاختراع المعاني عنوة، لإقامة العلاقات بين أمور لا علاقة حقيقية بينها بالضرورة، التوصل إلى استنتاجات "مبالغ بها" والتورط في عقلية "المؤامرة" أيضًا. إن هذه أيضًا هي بعض "الأعراض الجانبية" لتورط العقل البشري في إدمان الحكايا.
عندما قرأت هذا الكتاب، عرفتُ ما ستكون بأن ثيمة "سنوية تكوين" الماضية، وأقمنا "ملتقى الحكايا والحكائين" بدافع أن نفهم الأمر أكثر، من أدباء ونقاد وعلماء أيضًا، يحاولون أن يفسروا هذا السحر الكامن في "نزوة القص المباركة".. بتعبير ماركيز. من كان يتخيل أن كل شيء بدأ من هذا الكتاب؟
شكرًا هالة العيسى (أختي) على التوصية. شكرًا بثينة الإبراهيم على الترجمة السلسة والأنيقة، ومبارك للقارئ العربي هذا الكتاب اللطيف والثوري في الوقت نفسه.
الكتاب صادر عن منشورات تكوين، والدار العربية للعلوم.
لقد عشتُ حياتي بين الحكايا؛ في محاولة كتابتها، قراءتها، تأويلها والذهاب بذلك التأويل إلى مكانٍ من شأنه أن يجعل الحياة مُحتملة. أنا أؤمن، حقيقة، بأن القصص هي إحدى الأمور القليلة التي تجعل الحياة محتملة. ثمّ قرأت "الحيوان الحكّاء" وفهمتُ الأمر، فهمتُ شغفي بالموضوع، وأصيبت أفكاري بـ "سحر الترتيب" إن جاز القول. لقد أصبحتُ، بفضل هذا الكتاب، قادرة على فهم القصص من منظور علم النفس وعلم الدماغ، ناهيك عن المنظور الفلسفي والأدبي. إنه يقدم رؤية متععدة الأبعاد لسؤال واحد مفاده؛ كيف تجعل منا الحكايات بشرًا؟
وإذا كان ثمة جزء مني يشعر بالانتصار الساحق للقصص والروايات أمام تيار التسطيح الذي يرى بأنها "كتب بلا فائدة"، فإن الأهم بالنسبة لي هو أنه أعاد صياغة فهمنا للإنسان. لم يعد الإنسان حيوانًا اجتماعيًا، أو ناطقًا، أو غيره. إنه حيوانٌ حكّاء؛ لا يستطيع أن يفهم العالم إلا من خلال القصص التي تروى عنها، بتعبير بول ريكور.
يفسر غوتشل الأمر بيولوجيًا وسيكولوجيًا، من خلال القصص بصفتها حلبة للتعلم ومجابهة الخوف (للأطفال)، وهي الفكرة المركزية في مبدأ تعلم التفكير الفلسفي للأطفال بالمناسبة!، ناهيك عن كون العقل يخاطب نفسه (أو صاحبه) من خلال القصص طوال الوقت؛ الأحلام، الخيالات، حتى قصص النميمة وغيرها. إننا نحتاج إلى وضع العالم في منظومة سردية بهدف فهمِه. الإعلانات التجارية تعرف هذه الحقيقة جيدًا.. حتى الآن لا أستطيع نسيان إعلان الرز بطيء الطهو وكيف تسبب الأمر في انفلات الابن من الدراسة وتحوله إلى راقص شيلات على الفضائيات!
وبقدر ما يبدو الأمر بمثابة انحيازٍ للحكاية، إلا أنه ليس كذلك تمامًا. فبحسب غوتشل، العقل الحكاء هو عقل "مدمن على المعنى"، ولا يستطيع استيعاب "الصدفة والعشوائية وانعدام النظام"، وعليه فثمة نقطة ضعف حقيقية في عقولنا كبشر، وهي أن لنا قابلية عالية لاختراع المعاني عنوة، لإقامة العلاقات بين أمور لا علاقة حقيقية بينها بالضرورة، التوصل إلى استنتاجات "مبالغ بها" والتورط في عقلية "المؤامرة" أيضًا. إن هذه أيضًا هي بعض "الأعراض الجانبية" لتورط العقل البشري في إدمان الحكايا.
عندما قرأت هذا الكتاب، عرفتُ ما ستكون بأن ثيمة "سنوية تكوين" الماضية، وأقمنا "ملتقى الحكايا والحكائين" بدافع أن نفهم الأمر أكثر، من أدباء ونقاد وعلماء أيضًا، يحاولون أن يفسروا هذا السحر الكامن في "نزوة القص المباركة".. بتعبير ماركيز. من كان يتخيل أن كل شيء بدأ من هذا الكتاب؟
شكرًا هالة العيسى (أختي) على التوصية. شكرًا بثينة الإبراهيم على الترجمة السلسة والأنيقة، ومبارك للقارئ العربي هذا الكتاب اللطيف والثوري في الوقت نفسه.
الكتاب صادر عن منشورات تكوين، والدار العربية للعلوم.
January 31, 2016
Everybody loves a good story. But what about your own story? Years ago someone told me of their experience in a bar. Thus, my micro-fiction:
ALL IN THE TELLING
I’m feeling lonely, depressed, really down in the dog. I trudge to the closest bar and, after a couple of beers, proceed to tell the guy sitting on the next bar stool my life story. It isn’t pretty, but at least it’s mine.
When I’m all talked out, I toss a couple of bucks on the counter in disgust and hit the men’s room. But the time I’m back he is retelling my story to the guy next to him. I slide into a nearby booth so I can listen to his version without being seen. He has most of the facts straight, and the way he tells the story makes it sound really interesting.
When he’s done, the listener, in turn, begins telling my story to the guy next to him. Not bad. He also has the facts straight and his version is even more interesting than the first.
When he’s done, I can guess what’s coming and I’m not disappointed. Only this next guy telling my story isn’t just good, he’s a born storyteller. The way he embellishes my life with such pathos and humor, you would think I’m a real dashing, daredevil cavalier.
I want to hear the next version firsthand so I move alongside the listener. The storyteller finishes, pats him on the back and they both have a good hearty laugh. But when the storyteller leaves, my guy just sits there nursing his beer. I try to egg him on: “I only heard the very end but, wow, that was some story.” He doesn’t answer. After a few moments he sighs and tells me such a flat, lackluster, boring rendition, you would think he knows me better than I know myself.
May 13, 2023
A. În fond, de ce ne plac poveștile, la ce ne folosesc? Răspunsul lui Gottschall:
1. pentru că ne ajută să „explicăm” ceea ce nu vom înțelege niciodată,
2. pentru că ne ajută să nu cădem într-o depresie fără fund,
3. pentru că ne ajută să ne amăgim; dacă nu ne-am amăgi permanent, n-am suporta viața și am alege probabil să ne sinucidem; adevărul condiției noastre mizere nu poate fi privit în față,
4. pentru că ne ajută să ne inventăm o identitate: sinele este povestea pe care ne-o spunem mereu și pe care o rescriem clipă de clipă.
Animalul povestitor cuprinde o sumă consistentă de locuri comune (îndeosebi din scrierile psihologilor). Nu ar fi avut nevoie de bibliografia științifică de la sfîrșit.
B. Cîteva extrase:
„Oamenii sînt creatori de povești, deci povestea atinge fiecare aspect al vieții noastre” (34).
„Ficțiunea ne modifică realmente comportamentul și personalitatea” (179).
„Ficțiunea pe care o consumă le modifică oamenilor cele mai profunde credințe și valori morale” (182).
„Conform psihologului Shelley Taylor, o minte sănătoasă își spune mereu și mereu minciuni măgulitoare. Iar dacă nu se minte pe sine înseamnă că nu e sănătoasă. De ce? Pentru că, așa cum spunea filosoful William Hirstein, iluziile pozitive ne împiedică să ne lăsăm pradă deznădejdii: «Adevărul este deprimant. O să murim într-o zi, cel mai probabil după o boală; toți prietenii noștri vor muri și ei; nu sîntem decît niște punctulețe insignifiante pe o planetă minusculă. Poate că, odată cu apariția inteligenței vaste și a prevederii, vine și necesitatea autoamăgirii, pentru a ține la distanță depresia și letargia care îi urmează. Trebuie să existe o negare elementară a naturii noastre finite și a lipsei noastre de însemnătate pe scena mare a universului. E nevoie de un anumit grad de orgoliu impertinent doar ca să te dai jos din pat dimineața»” (p.208)
Post scriptum. Traducerea doamnei Smaranda Nistor e absolut lamentabilă („evoluționar” pentru evoluționist, „comunal” pentru comun („scop comunal”), „slujbă cu timp întreg” (full time job), emisiuni de „realitate filmată” (reality show). Cartea nu a trecut prin nici o corectură. Păcat...
August 2, 2012
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 tends to wade in the realm of psychiatric and neurological studies, disregarding the work of literary critics entirely.
I get that this is a popular nonfiction title for a general audience, but your readers deserve more than a couple of short Steven Pinker quotes when you casually cast away thousands of years of religious traditions and replace it with World of Warcraft. A deeper struggle with the subject would have been appreciated.
I get that this is a popular nonfiction title for a general audience, but your readers deserve more than a couple of short Steven Pinker quotes when you casually cast away thousands of years of religious traditions and replace it with World of Warcraft. A deeper struggle with the subject would have been appreciated.
June 19, 2019
In the beginning, there was a word, and the word was Storyteller.
She was very lonely. There was nothing in the world but her imagination. She decided to create a story for herself to pass the time pleasantly.
“Let there be colourful flowers and trees and soft grass to sit on”, she said. A garden appeared instantly before her inner eye. The smell of the flowers was intense, and she became thirsty.
“Let there be a well where I can get water”, she said. And she watched in amazement as a well was built out of thin air. There was a bucket to draw water from the deep dark bottom. The Storyteller was excited. When she hauled up the bucket and drank the sweet water, she noticed a green, tiny living thing in it.
“Oh”, she said. “I didn’t ask for you, but you are welcome anyway. I will call you frog, and you shall be my friend!”
And she took the frog in her hand, and it smiled at her, responding to her touch with a loud and clear:
“Quack!”
“Oh, that is very nice”, said the Storyteller. “It is almost like me, making noises that sound like talk!”
For a while, the Storyteller was completely happy and satisfied with her new friend, trying to make it quack as much as possible. But after some time, it became monotonous.
“I wish it it was a little bit more like me, a sort of companion”, she said. But the frog stayed the same it had always been.
“That is strange”, said the Storyteller. “So far, things have always come to me as soon as I had an idea in my head, but now my wish remains unfulfilled. I wonder why. Maybe I need to apply some magic to make living creatures!”
And she picked up the frog, closed her eyes firmly, and touched it gently with her lips, while thinking very hard.
“I want a companion!”
The frog in her hand stayed the same, but all of a sudden there was another one in the grass, almost the same. She tried to kiss the frog again for another wish to come true, but the magic was spent. It did not work anymore.
