인간은 그냥 이야기를 좋아한다. 하루종일 드라마를 보는것은 어려운게 아니다. 나같은 경우는 하루종일 영화만 보고 있을 수 있다.  그러고도 할 일이 없으면 책을 보기도 한다. 또한 이야기를 하는것도 좋아한다. 수많은 가쉽들도 결국엔 캐릭터들이 무엇을 했는가에 대한 것이지 않은가. 

저자는 인간이 이야기를 좋아하고 계속 하게끔 진화가 되었다고 보고 그 이익(?)에 관해서 '설'을 푼다. 결국엔 진화적으로 이익이 없었다면 수많은 이야기들이 존재하지 않았을지도. 상당히 재밌다. 그리고 단어도 크게 어렵지 않아서 영어 가독성도 좋다. 인간 본성에 관한 진화 심리학적 관점에 관심이 있다면 지나칠 수 없을듯하다.

두가지 인상깊은 설

꿈 - 다른 세상에서의 메시지를 전달받는다는 고대의 이론에서, 숨겨진 자아의 표현이라는 근대의 이론을 거쳐, 현대에는 꿈이란 그냥 의미없는 뇌작용의 부산물이라 본다. 하지만 저자는 꿈이란 인간 삶에 '도움'을 주기위한 '시뮬레이션'이라고 본다. 아주 설득적이진 않지만 상당히 재미있는 부분이다.

폭력적인 미디어 - 폭력적인 영화, 티비, 게임들에 접하면 학생들이 삐뚤어진다… 라는 수많은 보수적인 논평에 저자는 확고하게 얘기한다. 학생들은 어렸을때부터 비교할 수 없을 정도로 많은 비폭력적이고 권선징악의 이야기들을 접하기 때문에 걱정할 필요가 없다고!!

So what it is about? 

This book examines the evolution, biology,sociology and psychology of why humans rave over stories, the landscapes of make-believe. The author offers a unified theory of storytelling through historical examples, facts and anecdotes.  Gottschall argues that we have always been nourished by stories, since man could speak, from a village storyteller gathering youngsters around a stickfire to radiate magic centuries ago to 3D video game creators who can literally give birth to new civilizations, replete with their own history, in the cyber world . Not only stories just plain FUN, they are one of THE keys to unlocking the hidden facets of our mind that have eluded the most advanced of technologies.

Each chapter in a Nutshell...

The Witchery of Story

Fiction appears in many forms, in books, songs, poetry and even in dreams. And we do love stories, because they are just plain FUN, and humans are all about fun, as the author claims  It allows us to experience culture and psychology, without the potentially staggering costs of having to gain this experience firsthand. 

The Riddle of Fiction

 Fiction is also a powerful virtual reality simulator through which we can try out our solution to a personal problem beforehand.  We live and empathize with the protagonists to skillfully navigate our own life problems.  

Hell is Story-Friendly

And it has a basic, fixed structure: it presents a problem that must be resolved.

Night Story

Fiction is manifested in our Dreams. It seems that stories unfold in our dreams as well. Most of our dreams are rarely ever good dreams, but presents precarious and often dangerous and desperate situations, which happens to be the critical element of fiction. 

The Mind is a Storyteller

The mind is a storyteller, which cannot suppress its need to form a story from absolutely meaningless presentations. It constantly needs to find meaning and story where there is none. 

The Moral of the Story

Story has morality, whether obvious or not, and this morality " make societies work better by encouraging us to behave ethically." Poetic justice is served, making us feel that the world is, on the whole, a just place.  So stories fulfill an ancient function of binding society by reinforcing a set of common values and thus strengthening the ties of common culture. It is a binder that acts as a counterforce to social disorder of citizens in a village that spans the globe.

Ink People change the World

We may think that story is just for personal enjoyment and it ends there, but the fact of the matter is, it is has had an enormous influence on the course of history.  The stories of how Hitler was so enraptured by one of Wagner's opera to pursue his delusion of global domination and how Uncle Tom's Cabin polarized a nation about the morality and plight of slavery, culminating in US Civil War, shed light on the power of story to influence people on a grand scale. 

Life Stories

When most of us think about writing a memoir about ourselves, we think we will be absolutely honest about all things that have happened or have happened to us in our lives. But you guessed it the author throws a curve ball and tell us that that is a big fat lie, because what we will convey in most likelihood would be shameful distortion of what really happened. In others words, our memory will enter the gates of grandeur and stay there, aggrandizing everything until we become superheros. What we truly believe are vivid memories of events are probably just " great masterworks of our storytelling mind."  I think there is no way around our tendency to confabulate, so don't believe everything you remember to be true.

Future of Story

The story has made a long journey from prehistoric cave paintings to oral heritage to papyrus to paper to books to computer to internet and to video games. And its media of choice is still evolving, as well as the people who crave for stories. People will take story out from the mind into action in 3D virtural reality to actually play out the roles of their choosing. This is the future.