Tell Me a Story: The Life-Shaping Power of Our Stories [Anglais] [Broché]

The stories we tell, Taylor (Letters to My Children) contends, can reshape our characters and add meaning to our lives by reminding us that actions have consequences. Fed up with the relativism that he believes has overtaken the academy and popular culture, Taylor exhorts readers to see that all stories are not equal. Better stories, he says, "should be truthful, freeing, gracious, and hopeful." Using snippets of many unarguably fine stories, especially the liberating tale of Huck and Jim, Taylor demonstrates how narratives can touch us as no mere argument can, because they reach all of us-body, heart and mind. Yet Taylor frequently lapses into moralizing argument, proposing, for example, that our "naive and confused" society has debased itself by replacing a value-laden concept of character with psychology's devalued concept of personality. All this polemic raises the question of why Taylor doesn't seem to practice what he preaches. He finally admits that, raised "among the fundamentalists," he has "an instinctive fondness for the categories of good and evil, right and wrong, that verges at times on the moralistic." Perhaps that is why he too often tells us that this and that are so, instead of showing us through the stories that he praises and that we wish for.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --Ce texte fait référence à une édition épuisée ou non disponible de ce titre.

Call it narratology, and we flee, squealing in fear. But call it simply story, and we pull our chairs up to listen. This warm, approachable book examines how our personal narratives color our interpretation of the world and our place within it. Taylor has a spiritual, even religious intent: "To name and embrace your stories is to accept your God-given freedom." Stories, he argues, teach us how to live responsibly and how to understand others. They move us from chronos, clock time, to kairos, "time redeemed." Once he has established the importance of narrative, Taylor moves to the real meat of his book: how to heal stories that are broken, plots that are wounded and wounding. What follows might have been just another serving of self-help advice, but instead, Taylor soars, challenging us to examine our stories not only in terms of their personal utility but for evidence of healthy or diseased community relations. Patricia Monaghan --Ce texte fait référence à une édition épuisée ou non disponible de ce titre.

Although the title implies a self-help book, this is no pop psychology how-to but an old-fashioned moral essay that speaks of character and values. Taylor (English/Bethel College; Letters to My Children, not reviewed) believes that stories make it possible for us to be human; they ``tell us who we are, why we are here, and what we are doing.'' We learn them as family stories and as school and religious lessons; strangers surround us with their stories on television, in movies, and in books and magazines; and we tell our own stories about ourselves. They preserve our memories, explain our present, and help us imagine our future. With tales such as Huckleberry Finn, Taylor illustrates how exposure to characters in stories helps to mold one's own character, and using Elie Wiesel's memoir Night, he demonstrates how stories shape one's view of the world. They teach us that character is more important than personality, and they challenge us to be characters engaged in life, not simply passive spectators. The values of every human society are captured in its stories, says Taylor, and to be civilized is to internalize those values; thus we are defined by our stories and by the stories we choose to tell our children. The healing power of stories, he says, comes from their power to reconnect us with others, for a story implies a community of at least two, a teller and a listener, each with responsibilities to the other. An appendix includes questions about readers' own stories; in answering the questions, says Taylor, readers will find better understanding not only of the stories but of themselves. Makes a trip to the library seem more rewarding than a session with one's therapist. -- Copyright ©1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. --Ce texte fait référence à une édition épuisée ou non disponible de ce titre.

. . . this is no pop psychology how-to but an old-fashioned moral essay that speaks of character and values.

Explores the role of stories in our lives--how we are born into stories, shaped by stories and need to find a story for our lives in which we can be an active character.

Stating that the key to psychological healing is in the telling of life stories, a guide to recovery blends the avant-garde therapy of narrative psychology with literature, religion, ethics, and philosophy, citing the lessons that can be learned in classical works. --Ce texte fait référence à une édition épuisée ou non disponible de ce titre.

Ph.D. in English literature. Professor of literature at Bethel College, St. Paul, MN.. Author of 4 books.