The Storyteller watched the happy union of the two frogs and felt very sad and lonely.
“Now they are two of the same kind, and I am even more alone than before!”
Resolutely, she grabbed the new frog, looked at it, and said:
“If the frog made you identical, you must be magical as well, and I need a new friend! And it shall not be tiny, and cold, and green. It shall be bigger and softer and with long hair like me!”
She closed her eyes, kissed it hard, and kept it in her trembling hand for a moment, not daring to check whether the magic had worked or not. When she let the frog go, and looked around, she saw a majestic creature lying on the ground, yellow, furry, strong, with a long, wild mane.
“Oh, you are pretty!” said the Storyteller. “I will call you Lion!”
And the Storyteller and the lion lived quite contentedly for a while, watching the frogs jump around. The Storyteller imagined a pond for them, and they swam in it, to her great delight. After a while, there were more frogs, a whole community.
“I wonder where they are all coming from”, said the Storyteller. “For it certainly did not work to kiss one frog twice for more companions. There must be another spell between the two frogs. But now I have plenty of new frogs to kiss, and I know what I will do. I will give my lion a friend, for he looks lonely as well. And I am going to call her lioness!”
As the frogs and lions kept multiplying, the Storyteller found herself more and more busy, collecting kissable frogs to create new living beings. Every being she imagined and made come alive through the magical frog kissing procedure seemed to need something else, and her garden grew wilder and wilder, and more and more complicated. At first, the Storyteller enjoyed the new development, for she was never bored, and her imagination grew with each new creature that entered the story. But so far, none of the creatures had responded to her in the way they responded to their own kind. There was always a gap between the Storyteller and the story. And she felt lonely at night, when she was not too tired to think.
One day, she bent over the pond to watch a new fish she had created. It swam exquisitely, and she was very proud of its colourful design. But on the surface of the pond, she caught a glimpse of herself, and her sad, lonely eyes stared back at her, and made her want to cry.
“Oh, cheer up, little me”, she said reassuringly to her face in the pond mirror, giving herself an encouraging smile. That smile changed her life.
“I want to have another human being around, to talk to and laugh with, and to discuss the garden community!”
She grabbed a fresh frog, kissed it rapidly, and thought:
“I want an exact copy of myself!”
Her hope was to have a companion like the other animals, and to be able to create new beings without the intermediate step of the frog kissing magic. But her wish had been very specific, not for a companion, but for a copy. And so she welcomed another woman to the garden, just as beautiful and lovely as herself, and just as full of imagination.
The Storyteller was overjoyed at first, and spent days talking about what she had done so far, and which were her favourite creatures. The two women walked arm in arm, like sisters and best friends, and loved each other dearly. Life finally seemed to be a story with a happy end.
But one day, the Storyteller noticed something different in the garden. There were animals she did not recognise. Where did they come from?
“I made them”, her friend proudly announced, expecting praise for her creativity. But the Storyteller felt her heart break, her stomach turn, her head burst.
“But I am the Storyteller”, she screamed. “I am the one who is making up the creatures and the stories and the plots and the settings!”
“I tried with one of the unkissed frogs, and it worked just as well for me!”
“But you have no right to do that! This is my story, and the frogs are my property!”
“What do you mean, your story? We are both in it!”
“But I made you up!”
“And now I am here, with the same rights and the same power!”
The two women were very angry, and refused to talk to each other. They withdrew into different corners of the garden and began to collect armies of frogs for warfare. Whatever they made up was designed to cause pain and disorder in the other woman’s part of the garden. It did not take long before the world became unbearably violent, and animals were killing and eating each other. For each new animal, there instantly was a natural counterpart, a deadly enemy. The women spent all their imagination on creating schemes to destroy each other’s creations and to protect their own. Mountainous fortifications grew. Deep oceans spread. Stormy clouds brought rain that filled raging rivers and flooded the beautiful grassland.
But as time passed, the women grew tired of the war, and they began to feel lonely again. They missed the company of another human. The Storyteller thought of making peace and sharing the immensity of the creation equally. After all, it was now vast enough for both of them, and she was also very curious to discover more in detail the stories her sister had invented. But she was dreadfully hurt, and could not overcome her pride. She still thought she was the entitled one, while her sister was a usurper.
“I am going to create another human”, she thought. “And this time, I am not making the same mistake again!”
She grabbed a frog, held it tight, kissed it and thought with all her willpower:
“I want a companion for myself who worships me and my beauty, but who is taller and stronger than I am so that I am well protected against that evil witch on the other side of the garden!”
And she opened her eyes, saw a man standing in front of her, and was very happy. He was tall, strong, and handsome, and he immediately worshipped her and made her feel precious. Now her story had a happy ending, she thought. But she was wrong about that. Her story had just begun, and there was no end to it at all from now on.
The Storyteller realised that she had created the curse of human chain reactions when she saw that her enemy had imagined and kissed alive a man for herself, to protect and worship her! He was even taller and stronger than her own man, and she felt envy creep into her heart. She wanted one like that as well!
The Storyteller was about to produce an army of frog-kissed men when her imagination all of a sudden made her see the future, an eternal war in the making. She had to stop the violence of humankind before it destroyed itself and all other creatures. She knew what she had to do to save the world. She grabbed a frog and kissed it with all the despair of foreboding:
“I wish that the magic of the frogs shall end! From now on, we are on our own!”
She thought that it would be enough to take the magic out of the world. She had forgotten that humans now had companions, and could reproduce themselves without the frog magic.
Oh, how she regretted that she took away the frog power! She realised too late that the man she had created as her own companion, but taller and stronger than herself, and with a ferocious wish to protect her, did not need frogs. He could take over her position as Creator and Storyteller with the power of his muscles. It would take centuries and centuries for woman to remedy the terrible mistake of the loss of the magical frogs.
With the loss, the era of the fairy tales ended and the era of reality began. But many, many of the stories from the fairy tale era remained in the world, and were told to children as cautionary tales or just to pass the time pleasantly. And they varied slightly from Storyteller to Storyteller, for from the beginning of time, Storytellers have tried to surpass and outwit each other with ever-growing imagination.
She was very lonely. There was nothing in the world but her imagination. She decided to create a story for herself to pass the time pleasantly.
“Let there be colourful flowers and trees and soft grass to sit on”, she said. A garden appeared instantly before her inner eye. The smell of the flowers was intense, and she became thirsty.
“Let there be a well where I can get water”, she said. And she watched in amazement as a well was built out of thin air. There was a bucket to draw water from the deep dark bottom. The Storyteller was excited. When she hauled up the bucket and drank the sweet water, she noticed a green, tiny living thing in it.
“Oh”, she said. “I didn’t ask for you, but you are welcome anyway. I will call you frog, and you shall be my friend!”
And she took the frog in her hand, and it smiled at her, responding to her touch with a loud and clear:
“Quack!”
“Oh, that is very nice”, said the Storyteller. “It is almost like me, making noises that sound like talk!”
For a while, the Storyteller was completely happy and satisfied with her new friend, trying to make it quack as much as possible. But after some time, it became monotonous.
“I wish it it was a little bit more like me, a sort of companion”, she said. But the frog stayed the same it had always been.
“That is strange”, said the Storyteller. “So far, things have always come to me as soon as I had an idea in my head, but now my wish remains unfulfilled. I wonder why. Maybe I need to apply some magic to make living creatures!”
And she picked up the frog, closed her eyes firmly, and touched it gently with her lips, while thinking very hard.
“I want a companion!”
The frog in her hand stayed the same, but all of a sudden there was another one in the grass, almost the same. She tried to kiss the frog again for another wish to come true, but the magic was spent. It did not work anymore.
The Storyteller watched the happy union of the two frogs and felt very sad and lonely.
“Now they are two of the same kind, and I am even more alone than before!”
Resolutely, she grabbed the new frog, looked at it, and said:
“If the frog made you identical, you must be magical as well, and I need a new friend! And it shall not be tiny, and cold, and green. It shall be bigger and softer and with long hair like me!”
She closed her eyes, kissed it hard, and kept it in her trembling hand for a moment, not daring to check whether the magic had worked or not. When she let the frog go, and looked around, she saw a majestic creature lying on the ground, yellow, furry, strong, with a long, wild mane.
“Oh, you are pretty!” said the Storyteller. “I will call you Lion!”
And the Storyteller and the lion lived quite contentedly for a while, watching the frogs jump around. The Storyteller imagined a pond for them, and they swam in it, to her great delight. After a while, there were more frogs, a whole community.
“I wonder where they are all coming from”, said the Storyteller. “For it certainly did not work to kiss one frog twice for more companions. There must be another spell between the two frogs. But now I have plenty of new frogs to kiss, and I know what I will do. I will give my lion a friend, for he looks lonely as well. And I am going to call her lioness!”
As the frogs and lions kept multiplying, the Storyteller found herself more and more busy, collecting kissable frogs to create new living beings. Every being she imagined and made come alive through the magical frog kissing procedure seemed to need something else, and her garden grew wilder and wilder, and more and more complicated. At first, the Storyteller enjoyed the new development, for she was never bored, and her imagination grew with each new creature that entered the story. But so far, none of the creatures had responded to her in the way they responded to their own kind. There was always a gap between the Storyteller and the story. And she felt lonely at night, when she was not too tired to think.
One day, she bent over the pond to watch a new fish she had created. It swam exquisitely, and she was very proud of its colourful design. But on the surface of the pond, she caught a glimpse of herself, and her sad, lonely eyes stared back at her, and made her want to cry.
“Oh, cheer up, little me”, she said reassuringly to her face in the pond mirror, giving herself an encouraging smile. That smile changed her life.
“I want to have another human being around, to talk to and laugh with, and to discuss the garden community!”
She grabbed a fresh frog, kissed it rapidly, and thought:
“I want an exact copy of myself!”
Her hope was to have a companion like the other animals, and to be able to create new beings without the intermediate step of the frog kissing magic. But her wish had been very specific, not for a companion, but for a copy. And so she welcomed another woman to the garden, just as beautiful and lovely as herself, and just as full of imagination.
The Storyteller was overjoyed at first, and spent days talking about what she had done so far, and which were her favourite creatures. The two women walked arm in arm, like sisters and best friends, and loved each other dearly. Life finally seemed to be a story with a happy end.
But one day, the Storyteller noticed something different in the garden. There were animals she did not recognise. Where did they come from?
“I made them”, her friend proudly announced, expecting praise for her creativity. But the Storyteller felt her heart break, her stomach turn, her head burst.
“But I am the Storyteller”, she screamed. “I am the one who is making up the creatures and the stories and the plots and the settings!”
“I tried with one of the unkissed frogs, and it worked just as well for me!”
“But you have no right to do that! This is my story, and the frogs are my property!”
“What do you mean, your story? We are both in it!”
“But I made you up!”
“And now I am here, with the same rights and the same power!”
