Homo Fictus

I first heard this term on the CBC Radio program ‘Ideas’ (Vestigial Tale) It’s also used in a book called ‘The Storytelling Animal’ by Jonathan Gottschall, and can be found here and there on line. I don’t know who originated the expression, but it refers to humans as storytellers.

Gottschall writes, “Tens of thousands of years ago, when the human mind was young and our numbers were few, we were telling one another stories. … Even when the body goes to sleep, the mind stays up all night, telling itself stories. … Human life is so bound up in stories that we are thoroughly desensitized to their weird and witchy power.”

Why do we tell stories, listen to, read, watch and take part in stories throughout our lives?

There are different theories, and you can find some of them in Gottschall’s book. Here are my reasons.

Escape. Sometimes all I want to do is to get away from a boring or difficult time in my life. In those situations I don’t want a story that is demanding, but rather something that has a happy ending or at least some fun and enjoyment in it. I still want a story that is well told and reasonably well written, although for this purpose I’m willing to read (or watch in relation to a movie or TV show) something that is less than excellent. Mysteries fit into this category for me – e.g. Margery Allingham, Dick Francis, Ngaio Marsh.

Entertainment. Closely related to the above, but not necessarily at a difficult or boring time in my life, rather more of a past time that is enjoyable for its own sake. Again, a well told tale with characters I can like and relate to is important. A TV series like ‘Alias’ fits this for me, also Lois McMaster Bujold’s Vorkosigan Saga, Joanna Trollope and Maeve Binchy’s books among others.

Enlightenment. I love a story that shows me the world in a new way or makes me think more deeply or differently about people, things, the universe. Elizabeth Moon’s ‘The Speed of Dark,’ Ursula Le Guin’s ‘The Dispossessed,’ and Janet Kagan’s ‘Hellspark.’

Emotion. There are stories that just sweep me up and carry me away with their passion and pulling at the heart strings, making me sad, horrified, or happy by turns. ‘The Color Purple’ by Alice Walker is one like that.

Enslavement. For me this relates particularly to a book series. I can’t wait to get on to the next one and I often will reread the series periodically because I love the characters and the world so much. The ‘Harry Potter’ series is one such, as is ‘The Lord of the Rings.’ In a more negative way, I found the ‘Whiteoaks of Jalna’ series by Mazo de la Roche addicting. I enjoyed the first few and then couldn’t stop reading because I wanted to know what was going to happen to certain characters or the family, but I got heartily sick of them!

Exertion. I got fixated on ‘e’s! This reason could also be called challenge. Sometimes I like to read a book or experience a story that is written or told in such a way that it challenges me. It’s not an easy read or experience. The topic or the writing style is unusual and requires work to unravel. James Joyce’s ‘Ulysses’ is an example of this as are plays such as ‘Waiting for Godot’ and ‘The Chairs.’

And of course, if a story can do all of the above at once, it’s pretty special!

Story is all around us – in fiction and nonfiction, in the commercials we watch or read, in our children’s play, in how we explain our lives, in the ways we remember our past, and in the words and images we use to plan for our future.

Do stories help us to figure out how to live our lives? Do they make us more empathetic? Do they give us ethical and cultural contexts for our lives? Are there only seven basic plots? What are the societal purpose of stories?

I write partly to figure things out as well as to try and communicate a certain view or vision to others. I read for those reasons along with the ones above.

In the Introduction to ‘On the Origin of Stories,’ (a drier and thicker book than ‘The Storytelling Animal’) Brian Boyd writes, “A biocultural approach to literature invites a return to the richness of texts and the many-sidedness of the human nature that texts evoke.” As his title is a nod to Darwin’s ‘The Origin of Species,’ Boyd seeks to explore the evolution of stories as part of human evolution. And later in the book he writes, “That is what I want to explain in evolutionary terms: our impulse to appeal to our own minds and reach out to others for the sheer pleasure of sensing what we can share …”