When inventing plays, the ancient Greeks noticed stories often healed audiences of their psychological ills. Stories remain some of the first historic signs of civilizations the world over. Even today, weekends for many often consist of movies and/or fiction. What fascinates us so about them? Will Storr takes a gambit to explain this deeply human topic. He wants us to understand stories – and ourselves – better so that we can tell the next tale more effectively.
Storr relies on many English-language classics to illustrate his points about storytelling. He shows different forms and techniques successfully used in the past. The literary devices cited are fairly standard, but for people with a science-heavy education like me, books like this can substitute for the rich liberal-arts education we never received.
I would give this book five stars except for his heavy reliance upon evolutionary theory as the foundational human history. As a scientist, I appreciate evolution deeply, but I question whether it can be a panacea to explain all facets of social behavior. I doubt one storyline can so easily explain all human diversity and complexity. Nevertheless, Storr at times not only cites evolutionary explanations as a source, but tends to use it as a crutch for authority. I prefer to leave it as one important story among many to be refined in centuries to come.
Most of us enjoy sitting around a dinner table or at a pub and swapping humorous tales. Likewise, most of us have also grown all-too-aware of our shortcomings in those ventures. We wish we could communicate better to please our friends. This book can help us do just that. By understanding story, we can more artfully construct them to delight, frighten, and tantalize our audiences. This book heightens our awareness so that we can be a grander narrator for our friends.
The Science of Storytelling: Why Stories Make Us Human and How to Tell Them Better
By Will Storr
Narrated by James Clamp
Audio copyright (c) 2020
Dreamscape Media
Text copyright (c) 2020
Harry N. Abrams
ASIN B0835V1KY5
Length: 6:51
Genre: Literary Analysis
www.amazon.com