The two women were very angry, and refused to talk to each other. They withdrew into different corners of the garden and began to collect armies of frogs for warfare. Whatever they made up was designed to cause pain and disorder in the other woman’s part of the garden. It did not take long before the world became unbearably violent, and animals were killing and eating each other. For each new animal, there instantly was a natural counterpart, a deadly enemy. The women spent all their imagination on creating schemes to destroy each other’s creations and to protect their own. Mountainous fortifications grew. Deep oceans spread. Stormy clouds brought rain that filled raging rivers and flooded the beautiful grassland.
But as time passed, the women grew tired of the war, and they began to feel lonely again. They missed the company of another human. The Storyteller thought of making peace and sharing the immensity of the creation equally. After all, it was now vast enough for both of them, and she was also very curious to discover more in detail the stories her sister had invented. But she was dreadfully hurt, and could not overcome her pride. She still thought she was the entitled one, while her sister was a usurper.
“I am going to create another human”, she thought. “And this time, I am not making the same mistake again!”
She grabbed a frog, held it tight, kissed it and thought with all her willpower:
“I want a companion for myself who worships me and my beauty, but who is taller and stronger than I am so that I am well protected against that evil witch on the other side of the garden!”
And she opened her eyes, saw a man standing in front of her, and was very happy. He was tall, strong, and handsome, and he immediately worshipped her and made her feel precious. Now her story had a happy ending, she thought. But she was wrong about that. Her story had just begun, and there was no end to it at all from now on.
The Storyteller realised that she had created the curse of human chain reactions when she saw that her enemy had imagined and kissed alive a man for herself, to protect and worship her! He was even taller and stronger than her own man, and she felt envy creep into her heart. She wanted one like that as well!
The Storyteller was about to produce an army of frog-kissed men when her imagination all of a sudden made her see the future, an eternal war in the making. She had to stop the violence of humankind before it destroyed itself and all other creatures. She knew what she had to do to save the world. She grabbed a frog and kissed it with all the despair of foreboding:
“I wish that the magic of the frogs shall end! From now on, we are on our own!”
She thought that it would be enough to take the magic out of the world. She had forgotten that humans now had companions, and could reproduce themselves without the frog magic.
Oh, how she regretted that she took away the frog power! She realised too late that the man she had created as her own companion, but taller and stronger than herself, and with a ferocious wish to protect her, did not need frogs. He could take over her position as Creator and Storyteller with the power of his muscles. It would take centuries and centuries for woman to remedy the terrible mistake of the loss of the magical frogs.
With the loss, the era of the fairy tales ended and the era of reality began. But many, many of the stories from the fairy tale era remained in the world, and were told to children as cautionary tales or just to pass the time pleasantly. And they varied slightly from Storyteller to Storyteller, for from the beginning of time, Storytellers have tried to surpass and outwit each other with ever-growing imagination.
July 26, 2018
خب من واقعاً به دوستداران داستان این کتابو توصیه میکنم!
این کتاب با یه سری فکتهای روانشناسی، زیستشناسی، تاریخی و همچنین ادبی توضیح میده که چرا بشر داستان میگه، برا هرچیزی داستان میگه و دنبال داستان توی هرچیزیه. داستان برا ما مثل هواست. مثل آب برا ماهیه. دورشو گرفته، احاطهش کرده، در محاصرۀ آبه اما از اون هم داره تنفس میکنه. یه تیکهای که دوست دارم، اونجاییه که میگه خیلیها شرلوک هلمز رو دوست دارن و باهوش و خبره میدوننش. ولی باهوش نیست و حتی نویسنده ما رو یه جورایی گول زده؛ چون با یه سری استنتاجِ ظاهراً منطقی، شرلوک رو کارآگاه باهوشی نشون داده. این تیکه رو دوست داشتم چون خودمم خیلی بهش فکر کرده بودم و خیلی جاها میگفتم چطور شرلوک اینقد دقیق از یه سری نشونه نتیجهگیری کلی میکنه. ولی از طرفی اینقد هم مجذوب شخصیتش شده بودم که دوست داشتم باور کنم اینطوریه!
کتاب فصلبهفصلش جذابه. دلم میخواد بازم بخونمش. دوست داشتم برا فصلبهفصلش نظر بدم. ولی یه مدت گذشته و باید یه دور نگاش کنم. یه تیکۀ دیگهای هم که دوست داشتم، اونجایی بود که دربارۀ بازیهای نمادین بچهها صحبت کرده. چیزی که بین 1 تا 7 سالگی بچهها انجام میدن و کاملاً تخیلی و خلاقانهست، اما رفتهرفته پژمرده میشه. چیزی که بهش خیلی احتیاج داریم. اما با بزرگ شدن در خودمون میکشیمش، درحالیکه در طول زندگیمون بیاندازه بهش نیاز پیدا میکنیم. بازیهای نمادین هم یه توضیحی بدم محض محکمکاری؛ همین که بچهها خالهبازی میکنن مثلاً. موز رو برمیداره فکر میکنه تلفنه! یا نقشهای مختلف رو بازی میکنه.
جایی که دربارۀ نورونهای آینهای و شبیهسازی و یادگیری مشاهدهای توضیح میده هم دوست داشتم. ما حتی از شخصیتهای تخیلی هم تقلید میکنیم. رفتاری رو که توجهمون رو جلب کرده. ما داستان ابرقهرمانهامون رو درونی میکنیم. آیا شخصیتی رو دوست داریم، چون شبیه ماست یا ویژگیهایی رو به شخصیتی نسبت میدیم که مال خودمونه برا اینکه اونم دوست داشته باشیم؟
یه تیکه دیگه رو هم دوست داشتم که میگفت خیلی از شخصیتهای هنری و ادبی جنون داشتن. حالا جنون واژۀ قدیمیترشه. بیماریهای روانی ینی. اینم سؤاله که جنونشون به خلاقیت انجامیده یا خلاقیت از یه حدی بیشتر بشه، جنونه؟ اصلاً خلاقیت به جنون میزنه یا یه مرزی بازم بینشون هست؟
درنهایت هم از آیندۀ داستان میگه. با رشد تکنولوژی تصور میکنیم که داستان بهمعنای اصیلش از بین میره. ولی داستان نمیمیره. همونطور که انسان از دوران غارنشینیش هم نقاشی میکرده و داستانی رو میآفریده، تکنولوژیهایی مثل واقعیت مجازی و بازیهای کامپیوتری بازم نهتنها به خلق داستان کمک میکنن، بلکه رشدش میدن. بازم داستان همون اقیانوسِ دورِ ماهیه. هرچی ازش بخوریم کم نمیشه.
این کتاب با یه سری فکتهای روانشناسی، زیستشناسی، تاریخی و همچنین ادبی توضیح میده که چرا بشر داستان میگه، برا هرچیزی داستان میگه و دنبال داستان توی هرچیزیه. داستان برا ما مثل هواست. مثل آب برا ماهیه. دورشو گرفته، احاطهش کرده، در محاصرۀ آبه اما از اون هم داره تنفس میکنه. یه تیکهای که دوست دارم، اونجاییه که میگه خیلیها شرلوک هلمز رو دوست دارن و باهوش و خبره میدوننش. ولی باهوش نیست و حتی نویسنده ما رو یه جورایی گول زده؛ چون با یه سری استنتاجِ ظاهراً منطقی، شرلوک رو کارآگاه باهوشی نشون داده. این تیکه رو دوست داشتم چون خودمم خیلی بهش فکر کرده بودم و خیلی جاها میگفتم چطور شرلوک اینقد دقیق از یه سری نشونه نتیجهگیری کلی میکنه. ولی از طرفی اینقد هم مجذوب شخصیتش شده بودم که دوست داشتم باور کنم اینطوریه!
کتاب فصلبهفصلش جذابه. دلم میخواد بازم بخونمش. دوست داشتم برا فصلبهفصلش نظر بدم. ولی یه مدت گذشته و باید یه دور نگاش کنم. یه تیکۀ دیگهای هم که دوست داشتم، اونجایی بود که دربارۀ بازیهای نمادین بچهها صحبت کرده. چیزی که بین 1 تا 7 سالگی بچهها انجام میدن و کاملاً تخیلی و خلاقانهست، اما رفتهرفته پژمرده میشه. چیزی که بهش خیلی احتیاج داریم. اما با بزرگ شدن در خودمون میکشیمش، درحالیکه در طول زندگیمون بیاندازه بهش نیاز پیدا میکنیم. بازیهای نمادین هم یه توضیحی بدم محض محکمکاری؛ همین که بچهها خالهبازی میکنن مثلاً. موز رو برمیداره فکر میکنه تلفنه! یا نقشهای مختلف رو بازی میکنه.
جایی که دربارۀ نورونهای آینهای و شبیهسازی و یادگیری مشاهدهای توضیح میده هم دوست داشتم. ما حتی از شخصیتهای تخیلی هم تقلید میکنیم. رفتاری رو که توجهمون رو جلب کرده. ما داستان ابرقهرمانهامون رو درونی میکنیم. آیا شخصیتی رو دوست داریم، چون شبیه ماست یا ویژگیهایی رو به شخصیتی نسبت میدیم که مال خودمونه برا اینکه اونم دوست داشته باشیم؟
یه تیکه دیگه رو هم دوست داشتم که میگفت خیلی از شخصیتهای هنری و ادبی جنون داشتن. حالا جنون واژۀ قدیمیترشه. بیماریهای روانی ینی. اینم سؤاله که جنونشون به خلاقیت انجامیده یا خلاقیت از یه حدی بیشتر بشه، جنونه؟ اصلاً خلاقیت به جنون میزنه یا یه مرزی بازم بینشون هست؟
درنهایت هم از آیندۀ داستان میگه. با رشد تکنولوژی تصور میکنیم که داستان بهمعنای اصیلش از بین میره. ولی داستان نمیمیره. همونطور که انسان از دوران غارنشینیش هم نقاشی میکرده و داستانی رو میآفریده، تکنولوژیهایی مثل واقعیت مجازی و بازیهای کامپیوتری بازم نهتنها به خلق داستان کمک میکنن، بلکه رشدش میدن. بازم داستان همون اقیانوسِ دورِ ماهیه. هرچی ازش بخوریم کم نمیشه.
March 3, 2020
نعم ان ألانسان ليس حيوان ناطق فقط بل هو حيوان حكاء.
نحب ان نسمع القصص قبل ان نتعلم القراءة، خيالنا يقودنا الى عالم افتراضي ونعيش مغامراتنا ونحن نلهو في طفولتنا كم حاربنا من اشرار كم ساعدنا من فقراء ومساكين ودافعنا عن مظلومين، ثم هربنا الى الكتب وعشنا مع ابطالها وتفاعلنا معهم لا يهم ما هو نوع الحكاية، رومانسية ، رعب ، بوليسية، او اَي شيء. حتى لو كانت سيرة حياة سواء حقيقية او كاذبة فإننا نعيشها ونحكم عليها.
حتى بعد انتشار السينما والتلفاز والمسارح فنحن نعيش مع الحكاية مع القصة ونتفاعل معا.
