From Publishers Weekly
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.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Booklist
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
