Status
Available
Call number
Publication
Wiley-Blackwell
Pages
275
Description
Such Stuff as Dreams: The Psychology of Fiction explores how fiction works in the brains and imagination of both readers and writers. Demonstrates how reading fiction can contribute to a greater understanding of, and the ability to change, ourselves Informed by the latest psychological research which focuses on, for example, how identification with fictional characters occurs, and how literature can improve social abilities Explores traditional aspects of fiction, including character, plot, setting, and theme, as well as a number of classic techniques, such as metaphor, metonymy, defamiliarization, and cues Includes extensive end-notes, which ground the work in psychological studies Features excerpts from fiction which are discussed throughout the text, including works by William Shakespeare, Jane Austen, Kate Chopin, Anton Chekhov, James Baldwin, and others… (more)
Description
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Preface.
Acknowledgments.
1 Fiction as dream: Models, world-building, simulation.
2 The space-in-between: Childhood play as the entrance to fiction.
3 Creativity: Imagined worlds.
4 Character, action, incident: Mental models of people and their doings.
5 Emotions: Scenes in the imagination.
6 Writing fiction: Cues for the reader.
7 Effects of fiction: Is fiction good for you?
8 Talking about fiction: Interpretation in conversation.
Endnotes.
Bibliography.
Name Index.
Subject Index.
Preface.
Acknowledgments.
1 Fiction as dream: Models, world-building, simulation.
2 The space-in-between: Childhood play as the entrance to fiction.
3 Creativity: Imagined worlds.
4 Character, action, incident: Mental models of people and their doings.
5 Emotions: Scenes in the imagination.
6 Writing fiction: Cues for the reader.
7 Effects of fiction: Is fiction good for you?
8 Talking about fiction: Interpretation in conversation.
Endnotes.
Bibliography.
Name Index.
Subject Index.
Collection
Language
Original language
English
Physical description
275 p.; 9 inches
ISBN
0470974575 / 9780470974575
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User reviews
LibraryThing member RandyMetcalfe
Professor Oatley begins from the vantage point that fiction presents opportunities for the reader to ‘model’ or ‘simulate’ worlds. We become partners with authors in a play of fictional actions and emotions that trigger neurons in the very same centres in our brains that would be activated
Unsurprisingly this is rich ground for a cognitive psychologist and sometime novelist to plough. The main portion of the text sets up the basis for the fiction as simulation theory. Here, every statement seems to be supported by some psychological study. But few, if any, of the supporting materials are challenged. Which may be the way psychologists build positions, seemingly by accretion. For my part, I worry that the conceptual roots of these various studies and theories from the past hundred or more years may not, in practice, cohere so nicely. But perhaps this is merely a way of noting that psychology is not philosophy.
The final three chapters are especially interesting: ‘Writing fiction’; ‘Effects of fiction’; and ‘Talking about fiction’. The first of these provides some practical guidance for potential authors, drawing upon Flaubert’s writing practice. That practice consists in five phases: planning, scenarios, drafts (of which there are many), style, and finally the finished draft. The chapter on the effects of fiction asks whether reading literature is good for you. Oatley treats this primarily as a question about measureable outcomes such as increased cognitive or problem-solving abilities. He acknowledges that in a time of severe pressure on educational curricula, such demonstrable benefits may be essential to sustain literature’s place in our schools. But of course for many, the idea that literature might be good for you is really a question about whether it is morally improving. Here Oatley hands off to Martha Nussbaum’s writing, uncritically, to settle the matter. The final chapter may be particularly interesting to those of us who attend book clubs or participate in online discussions of our reading. Oatley states emphatically: “To talk about fiction is almost as important as to engage with it in the first place” (178). It’s a great statement and I agree with it, naturally, though I would prefer to see much more on the relation between such discussions and the (potential) moral benefits of reading literature. That, however, is not a criticism, merely a wish for future reading.
Although written for a general audience, Such Stuff as Dreams has a vast number of citations in the forty pages of endnotes that function almost as a parallel text. It seems, at times, as though Oatley has canvassed every possible study, monograph, or text at all relevant to his project. Thankfully his twenty-plus page bibliography should provide the keen student of these ideas ample fodder for further investigation.
Finally, it must be said that the editorial staff of Wiley-Blackwell have not carefully proofed the text as numerous distracting typos are present.
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were we to be performing these actions or experiencing these emotions for real. The object of this play is social as we situate ourselves in a social world. And being so, it is at the same time conversational, that being a key component of the social. It turns out that talking about fiction, as readers, is one of the most useful things we could be doing. Unsurprisingly this is rich ground for a cognitive psychologist and sometime novelist to plough. The main portion of the text sets up the basis for the fiction as simulation theory. Here, every statement seems to be supported by some psychological study. But few, if any, of the supporting materials are challenged. Which may be the way psychologists build positions, seemingly by accretion. For my part, I worry that the conceptual roots of these various studies and theories from the past hundred or more years may not, in practice, cohere so nicely. But perhaps this is merely a way of noting that psychology is not philosophy.