حتى مع ألعاب الفيديو فهي تتجه الان نحو القصة تعيش بعالم افتراضي وتهرب من واقعك الممل.
سأذهب الان لقراءة رواية واعيش فيها.
نحب ان نسمع القصص قبل ان نتعلم القراءة، خيالنا يقودنا الى عالم افتراضي ونعيش مغامراتنا ونحن نلهو في طفولتنا كم حاربنا من اشرار كم ساعدنا من فقراء ومساكين ودافعنا عن مظلومين، ثم هربنا الى الكتب وعشنا مع ابطالها وتفاعلنا معهم لا يهم ما هو نوع الحكاية، رومانسية ، رعب ، بوليسية، او اَي شيء. حتى لو كانت سيرة حياة سواء حقيقية او كاذبة فإننا نعيشها ونحكم عليها.
حتى بعد انتشار السينما والتلفاز والمسارح فنحن نعيش مع الحكاية مع القصة ونتفاعل معا.
حتى مع ألعاب الفيديو فهي تتجه الان نحو القصة تعيش بعالم افتراضي وتهرب من واقعك الممل.
سأذهب الان لقراءة رواية واعيش فيها.
August 9, 2017
جاناتان گاتشال در این کتاب تلاش میکند به این سوال پاسخ دهد که چرا انسان به داستان علاقهمند است. «حیوان قصهگو» را بر اساس نامهای متدوالی که به این شیوه برای انسان میگذارند، مانند حیوان ناطق و… انتخاب کرده است.
کتاب روان و خوبی است. تا به حال کتابی که از لحاظ علمی و با زبانی روان و جذاب به این موضوع بپردازد نخوانده بودم و خواندنش خیلی چسبید.
با فصل آخرش زیاد حال نکردم اما در مجموع چیزی از لذت خواندنش کم نکرد
پ.ن در اوایل کتاب عکسی وجود دارد از کانگ سانِ قصهگو که آدمهای قبیله دور هم جمع شدهاند و برایشان قصه میخواند. چند صفحه جلوتر بازم ارجاع میدهد به عکس و میگوید به آدمی که سمت چپ کانگ سان نشسته دقت کنید. هر چه دقت کردم فرق دیگری با بقیه آدمه��یی که دور کانگ سان نشسته بودند ندیدم. تا اینکه بعد از خواندن کتاب و جستجوهایم توی اینترنت عکس واقعی را پیدا کردم و فهمیدم که توی کتاب پستانهای زن را به طرز ماهرانهای سانسور کردهاند!
عکس واقعی را توی وبلاگم میگذارم تا شما هم از سردرگمی دربیاید!
https://goo.gl/5yKyFy
کتاب روان و خوبی است. تا به حال کتابی که از لحاظ علمی و با زبانی روان و جذاب به این موضوع بپردازد نخوانده بودم و خواندنش خیلی چسبید.
با فصل آخرش زیاد حال نکردم اما در مجموع چیزی از لذت خواندنش کم نکرد
پ.ن در اوایل کتاب عکسی وجود دارد از کانگ سانِ قصهگو که آدمهای قبیله دور هم جمع شدهاند و برایشان قصه میخواند. چند صفحه جلوتر بازم ارجاع میدهد به عکس و میگوید به آدمی که سمت چپ کانگ سان نشسته دقت کنید. هر چه دقت کردم فرق دیگری با بقیه آدمه��یی که دور کانگ سان نشسته بودند ندیدم. تا اینکه بعد از خواندن کتاب و جستجوهایم توی اینترنت عکس واقعی را پیدا کردم و فهمیدم که توی کتاب پستانهای زن را به طرز ماهرانهای سانسور کردهاند!
عکس واقعی را توی وبلاگم میگذارم تا شما هم از سردرگمی دربیاید!
https://goo.gl/5yKyFy
November 29, 2018
"إنتا إنجازات رائعة لعقولنا الحكاءة، أي من نسج خيالنا الخاص؛ إذ نعتبر أنفسنا عقلاء جداً وواقعيين، لكن ذكرياتنا تقيد خلق ذواتنا أقل مما نظن، وتشوهها آمالنا وأحلامنا باستمرار. وحتى يوم وفاتنا، نظل نعيش قصة حياتنا. ومثل سيرورة رواية، تتغير قصص حياتنا دوما وتتطور ، فيحررها راوٍ غير موثوق وينقحها وينمقها. فنحن في جزء كبير ، قصصنا الشخصية ، وهذه القصص تدعي الحقيقة أكثر من كونها حقيقية."
كل إنسان منا صورة ل سردية ما؛ ومجموع هذه السرديات تشكل ما ندعوه ( بالواقع .)
عن أنطولوجيا القص؛ عن اللعب في الدراما الشخصية خاصتنا، عن سرد��اتنا الخلاقة في عالم مليء بالأساطير الناشزة عن عقولنا الحكاءة. يقول جوناثان غوتشل :" إن العقل الحكاء هو تكيف تطوري هام، فهو يتيح لنا أن نعيش حياتنا بترابط ونظام وأن يحكمها هدف ما. إنه ما يجعل الحياة أكثر من ارتباك هامس ساطع."
إن القص وسيلتنا للتغلب على نزعة الانكماش واللامبالاة. "إن العقل البشري مولّف لكشف الأنماط، وينحرف في اتجاه الإيجابيات الزائفة أكثر من السلبيات الزائفة ."
القص وجه آخر للذاكرة أو للذكريات الموشومة بالتشويش لحكايا عشناها أو نظن كذلك! ؛ " إن الذاكرة ليست قصة بمعنى الكلمة، لكنها مجرد صياغة قصصية."
ترجمة الأستاذة بثينة الإبراهيم أكثر من رائعة.
كل إنسان منا صورة ل سردية ما؛ ومجموع هذه السرديات تشكل ما ندعوه ( بالواقع .)
عن أنطولوجيا القص؛ عن اللعب في الدراما الشخصية خاصتنا، عن سرد��اتنا الخلاقة في عالم مليء بالأساطير الناشزة عن عقولنا الحكاءة. يقول جوناثان غوتشل :" إن العقل الحكاء هو تكيف تطوري هام، فهو يتيح لنا أن نعيش حياتنا بترابط ونظام وأن يحكمها هدف ما. إنه ما يجعل الحياة أكثر من ارتباك هامس ساطع."
إن القص وسيلتنا للتغلب على نزعة الانكماش واللامبالاة. "إن العقل البشري مولّف لكشف الأنماط، وينحرف في اتجاه الإيجابيات الزائفة أكثر من السلبيات الزائفة ."
القص وجه آخر للذاكرة أو للذكريات الموشومة بالتشويش لحكايا عشناها أو نظن كذلك! ؛ " إن الذاكرة ليست قصة بمعنى الكلمة، لكنها مجرد صياغة قصصية."
ترجمة الأستاذة بثينة الإبراهيم أكثر من رائعة.
November 7, 2017
در کتابها و سخنرانیها و مقالات مختلف کسب و کار، بارها و بارها از زبان محققان و نویسندگان و سخنوران توصیه شنیده بودم که برای مشتریان و مخاطبانتان، داستان بگویید. چرا؟ این تأکید همیشه برایم سوال بود که در این کتاب پاسخ آن را یافتم. گاتشال از تأثیر قصه بر مغز انسان، داستانهایی که در خواب میبینیم، خطای شناختی مربوط به داستان، تأثیر بعضی از رمانها بر سرنوشت جهان، خاطرات دستکاری شده و آیندهی داستان مینویسد. مباحثی که بعضا انسان را در فکر فرو میبرد که چقدر تحت تأثیر هستیم. با نویسنده در بعضی از مطالب کتاب دیدگاه یکسانی ندارم. نگاه خوشبینانه نویسنده درباره آینده نیز در نقطه مقابل نگاه بعضی دیگر از نویسندگان است. در هنگام مطالعه کتاب بارها دیدگاههای نیکلاس کارو شباهتهایی با کتاب «اینترنت با مغز ما چه میکند» البته از نظر ساختار و دغدغه ها به ذهنم متبادر میشد.
July 26, 2012
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 "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.
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.
April 13, 2022
Semplice, immediato, scorrevole tanto da essere letto in un pomeriggio; mi aspettavo però qualcosa di più.
October 14, 2024
کتابی که خواندنش برای من، لذت تمام و کمال بود. کتابی ساختارمند با پشتوانه علمی در باب قصه گوییِ انسان. این حیوان قصهگو و دنیایی که ساخته، واقعا که جالبه! بسیاری از مطالب کتاب، علارغم آشنا بودنشون یا حتی بدیهی بودنشون!، برای من خیلی تازگی داشتن و جذاب بودن. حقیقتا که این کتاب منو به فکر فرو برد.
جاناتان گاتشال کتابی کوتاه اما همه جانبه راجع به جوانب مختلف قصه گویی انسان از دوران کهن تا عصر مدرن نوشته. گاتشال نه تنها به جوانب مختلف قصه و قصه گویی، که به خواستگاه های انسانی قصه، تاثیرات متعدد قصه و قصهگویی در بسیاری از وجوه زندگی فردی و اجتماعیِ انسان، ریشه ها و چراییهای قصه گویی کارکرد های مختلف قصه در دنیای انسانی و همین طور، آینده داستان و شیوه های قصه گویی مدرن هم میپردازه.
پ.ن1: با خوندن این کتاب روی خیلی از قضاوت هام راجع به داستان و دنیای داستان محورمون دارم فکر میکنم اما بیش از همه، باعث شد تا کمتر راجع به نظرات خیلی مثبت ام نسبت به آثاری مثل نمای��نامه های اشمیت سخت گیر باشم. ما در وهله اول حیوان های قصه گویی هستیم که صرف خود داستان برامون جذاب، مفید و مهم باید باشه.
پ.ن2: تنها نکته منفیِ اصلیِ این کتاب رو میتونم در عدم ارجاع کامل نویسنده و مترجم به منابع مورد استفاده برای نوشتن این کتاب، اشاره کنم. الحق که جای خالیشون حس میشه و خیلی بهتر بود اگه منابع به صورت کامل و منظم میومدن و ارجاعات ادبی داستان هم بیشتر بسط داده میشد.
جاناتان گاتشال کتابی کوتاه اما همه جانبه راجع به جوانب مختلف قصه گویی انسان از دوران کهن تا عصر مدرن نوشته. گاتشال نه تنها به جوانب مختلف قصه و قصه گویی، که به خواستگاه های انسانی قصه، تاثیرات متعدد قصه و قصهگویی در بسیاری از وجوه زندگی فردی و اجتماعیِ انسان، ریشه ها و چراییهای قصه گویی کارکرد های مختلف قصه در دنیای انسانی و همین طور، آینده داستان و شیوه های قصه گویی مدرن هم میپردازه.
پ.ن1: با خوندن این کتاب روی خیلی از قضاوت هام راجع به داستان و دنیای داستان محورمون دارم فکر میکنم اما بیش از همه، باعث شد تا کمتر راجع به نظرات خیلی مثبت ام نسبت به آثاری مثل نمای��نامه های اشمیت سخت گیر باشم. ما در وهله اول حیوان های قصه گویی هستیم که صرف خود داستان برامون جذاب، مفید و مهم باید باشه.
