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Wonderworks: Literary invention and the听science of stories
Angus Fletcher
Swift Press
NEUROLOGICAL takes on art are fertile ground for a book. In 1999, neurobiologist Semir Zeki published Inner Vision, which explained how different schools of art affect us neurologically 鈥� put crudely, Rembrandt tickles one corner of the brain, Mondrian another. Eight years later, Oliver Sacks contributed to an already crowded music psychology shelf with , a collection of true tales in which neurological injuries and diseases are successfully treated with music.
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Angus Fletcher believes the time has come for literature to get the neurological treatment too. Over the past decade, researchers have used pulse monitors, eye-trackers, brain scanners and other gadgets to听look inside our heads as we consume novels, poems, films and听comic books. Now these efforts听are starting to bear fruit, as听he sets out in Wonderworks.
Fletcher鈥檚 own experimental work includes a , a form of narrative that draws attention away听from the narrator, instead slipping in and out of characters鈥� experiences and consciousness. Five literary texts that deal with revenge, including Homer鈥檚 Odyssey and Mario Puzo鈥檚 The Godfather, were presented in an adapted form to volunteer readers, sometimes as 鈥渟traight鈥� stories and at other times written in free indirect discourse. The study found that readers of the听latter tales not only offered more empathic responses to a follow-up questionnaire, they also showed a greater understanding of behaviours and moral choices they didn鈥檛 identify with.
The claim that reading novels improves theory of mind听鈥� the ability to put yourself in someone else鈥檚 shoes 鈥� has been, and has been especially popularised by a team of psychologists at the University of Toronto headed by Keith Oatley. When we are very young, we assume that everyone thinks and feels as we听do, but somewhere around our fourth birthday, most of听us begin to听realise that other people鈥檚 heads have their own distinct contents.
Our theory of mind develops as听we imaginatively simulate other people鈥檚 thoughts. Since stories can听present characters鈥� interiority, might this aid us as we practise and听improve our real-life theory-of-mind skills? Research by Oatley and his colleagues has . Other studies suggest that听, that romance fiction can and that fiction can .
Defining technology as 鈥渁ny human-made thing that helps to听solve a problem鈥�, Fletcher now听jumps several stages further, hypothesising that a story is a suite of narrative-emotional technologies that have helped our ancestors cope with the psychological challenges posed by human biology.
Wonderworks, then, is Fletcher鈥檚 scientific history of literature听鈥� each听of its 25 chapters identifies a听narrative 鈥渢ool鈥� that triggers a traceable, evidenced neurological outcome. Every tool comes with a goofy label: here you will encounter Butterfly Immersers (which push our sense of socially acceptable behaviour, calming the activity of the brain鈥檚 medial frontal gyrus) and听Stress Transformers (which play听on the shared neurological origins of horror and humour).
The book is an intelligent, engaged and erudite attempt to neurologically tackle not just some abstract and simplified 鈥渟tory鈥�, but听some of the world鈥檚 greatest narratives, from the Iliad to Dream of听the Red Chamber, from Disney鈥檚 Up to the novels of Elena Ferrante. It听speaks to the inner reader in us all, as well as to the inner neurologist.