The final three chapters are especially interesting: ‘Writing fiction’; ‘Effects of fiction’; and ‘Talking about fiction’. The first of these provides some practical guidance for potential authors, drawing upon Flaubert’s writing practice. That practice consists in five phases: planning, scenarios, drafts (of which there are many), style, and finally the finished draft. The chapter on the effects of fiction asks whether reading literature is good for you. Oatley treats this primarily as a question about measureable outcomes such as increased cognitive or problem-solving abilities. He acknowledges that in a time of severe pressure on educational curricula, such demonstrable benefits may be essential to sustain literature’s place in our schools. But of course for many, the idea that literature might be good for you is really a question about whether it is morally improving. Here Oatley hands off to Martha Nussbaum’s writing, uncritically, to settle the matter. The final chapter may be particularly interesting to those of us who attend book clubs or participate in online discussions of our reading. Oatley states emphatically: “To talk about fiction is almost as important as to engage with it in the first place” (178). It’s a great statement and I agree with it, naturally, though I would prefer to see much more on the relation between such discussions and the (potential) moral benefits of reading literature. That, however, is not a criticism, merely a wish for future reading.
Although written for a general audience, Such Stuff as Dreams has a vast number of citations in the forty pages of endnotes that function almost as a parallel text. It seems, at times, as though Oatley has canvassed every possible study, monograph, or text at all relevant to his project. Thankfully his twenty-plus page bibliography should provide the keen student of these ideas ample fodder for further investigation.
Finally, it must be said that the editorial staff of Wiley-Blackwell have not carefully proofed the text as numerous distracting typos are present.
Show Less
LibraryThing member bragan
This fairly short, but ambitious, book is basically an exploration of fiction, what it is, and how we relate to it.
I confess, I found myself slightly frustrated with the first couple of chapters, in which Oatley discusses the idea of fiction as a sort of simulation that we can accept into our minds
Fortunately, he settles into the topic much better after that, and I found the next chapter, about the interaction between readers and stories -- the collaboration between what we bring to a text and what's there on the page -- to be, if not exactly revelatory, engaging and rather well-expressed. He then goes on to talk about such interesting things as the difference between the events of a story and the plot, the ways in which images in a film can be juxtaposed to evoke emotion, differences between inexperienced and expert writers in the process of creating a story, and psychological studies on whether reading fiction makes you more empathetic. I think there are some really good insights in here, and some slightly mushy speculations, but overall it was thought-provoking and definitely worth reading
It did, however, feel to me somewhat limited in its subject matter. Unsurprisingly, although he claims his subject is fiction in general, Oatley is mostly focused on literary fiction, with some brief dips into filmmaking and some incidental discussion of things like detective stories. He doesn't snobbishly dismiss genre fiction out of hand the way too many literary types do, despite making a point of drawing a distinction (reasonable, I think, if very fuzzy and subjective) between books that qualify as art and ones that simply aim to be entertaining. But he's not really talking about fiction in nearly as broad and sweeping a way as he seems to think he is. (Heck, he completely leaves out television and comics/graphic novels in his list of things that qualify as "fiction," which I'd say reveals a significant blind spot.) But then, there are probably quite a few ways in which he's barely scratching the surface of what there is to say about fiction, and a book that tried to say everything about every form of fiction would be unreadably long.
I confess, I found myself slightly frustrated with the first couple of chapters, in which Oatley discusses the idea of fiction as a sort of simulation that we can accept into our minds
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and how it engages the "theory of mind" that we develop as children, as he seemed to be circling around some ideas that seemed very obvious to me based on my own personal experience of fiction, but in a way that never seemed nearly as clear and direct as it ought to be. Fortunately, he settles into the topic much better after that, and I found the next chapter, about the interaction between readers and stories -- the collaboration between what we bring to a text and what's there on the page -- to be, if not exactly revelatory, engaging and rather well-expressed. He then goes on to talk about such interesting things as the difference between the events of a story and the plot, the ways in which images in a film can be juxtaposed to evoke emotion, differences between inexperienced and expert writers in the process of creating a story, and psychological studies on whether reading fiction makes you more empathetic. I think there are some really good insights in here, and some slightly mushy speculations, but overall it was thought-provoking and definitely worth reading
It did, however, feel to me somewhat limited in its subject matter. Unsurprisingly, although he claims his subject is fiction in general, Oatley is mostly focused on literary fiction, with some brief dips into filmmaking and some incidental discussion of things like detective stories. He doesn't snobbishly dismiss genre fiction out of hand the way too many literary types do, despite making a point of drawing a distinction (reasonable, I think, if very fuzzy and subjective) between books that qualify as art and ones that simply aim to be entertaining. But he's not really talking about fiction in nearly as broad and sweeping a way as he seems to think he is. (Heck, he completely leaves out television and comics/graphic novels in his list of things that qualify as "fiction," which I'd say reveals a significant blind spot.) But then, there are probably quite a few ways in which he's barely scratching the surface of what there is to say about fiction, and a book that tried to say everything about every form of fiction would be unreadably long.
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Call number
FIC B Oat