پ.ن2: تنها نکته منفیِ اصلیِ این کتاب رو میتونم در عدم ارجاع کامل نویسنده و مترجم به منابع مورد استفاده برای نوشتن این کتاب، اشاره کنم. الحق که جای خالیشون حس میشه و خیلی بهتر بود اگه منابع به صورت کامل و منظم میومدن و ارجاعات ادبی داستان هم بیشتر بسط داده میشد.
March 10, 2019
الحيوان الحكّاء (كيف تجعل منا الحكايات بشرّا؟).....جوناثان غوتشل
لفترات طويلة من حياتي، كنت فاكر إعجاز خلق الإنسان الأكبر يكمن في جسمه، من قلب وكبد وكلى وغيره من أجهزة الجسم المنظمة، وبعد شويا بقيت ببص لمشاعر الإنسان وعواطفه إنها تحوي إعجاز يفوق إعجاز الجسم ومكوناته، وفي الفترات الأخيرة، بقيت بلاقي في تعبير الإنسان عن عواطفه ومشاعره وحتى حياته كمعجزة كبرى مستقلة عن أي شيء، وبشكل تلقائي بحس في الإبداع الإنساني في الوصف والحكي كإلهام يفرق بين البشر العاديين وغير العاديين، إنك تحكي عن حب الإنسان وظلمه وكسله وجشعه وبقية تفاصيل حياته، كل دا بيحتاجك تكون أكتر من مجرد بشر.
الكتاب دا لطيف جدا في الموضوع دا، اللي هو عملية تشريح العملية الإبداعية وخاصة اللي متصلة بالحكي، ويمكن عملية الحكي نفسها واللي بدأت في تاريخ البشر بمجرد ثرثرة واللي كانت عامل مهم في تطور الإنسان نفسه واستمراريته، من أكتر العمليات الإبداعية إثارة للاهتمام، لأن من ألوان الحي دا نشأت فنون عريقة زي المسرح والشعر والرواية، وحتى العصر الحديث وظهور الراديو والتليفزيون وغيرهم، كل دا بيعطي انطباع عن عملية تشريح العملية الإبداعية المهمة دي.
الكتاب شامل للنقطة دي، وبيستلهم فيها النظريات العلمية المطروحة مع الثوابت الإبداعية ليخرج لنا في النهاية كتاب مهجن، بين الدراسة الأكاديمية الرصينة، ومحاولة العرض المبسطة للفكرة، واللي في النهاية بنلاقي نفسنا كقراء مبسوطين بالكتاب وبنخرج منه بفايدة كبيرة.
للقاريء العادي، الكتاب هيكون ممتع جدا وشارح لحاجات كتير، وبالنسبة للمبدعين نفسهم من كُتاب وغيرهم، هيجدوا لمحات مفيدة للغاية في مشوار إبداعهم؟
والواحد لازم يثني ويبدي إعجابه بثقافة الكاتب الموسوعية واللي عرف يوظفها كويس على صفحات كتابه.
الكتاب يُقرأ، ويستحق الحديث كثيرا على زوايا عدة هو ذكرها.
لفترات طويلة من حياتي، كنت فاكر إعجاز خلق الإنسان الأكبر يكمن في جسمه، من قلب وكبد وكلى وغيره من أجهزة الجسم المنظمة، وبعد شويا بقيت ببص لمشاعر الإنسان وعواطفه إنها تحوي إعجاز يفوق إعجاز الجسم ومكوناته، وفي الفترات الأخيرة، بقيت بلاقي في تعبير الإنسان عن عواطفه ومشاعره وحتى حياته كمعجزة كبرى مستقلة عن أي شيء، وبشكل تلقائي بحس في الإبداع الإنساني في الوصف والحكي كإلهام يفرق بين البشر العاديين وغير العاديين، إنك تحكي عن حب الإنسان وظلمه وكسله وجشعه وبقية تفاصيل حياته، كل دا بيحتاجك تكون أكتر من مجرد بشر.
الكتاب دا لطيف جدا في الموضوع دا، اللي هو عملية تشريح العملية الإبداعية وخاصة اللي متصلة بالحكي، ويمكن عملية الحكي نفسها واللي بدأت في تاريخ البشر بمجرد ثرثرة واللي كانت عامل مهم في تطور الإنسان نفسه واستمراريته، من أكتر العمليات الإبداعية إثارة للاهتمام، لأن من ألوان الحي دا نشأت فنون عريقة زي المسرح والشعر والرواية، وحتى العصر الحديث وظهور الراديو والتليفزيون وغيرهم، كل دا بيعطي انطباع عن عملية تشريح العملية الإبداعية المهمة دي.
الكتاب شامل للنقطة دي، وبيستلهم فيها النظريات العلمية المطروحة مع الثوابت الإبداعية ليخرج لنا في النهاية كتاب مهجن، بين الدراسة الأكاديمية الرصينة، ومحاولة العرض المبسطة للفكرة، واللي في النهاية بنلاقي نفسنا كقراء مبسوطين بالكتاب وبنخرج منه بفايدة كبيرة.
للقاريء العادي، الكتاب هيكون ممتع جدا وشارح لحاجات كتير، وبالنسبة للمبدعين نفسهم من كُتاب وغيرهم، هيجدوا لمحات مفيدة للغاية في مشوار إبداعهم؟
والواحد لازم يثني ويبدي إعجابه بثقافة الكاتب الموسوعية واللي عرف يوظفها كويس على صفحات كتابه.
الكتاب يُقرأ، ويستحق الحديث كثيرا على زوايا عدة هو ذكرها.
September 17, 2019
في هذا الكتاب ستعرف لمَ نحبّ القصص والحكايات، ولماذا تأسرنا الروايات والأفلام.
ليست المتعة هي الحافز الوحيد، بل هناك شيء أعمق من المتعة.
هناك سحر خاص منسجم مع تكويننا البشري يجعل من المستحيل لنا البقاء كبشر دون «سرد / قصة / حكاية».
أجمل الفصول حين تحدث عن أثر القصة على النفس من الناحية العلمية، وكيف أن الانغماس في قصة / رواية / حكاية حتى لو خيالية؛ له نفس نتائج عيش التجربة بشكل واقعيّ.
وهذا ما يجعل من «الأدب» أكثر من مجرد تسلية راقية -كما كانوا يقولون - بل هو موجه حقيقي للحياة.
ويحكي الكتاب أيضاً عن تأثير بعض الروايات العالمية في الأحداث المفصلية من التاريخ كالحرب الأهلية الأمريكية ( كرواية كوخ العم توم) و( الإلياذة) وكتاب
( الجذور).
لا يمكن تمرير الكتاب هذا دون شكر المترجمة الأنيقة« بثينة الإبراهيم» على الجهد الواضح في الكتاب، إضافة إلى ثراء الهوامش بشكل جميل حتى تكاد تكون كتاباً منفصلاً.
الكتاب 8 فصول ومقدمة وهو من إصدارات منشورات تكوين
ليست المتعة هي الحافز الوحيد، بل هناك شيء أعمق من المتعة.
هناك سحر خاص منسجم مع تكويننا البشري يجعل من المستحيل لنا البقاء كبشر دون «سرد / قصة / حكاية».
أجمل الفصول حين تحدث عن أثر القصة على النفس من الناحية العلمية، وكيف أن الانغماس في قصة / رواية / حكاية حتى لو خيالية؛ له نفس نتائج عيش التجربة بشكل واقعيّ.
وهذا ما يجعل من «الأدب» أكثر من مجرد تسلية راقية -كما كانوا يقولون - بل هو موجه حقيقي للحياة.
ويحكي الكتاب أيضاً عن تأثير بعض الروايات العالمية في الأحداث المفصلية من التاريخ كالحرب الأهلية الأمريكية ( كرواية كوخ العم توم) و( الإلياذة) وكتاب
( الجذور).
لا يمكن تمرير الكتاب هذا دون شكر المترجمة الأنيقة« بثينة الإبراهيم» على الجهد الواضح في الكتاب، إضافة إلى ثراء الهوامش بشكل جميل حتى تكاد تكون كتاباً منفصلاً.
الكتاب 8 فصول ومقدمة وهو من إصدارات منشورات تكوين
April 15, 2019
كتابٌ جميل وممتع، عن الإنسان بوصفه حيواناً حكّاءً. يعيش في حكايات يسميها حياته أو سيرته، تشكّله حكايات يُسمّيها ذاكرته وتراثه ودينه وخبرته، ويعيش على حكاياتٍ يُسمّيها أهدافه وغاياته ومقاصده. بل ويعيش ذلك الكائن المدهش في حكاياته عندما ينام ويسمّيها أحلامًا. ويملأ بالحكايات (أحلام اليقظة) معظم فترات يقظته.
بُني العقل البشري على قدرته الحكائية المدهشة.وناقش الكتاب أسئلة التطوريين حول قيمة الحكاية تطوريًّا، وهل جاءت كناتج ثانوي خلال تشكّل العقل البشري أم أنّها مقصودةٌ بذاتها، لأهميتها في حياة الإنسان وبقائه. ومن هنا يبحث الكاتب عن وظيفة الحكاية على اختلاف شكلها ومسمّاها في حياة الإنسان فردًا ومجتمعًا.
الكتاب مسلٍّ في فصوله وطرحه وأسلوبه. وحتى في الصور التي يزيّن بها فصوله. قرأته مترجمًا وترجمته ممتازة، ولم تلزمني العودة إلى الأصل الانجليزي إلا نادرًا.
في الفصل الأخير ناقش مستقبل الحكاية�� وأنّها باقية بقاء الجنس البشري، لكنّها ستأخذ أشكالًا جديدة. وأنّها بسبب وظيفتها لن تخلي المكان إلا لتطوّرها الشكلي فقط. وإن كنت لم أفهم جانب الحكايا التي في ألعاب الفيديو، فأنا بعيد عن هذا المجال.
بُني العقل البشري على قدرته الحكائية المدهشة.وناقش الكتاب أسئلة التطوريين حول قيمة الحكاية تطوريًّا، وهل جاءت كناتج ثانوي خلال تشكّل العقل البشري أم أنّها مقصودةٌ بذاتها، لأهميتها في حياة الإنسان وبقائه. ومن هنا يبحث الكاتب عن وظيفة الحكاية على اختلاف شكلها ومسمّاها في حياة الإنسان فردًا ومجتمعًا.
الكتاب مسلٍّ في فصوله وطرحه وأسلوبه. وحتى في الصور التي يزيّن بها فصوله. قرأته مترجمًا وترجمته ممتازة، ولم تلزمني العودة إلى الأصل الانجليزي إلا نادرًا.
في الفصل الأخير ناقش مستقبل الحكاية�� وأنّها باقية بقاء الجنس البشري، لكنّها ستأخذ أشكالًا جديدة. وأنّها بسبب وظيفتها لن تخلي المكان إلا لتطوّرها الشكلي فقط. وإن كنت لم أفهم جانب الحكايا التي في ألعاب الفيديو، فأنا بعيد عن هذا المجال.
January 15, 2016
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.
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.
June 9, 2012
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."
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."
August 16, 2012
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 about his daughters at play, retellings of his own rather disturbing dreams and fantasies, and then larded in enough photographs and illustrations to make his page count. I learned nothing from reading this book about how stories make us human, and I found the writing sophomoric. On the flap, Steven Pinker is quoted as saying that Gottschall's writing is "unfailingly clear, witty, and exciting" (all the attributes lacking in Pinker's prose), but I most strongly disagree. That it is a popular rather than an academic book is no excuse. There are many distinguished scholars who write interesting and informative books for the general public. The topic is valid; the execution flawed.
February 23, 2019
.
.
القصص والحكايات والروايات كما لم
نعرفها من قبل ، يُسلط غوتشل في كتابه
الضوء على حكاية الحكاية وقصة الرواية
والأثر الذي يُحدثه الأدب في نفوس البشر .
غوتشل يلفت نظرنا إلى ماهو أعمق من ذلك ،
فيدخل في أعماق سيكولوجيا الحكايات بمنظار
علمي لم يزد الكتاب إلا إثراء وجمال .
من الأشياء اللطيفة الهوامش والصور التي
اضافت جو آخر من المتعة . 😌
كتاب أنصح به لعشاق الأدب والروايات أولاً
لأن كل ماجاء به جاء منصفاً ومدافعاً حقيقياً
ضد الهجوم " الجاهل " الذي يتعرض له
قراء هذا الجمال ❤️ .
في الحقيقة لقد أُغرمت في هذا الكتاب 😍❤️
.
.
#تمت_القراءة
#أبجدية_فرح 5/5
#الحيوان_الحكاء
#جوناثان_غوتشل #منشورات_تكوين
#الدار_العربية_للعلوم_ناشرون .
.
القصص والحكايات والروايات كما لم
نعرفها من قبل ، يُسلط غوتشل في كتابه
الضوء على حكاية الحكاية وقصة الرواية
والأثر الذي يُحدثه الأدب في نفوس البشر .
غوتشل يلفت نظرنا إلى ماهو أعمق من ذلك ،
فيدخل في أعماق سيكولوجيا الحكايات بمنظار
علمي لم يزد الكتاب إلا إثراء وجمال .
من الأشياء اللطيفة الهوامش والصور التي
اضافت جو آخر من المتعة . 😌
كتاب أنصح به لعشاق الأدب والروايات أولاً
لأن كل ماجاء به جاء منصفاً ومدافعاً حقيقياً
ضد الهجوم " الجاهل " الذي يتعرض له
قراء هذا الجمال ❤️ .
في الحقيقة لقد أُغرمت في هذا الكتاب 😍❤️
.
.
#تمت_القراءة
#أبجدية_فرح 5/5
#الحيوان_الحكاء
#جوناثان_غوتشل #منشورات_تكوين
#الدار_العربية_للعلوم_ناشرون .
July 8, 2020
هذا أحد الكتب التي سترفع رأسك منها لتنظر حولك بعين مختلفة. أحد الكتب التي ستخبرك بشيء يبدو أنك تعرفه قبل ذلك لكن لم تكن لتدرك أنك تعرفه قبل قراءة هذا الكتاب (وهذه سمة الكتاب الناجح في نظري).
الكتاب يقدم أفكار دسمة؛ تاريخية وسيكولوجية وبيولوجية، لكن بطريقة "مبهجة"، وأعتقد أن هذا أقرب وصف له، هو كتاب مبهج يضيف الكثير لرصيدك من الأفكار والمعلومات بطريقة سلسة وممتعة. مثلما أجسادنا مصممة للحركة والعمل فعقولنا مصممة للقصص وللفهم من خلال القصص، وهذا ما فعله الكاتب في أغلب الفصول، يبدأ بقصة ثم ينقلنا بخفة لمحتوى الفصل من معلومات دسمة.
نحن ننحاز دائماً للقصة، سواء كان ذلك بوعي أو بلاوعي، حتى أولئك الذي يستنقصون من أهمية الروايات يستحيل ألا يستمتعوا بالقصص التي ترد في الآثار والتراجم والسيَّر. كل منا لديه نيفرلاند الخاصة به، ولا شيء يعادل بهجة الطيران فيها كلما تسنّت لنا الفرصة، وهي تتسنّى أكثر مما نعتقد.
الكتاب يقدم أفكار دسمة؛ تاريخية وسيكولوجية وبيولوجية، لكن بطريقة "مبهجة"، وأعتقد أن هذا أقرب وصف له، هو كتاب مبهج يضيف الكثير لرصيدك من الأفكار والمعلومات بطريقة سلسة وممتعة. مثلما أجسادنا مصممة للحركة والعمل فعقولنا مصممة للقصص وللفهم من خلال القصص، وهذا ما فعله الكاتب في أغلب الفصول، يبدأ بقصة ثم ينقلنا بخفة لمحتوى الفصل من معلومات دسمة.
نحن ننحاز دائماً للقصة، سواء كان ذلك بوعي أو بلاوعي، حتى أولئك الذي يستنقصون من أهمية الروايات يستحيل ألا يستمتعوا بالقصص التي ترد في الآثار والتراجم والسيَّر. كل منا لديه نيفرلاند الخاصة به، ولا شيء يعادل بهجة الطيران فيها كلما تسنّت لنا الفرصة، وهي تتسنّى أكثر مما نعتقد.
January 13, 2022
Not quite a “writing” book, but a deeply interesting and informative look behind the curtains of why the human brain seems to be so wired for interacting with stories—and therefore why stories are of such moment. Some of the examples are little gross-out or juvenile on occasion, but overall I find it a well-considered examination (more questions than answers) of our relationship with story.
November 7, 2020
Jonathan Gottschall is that most suspect of liberal arts majors, the one who wants to apply Science to his chosen field. In particular, evolution. It is not necessarily an idea which is widely endorsed by his peers, I suspect, but I think he is on to something. The real question I had after reading this book, was whether he had taken it far enough.
Gottschall's thesis is, if I can do violence to it by condensing a book into a paragraph, that humans are storytelling animals, in the same way that beavers are dam-building animals and most spiders are web-building and cheetahs are fast and insectivorous bats use echolocation in flight. It is not just a thing we do, not even just an important thing that we do, but rather The Defining Trait. It's what makes a human different than a chimpanzee, more than the different gait or diet or hair or physical strength. Telling stories is not an aspect of our culture; culture is a consequence of our storytelling, and you can pretty much define a culture by the kind of stories the people of that culture tell. We make up stories, and tell them to each other, from a very young age, for basically the same reason that young deer learn to run and young squirrels learn to leap from branch to branch and young birds learn to fly.
It may be, that he has a point.
He looks at storytelling from a variety of perspectives, including that of his very young daughters. I particularly liked the part where his 3-year old daughter told him, when they were playing together in a forest, that they (he and his daughter) were going to pretend that they were living in the forest because their parents were dead. I had frequent flashbacks, when reading this book, to when my teenaged daughter was much younger, and she asked me to tell her stories. I agree it did not seem to be a behavior that needed to be encouraged, in the way that learning to read or be polite needs to be encouraged, but rather more like learning to speak, in that nearly any child will learn it unless you take dire and drastic actions to prevent it.
Some of the childlike storytelling perspectives are not as sweet as you might think, if your memories of being a small child have become sugar-coated by the passage of time. There are researchers who have asked 3-5 year olds to tell them stories, just to see what kinds of themes small children normally pick. They are largely about death or the risk of it, being lost, arguing, fighting, and a host of other topics which would seem a lot darker if they weren't coming from adorable little tots with their adorable little grammatical errors. Here's my personal favorite:
"The boxing world. In the middle of the morning everyone gets up, puts on boxing gloves and fights. One of the guys gets socked in the face and he starts bleeding. A duck comes along and says, 'give up'."
The end. Ducks, they are jerks.
As one might expect from a book written by an academic who specializes in story-telling, Gottschall knows how to string together his points into a coherent, eminently readable narrative. Which is one of his points; putting the exact same facts into a story makes them much more understandable and memorable, than if they were simply presented as facts. Our brains seem to be especially well adapted to remembering stories, and Gottschall does not shrink from covering how our brains are so attached to this that they will (in fact) conveniently forget or misremember anything which doesn't fit the overall narrative, such that our memories are not nearly so reliable as we wish to believe they are.
In the last part of the book, Gottschall easily demolishes the occasionally expressed anxiety that we are losing our capacity to enjoy stories, worn away by shorter and shorter attention spans and an appetite for video games. In fact, every new medium (including the internet, video games, smartphones, etc.) gets quickly taken over for storytelling, regardless of its original intended purpose. As he points out, we are less in danger of losing our appetite for story, than of having it all-too-well-obliged, with fiction and story taking up more and more hours of the day until there is little time left for anything else; he makes a comparison to the rise of diabetes in the wake of all-too-available high-calorie food, but doesn't pursue it.
Which, to be honest, is my only complaint about this book; it could have gone further. Having established that we are, and basically always have been, maniacally fond of storytelling, and explored the various reasons (preparation for crises, thinking through moral quandaries, bonding with others who know the same stories) that this has been to our advantage as a species, he doesn't look at the downside of having such a plethora of story available to us now. Too many calories available to us has had obvious downsides. To much energy available to us has as well. The avalanche of book, TV, movie, internet video/text/audio, and other story sources available to us now, at all times of the day and night, every day forever, has got to have a downside. Gottschall feints in that direction, but leaves the topic unexplored.
Nonetheless, it's a book well worth reading, and in some ways it was like being a fish and having someone point out to you what water is. I will be looking around me with fresh eyes for some time.
Gottschall's thesis is, if I can do violence to it by condensing a book into a paragraph, that humans are storytelling animals, in the same way that beavers are dam-building animals and most spiders are web-building and cheetahs are fast and insectivorous bats use echolocation in flight. It is not just a thing we do, not even just an important thing that we do, but rather The Defining Trait. It's what makes a human different than a chimpanzee, more than the different gait or diet or hair or physical strength. Telling stories is not an aspect of our culture; culture is a consequence of our storytelling, and you can pretty much define a culture by the kind of stories the people of that culture tell. We make up stories, and tell them to each other, from a very young age, for basically the same reason that young deer learn to run and young squirrels learn to leap from branch to branch and young birds learn to fly.
It may be, that he has a point.
He looks at storytelling from a variety of perspectives, including that of his very young daughters. I particularly liked the part where his 3-year old daughter told him, when they were playing together in a forest, that they (he and his daughter) were going to pretend that they were living in the forest because their parents were dead. I had frequent flashbacks, when reading this book, to when my teenaged daughter was much younger, and she asked me to tell her stories. I agree it did not seem to be a behavior that needed to be encouraged, in the way that learning to read or be polite needs to be encouraged, but rather more like learning to speak, in that nearly any child will learn it unless you take dire and drastic actions to prevent it.
Some of the childlike storytelling perspectives are not as sweet as you might think, if your memories of being a small child have become sugar-coated by the passage of time. There are researchers who have asked 3-5 year olds to tell them stories, just to see what kinds of themes small children normally pick. They are largely about death or the risk of it, being lost, arguing, fighting, and a host of other topics which would seem a lot darker if they weren't coming from adorable little tots with their adorable little grammatical errors. Here's my personal favorite:
"The boxing world. In the middle of the morning everyone gets up, puts on boxing gloves and fights. One of the guys gets socked in the face and he starts bleeding. A duck comes along and says, 'give up'."
The end. Ducks, they are jerks.
As one might expect from a book written by an academic who specializes in story-telling, Gottschall knows how to string together his points into a coherent, eminently readable narrative. Which is one of his points; putting the exact same facts into a story makes them much more understandable and memorable, than if they were simply presented as facts. Our brains seem to be especially well adapted to remembering stories, and Gottschall does not shrink from covering how our brains are so attached to this that they will (in fact) conveniently forget or misremember anything which doesn't fit the overall narrative, such that our memories are not nearly so reliable as we wish to believe they are.
In the last part of the book, Gottschall easily demolishes the occasionally expressed anxiety that we are losing our capacity to enjoy stories, worn away by shorter and shorter attention spans and an appetite for video games. In fact, every new medium (including the internet, video games, smartphones, etc.) gets quickly taken over for storytelling, regardless of its original intended purpose. As he points out, we are less in danger of losing our appetite for story, than of having it all-too-well-obliged, with fiction and story taking up more and more hours of the day until there is little time left for anything else; he makes a comparison to the rise of diabetes in the wake of all-too-available high-calorie food, but doesn't pursue it.
Which, to be honest, is my only complaint about this book; it could have gone further. Having established that we are, and basically always have been, maniacally fond of storytelling, and explored the various reasons (preparation for crises, thinking through moral quandaries, bonding with others who know the same stories) that this has been to our advantage as a species, he doesn't look at the downside of having such a plethora of story available to us now. Too many calories available to us has had obvious downsides. To much energy available to us has as well. The avalanche of book, TV, movie, internet video/text/audio, and other story sources available to us now, at all times of the day and night, every day forever, has got to have a downside. Gottschall feints in that direction, but leaves the topic unexplored.
Nonetheless, it's a book well worth reading, and in some ways it was like being a fish and having someone point out to you what water is. I will be looking around me with fresh eyes for some time.
July 4, 2019
" لقد كانت القصص هبة عظيمة لجنسنا".
القصص خيط أساسي في حياكة نسيج حياتنا. ❤️
هذه هي النتيجة التي يحاول الكاتب إثباتها في كتابه الرائع.
تبدأ القصص في خيلاتنا الطفولية، وفي أحلامنا وكوابيسنا، ومن ثم ترافقنا على مختلف مراحل حياتنا، وتتشعب نقاط تماسنا وتعاملنا معها.
فهي في كتب التاريخ التي ندرسها، والأدب الذي نقرؤه، وفي الأغنيات التي تطربنا، وألعاب الفيديو والمسلسلات التي تمتعنا.
"إن الحكايا بكل ما فيها من تنوع وجمال ليست سوى حوادث سعيدة لبنية العقل العشوائية. فقد تعلّمُنا القصص وتجعلنا أكثر عمقاً كما تمنحنا البهجة أيضاً، وقد تكون الحكايات هي أحد الأمور التي تجعل من كوننا بشراً أمراً أكثر جدارة".
ولكن هناك أسئلة رغم بداهتها فلم تكن لتخطر لنا - كبشر عاديين بشكل عام ، وكقراء ومحبين للأدب بشكل خاص - إلا نادراً .
هل القصص متلازمة مع التطور البشري؟
ما فائدة الأدب وكيف يؤثر فينا؟
لماذا تركز حكايات الإنسان العاقل على المتاعب؟
ما عل��قة الأدب بالذاكرة وبالحصيلة الأخلاقية للفرد؟ وكيف للأدب أن يغيّر مسار التاريخ؟
ومن ثم هل سينقرض الأدب والروايات حقاً؟
يطرح الكاتب عبر فصول كتابه هذه الأسئلة وغيرها الكثير بأسلوب رشيق وسلس ويناقشها ويُدعّمها بالحجج والتفسيرات العلمية والدراسات النفسية إلى آخر ما يتصل بكل موضوع ليختم في النهاية كل فصل بتمهيد يقودك إلى الفصل الذي يليه بحماس.
"إننا نحن البشر نخترق أنفسنا بالأدب باستمرار، وهو يشكّلنا طوال الوقت ويغيّرنا".
أنت لست بصدد قراءة بحث علمي أو مجرد عرض لبيانات تاريخية، بل على العكس تماماً، سيأخذك غوتشل - بأسلوبِ حكواتيّ خبير - في رحلة ممتعة تجمع الأدب والعلم والتاريخ والسياسة وعلم النفس وعالم السينما في خلطة واحدة.
كما أنك ستقرأ ما لم تسمع به يوماً عن كتب ومؤلفين ومشاهير ومجهولين،بل وحتى عن أفلام سينمائية و مسلسلات تلفزيونية ومقطوعات موسيقية.
يستحق هذا الكتاب بجدارة أن يُقرأ عدة مرات ❤️ وعلى محبي القراءة والأدب ألا يحرموا أنفسهم من متعة إثراء عقولهم بمحتواه واقتنائه ضمن مكتباتهم.
وأخيراً... تنويه عن الترجمة : ستصادف في مسيرتك القرائية مترجمين (قليلين جداً) مثقفين إضافة إلى كونهم متمكنين من حرفة الترجمة، فتود لو أن جميع الكتب تُتَرجم بواسطتهم، وبثينة الإبراهيم واحدة منهم 🌼.
القصص خيط أساسي في حياكة نسيج حياتنا. ❤️
هذه هي النتيجة التي يحاول الكاتب إثباتها في كتابه الرائع.
تبدأ القصص في خيلاتنا الطفولية، وفي أحلامنا وكوابيسنا، ومن ثم ترافقنا على مختلف مراحل حياتنا، وتتشعب نقاط تماسنا وتعاملنا معها.
فهي في كتب التاريخ التي ندرسها، والأدب الذي نقرؤه، وفي الأغنيات التي تطربنا، وألعاب الفيديو والمسلسلات التي تمتعنا.
"إن الحكايا بكل ما فيها من تنوع وجمال ليست سوى حوادث سعيدة لبنية العقل العشوائية. فقد تعلّمُنا القصص وتجعلنا أكثر عمقاً كما تمنحنا البهجة أيضاً، وقد تكون الحكايات هي أحد الأمور التي تجعل من كوننا بشراً أمراً أكثر جدارة".
ولكن هناك أسئلة رغم بداهتها فلم تكن لتخطر لنا - كبشر عاديين بشكل عام ، وكقراء ومحبين للأدب بشكل خاص - إلا نادراً .
هل القصص متلازمة مع التطور البشري؟
ما فائدة الأدب وكيف يؤثر فينا؟
لماذا تركز حكايات الإنسان العاقل على المتاعب؟
ما عل��قة الأدب بالذاكرة وبالحصيلة الأخلاقية للفرد؟ وكيف للأدب أن يغيّر مسار التاريخ؟
ومن ثم هل سينقرض الأدب والروايات حقاً؟
يطرح الكاتب عبر فصول كتابه هذه الأسئلة وغيرها الكثير بأسلوب رشيق وسلس ويناقشها ويُدعّمها بالحجج والتفسيرات العلمية والدراسات النفسية إلى آخر ما يتصل بكل موضوع ليختم في النهاية كل فصل بتمهيد يقودك إلى الفصل الذي يليه بحماس.
"إننا نحن البشر نخترق أنفسنا بالأدب باستمرار، وهو يشكّلنا طوال الوقت ويغيّرنا".
أنت لست بصدد قراءة بحث علمي أو مجرد عرض لبيانات تاريخية، بل على العكس تماماً، سيأخذك غوتشل - بأسلوبِ حكواتيّ خبير - في رحلة ممتعة تجمع الأدب والعلم والتاريخ والسياسة وعلم النفس وعالم السينما في خلطة واحدة.
كما أنك ستقرأ ما لم تسمع به يوماً عن كتب ومؤلفين ومشاهير ومجهولين،بل وحتى عن أفلام سينمائية و مسلسلات تلفزيونية ومقطوعات موسيقية.
يستحق هذا الكتاب بجدارة أن يُقرأ عدة مرات ❤️ وعلى محبي القراءة والأدب ألا يحرموا أنفسهم من متعة إثراء عقولهم بمحتواه واقتنائه ضمن مكتباتهم.
وأخيراً... تنويه عن الترجمة : ستصادف في مسيرتك القرائية مترجمين (قليلين جداً) مثقفين إضافة إلى كونهم متمكنين من حرفة الترجمة، فتود لو أن جميع الكتب تُتَرجم بواسطتهم، وبثينة الإبراهيم واحدة منهم 🌼.
February 3, 2023
لقد أزجيتُ طفولتي في خلق ألعابٍ أسافر فيها بين الكواكب، مُتصنّعةً أعداءً أحاربهم، وأصدقاء أحتضنهم بعد الحروب. كبُرتُ قليلًا، وبدأت من غير أن أدري أتحدث مع الغيوم والشجر والحلزونات. وفي يفاعتي بدأت، أو بدأ عقلي رغمًا عنّي، بابتكار أحداث لا واقعيّة، يستمدّها من الواقع المُعاش؛ كأن أصوّر قصة حب عفيفة بيني وبين شخصٍ لا أحفظ ملامحه. وكبرتُ أكثر، وانجرفتُ في عالم الحلمِ الذي لا ينقطع ليل نهار. من جهةٍ أخرى، جرّبتُ قراءة الروايات والقصص بأنواعها، خفيةً وعلانية، وفي فترة أتذكّرها جيّدًا، كنت اتسلل لواذًا لقراءة القصص بع��دًا عن أعين والدي، لأنّني، بطريقةٍ ما، وفي فترةٍ ما، أُتُّهِمتُ بأن القصص أفسدتني. أخشى الاقرار بأنّ بدايات قراءتي باللغة الانجليزية كان يدفعها نزوعٌ نحو قراءة الأدب الذي أحب، دون أن يفهم أحد ما الّذي أفعله بالضبط. الآن، أقرأ بانتقائيّةٍ غير محتملة، غيرَ انّ القصص تشكّل وجبة الغداء في يومي.
لدي تاريخ طويل ومعقّد مع معاناتي مع السؤال الذي يطرحه الكتاب: لماذا نحبّ الحكايات؟
في كتابه، يعرض غوتشيل شكل الحكاية كأداةٍ عضويّةٍ في الدماغ، ذات حضورٍ فوري ومباشر في تجربتنا كبشر — الذاكرة، أحلام اليقظة، أحلام الليل والكوابيس، سرد قصصنا اليوميّة، أو حتّى تصنيف كتب السيرة الذاتية ككتب غير روائية؛ هي كلّها في النهاية تردّدات يبعثها عقلنا الحكّاء.
يُقنعنا الكاتب بأنّ الإنسان يتعدّى الحيوان الناطق إلى الحيوان الحكّاء. بأسلوب علمي وأدبي جميل، يعرض الكاتب فكرته باتّساقٍ وترتيب لطيف. أحببته، لأسباب كثيرة، لكنّه أضاء عندي فهمًا جديدًا لهُويّتي، تفسيرًا مقنعًا وملموسًا لاصراري على قراءة القصص حتى عندما حرمتُ ترف قرائتها علنًا. عزيزٌ أن تجد كتابًا يرتّب عندك تصوّراتك عن نفسك منذ الطفولة؛ وأنا وجدت ذلك في هذا الكتاب.
أزعجني عزوُه نزعة عقلنا الحكّاء إلى أسباب "تطوّريّة"، وأيضًا فصل الدين والأساطير جاء ركيكًا وغثًّا، مُظهرًا عدم احاطة الكاتب بما يقول وإن كانت الفكرة "النظيفة" صحيحة. حتّى من يؤمن بنظرية التطور فلن يقنعه اقحام الكاتب لها في هذا الكتاب، لأنّها جاءت اعتباطًا ومن غير أدلة.
كلّنا سيقول هذا عن نفسه: لا أعرف عقلًا حكّاءً أكثر من عقلي.
وكلّنا، على ما يبدو، مصيبون في ذلك.
لدي تاريخ طويل ومعقّد مع معاناتي مع السؤال الذي يطرحه الكتاب: لماذا نحبّ الحكايات؟
في كتابه، يعرض غوتشيل شكل الحكاية كأداةٍ عضويّةٍ في الدماغ، ذات حضورٍ فوري ومباشر في تجربتنا كبشر — الذاكرة، أحلام اليقظة، أحلام الليل والكوابيس، سرد قصصنا اليوميّة، أو حتّى تصنيف كتب السيرة الذاتية ككتب غير روائية؛ هي كلّها في النهاية تردّدات يبعثها عقلنا الحكّاء.
يُقنعنا الكاتب بأنّ الإنسان يتعدّى الحيوان الناطق إلى الحيوان الحكّاء. بأسلوب علمي وأدبي جميل، يعرض الكاتب فكرته باتّساقٍ وترتيب لطيف. أحببته، لأسباب كثيرة، لكنّه أضاء عندي فهمًا جديدًا لهُويّتي، تفسيرًا مقنعًا وملموسًا لاصراري على قراءة القصص حتى عندما حرمتُ ترف قرائتها علنًا. عزيزٌ أن تجد كتابًا يرتّب عندك تصوّراتك عن نفسك منذ الطفولة؛ وأنا وجدت ذلك في هذا الكتاب.
أزعجني عزوُه نزعة عقلنا الحكّاء إلى أسباب "تطوّريّة"، وأيضًا فصل الدين والأساطير جاء ركيكًا وغثًّا، مُظهرًا عدم احاطة الكاتب بما يقول وإن كانت الفكرة "النظيفة" صحيحة. حتّى من يؤمن بنظرية التطور فلن يقنعه اقحام الكاتب لها في هذا الكتاب، لأنّها جاءت اعتباطًا ومن غير أدلة.
كلّنا سيقول هذا عن نفسه: لا أعرف عقلًا حكّاءً أكثر من عقلي.
وكلّنا، على ما يبدو، مصيبون في ذلك.
October 22, 2020
موضوع کتاب برام جالب بود و انتظار خیلی بیشتری داشتم ولی متاسفانه با کتابی ضعیف که فرضیه ها و استدلال هایی مبهم و بی سر و ته داشت روبرو شدم. پراکندگی مطالب انقدر زیاد بود که بعضی قسمت ها بیشتر پرت و پلا بود. از یک جایی به بعد خیلی سریع ورق زدم عنوان ها رو نگاه میکردم اگر جالب بود متنش رو میخوندم ولی در مجموع اگه این کتاب رو نخونید چیز زیادی از دست نمیدید. با ارفاق بهش سه دادم اونهم به خاطر بعضی مطالب جالبش بود که خیلی ربطی به موضوع کتاب نداشت!
August 14, 2017
ترجمه خوب و روان کتاب لذت خواندن رو دوچندان کرد۰
کتاب شما رو با ذهن قصهگویتان بیشتر آشنا میکند۰
:(۰بیصبرانه منتظر دیدن نتیجه این آشنایی در دراز مدت هستم
کتاب شما رو با ذهن قصهگویتان بیشتر آشنا میکند۰
:(۰بیصبرانه منتظر دیدن نتیجه این آشنایی در دراز مدت هستم
July 20, 2016
Someone complained that Jonathan Gottschall’s The Storytelling Animal is overgrown – that is, that all the ideas it contains could have been easily synthetized in a long article. I wouldn’t go so far, although I also felt sometimes that one point or another was discussed to its outer limits. Anyway, it was an interesting enough reading, even if not very original.
The premise of the book, disclosed by the title (quoting Graham Swift’s inspiring definition of mankind given in Waterland: “Man – let me offer you a definition – is the storytelling animal”) is that the human being is a Homo fictus, who makes up stories all his life, whether he is an artist or not, and the author takes his time in revealing how and why the fiction influences the human life, to stress “the major function” of storytelling: to shape the very human mind that shaped it, in order to prepare it for the everyday problems.
One of the first arguments concerns the dreams, apparently an inexhaustible spring for tales the brain carefully concocts for our protection, since dreams are not, as Flanagan once believed, “brain waste”, that is, “a useless by-product of all the useful work the sleeping brain does”, but, as Michael Jouvet discovered in the 50s, after realizing that the animals experience REM sleep, rather a rehearsal to prepare both humans and other beings for the life challenges.
Recent research suggests that if geese dream – and it is possible that they do – they probably don’t dream of maize. They probably dream of foxes.
Stories have also the function to fill in the blanks of bizarre and/ or unexplained phenomena, behavior, actions. Another celebrated scientist, Michael Gazzaniga, the pioneer of the split-brain neuroscience school, discovered that the two sides of the brain have different functions: while the right brain specializes in identifying shapes, paying attention to details and generally controlling movement, images, sounds, the left one is responsible for speaking and thinking and imagining, and he observed that quite often, when a subject whose right brain is defective could not offer an explanation for his actions, he would rather fabricate a clever story instead of letting the “why” question unanswered:
The storytelling mind is allergic to uncertainty, randomness and coincidence. If the storytelling mind cannot find meaningful patterns in the world, it will try to impose them. In short, the storytelling mind is a factory that churns out true stories when it can, but will manufacture lies when it can’t.
Here it is a possible explanation for the fact that not only the fool or the stupid but even the intelligent persons can firmly believe in the most fanciful conspiracy theory: the mind needs to be permanently reassured that all experience is meaningful, so it looks for plausible explanations that could counteract evilness:
Conspiracy theories offer ultimate answers to a great mystery of the human condition: why are things so bad in the world? (…) for this reason, conspiracy theories – no matter how many devils they invoke – are always consoling in their simplicity. Bad things do not happen because of a wildly complex swirls of abstract historical and social variables. They happen because bad men live to stalk our happiness. And you can fight, and possibly even defeat, bad men. If you can read the hidden story.
Furthermore, it was proved many times that the stories can inexorably shape our future (and sometimes indirectly the future of the others): think of Edward Bulwer-Lytton’s novel Rienzi, which inspired Wagner’s opera, which influenced Hitler, and which thus changed the world; think of Uncle’s Tom Cabin, which made Abraham Lincoln meet Harriet Beecher-Stove and say to her the flattering but not without a grain of truth words that her novel provided all the right reasons for the Civil War; or think of Tolstoy who regarded his work as a noble disease that could “infect” people with his ideas and emotions.
Last but not least, stories (and dreams) apart from preparing us to live our lives and making us discern between good and evil, teach us to live comfortably with ourselves, by fogging the memory of our past actions in order to let us be the impeccable heroes of our lives, thus keeping us apart from the despair of the nothingness:
Depressed people have lost their positive illusions; they rate their personal qualities much more plausibly than average. They are able to see, with terrible clarity, that they are not all that special. According to the psychologist Shelley Taylor, a healthy mind tells itself flattering lies. And if it does not lie to itself, it is not healthy. Why? Because (…) positive illusions keep us from yielding to despair.
It was inevitable, of course, for such a book to argue about the future of literary fiction in a time where the decreasing of reading is a worldwide phenomenon. The author is once again optimistic: many a work a fiction is published every day so the reader species is still alive and kicking. I found it however a little naïve (and a bit insulting) his belief that songs are poems and anyone who can tell by heart lyrics is a connoisseur of poetry:
Ours is not the age when poetry died; it is the age when poetry triumphed in the form of song. It is the age of American Idol. It is the age when people carry around ten or twenty thousand of their favorite poems stored on little white rectangles tucked into their hip pockets. It is an age when most of us know hundred of these poems by heart.
Me too, I’d like to think that poetry is not dead. But I would prefer it to be dead than to be reduced to Taylor Swift’s lyrics, hearted as they are.
June 2, 2019
ما أحتاجه بالضبط لأفهم جواب السؤال المتكرر عن تفضيل الناس للحكايا وكتب الروايات, ما يحتاجه مني "الحلم" لأفهم نظرياته بعيداً عن عالم فرويد الذي وقعت في فخه سابقاً, وما يمنحني إياه العلم ليحلل الكيفية التي تجعلنا نفعل كل هذا: أن نقصّ القَصَصَ لنبقَ أحياء.
بثينة كاتبة ومترجمة ممتازة, تلقفت كتبها المترجمة من دار تكوين اثناء عرضها في معرض بغداد الدولي, ولا أصدق كم غفلت عنها.
أما جونثان فلا يسعني الحديث عنه, ذهبت الى اليوتيوب لأبحث عن الفديوهات التي ذكرها هنا عن اللعبة, ورحت لأبعد من ذلك بوضع كتب مصادره في الهامش ضمن الكتب التي أنوي قرائتها لاحقاً. حسناً إنه ثروة وكتاب مناسب لقتل ملل الخفارات الليلة في مستشفى أطفال!
بثينة كاتبة ومترجمة ممتازة, تلقفت كتبها المترجمة من دار تكوين اثناء عرضها في معرض بغداد الدولي, ولا أصدق كم غفلت عنها.
أما جونثان فلا يسعني الحديث عنه, ذهبت الى اليوتيوب لأبحث عن الفديوهات التي ذكرها هنا عن اللعبة, ورحت لأبعد من ذلك بوضع كتب مصادره في الهامش ضمن الكتب التي أنوي قرائتها لاحقاً. حسناً إنه ثروة وكتاب مناسب لقتل ملل الخفارات الليلة في مستشفى أطفال!
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