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RELUCTANT_STORYTELLER

  "You need a story to displace              May 11, 2008
  a story.  Metaphors and
  stories are far more potent                BLACK_SWAN
  (alas) than ideas; they are
  also easier to remember and
  more fun to read.  If I have                  "Both the artistic and
  to go after what I call the                   scientific enterprises are the
  narrative disciplines, my best                product of our need to reduce
  tool is a narrative."                         dimensions and inflict some
                                                order on things.  Think of the
  "Ideas come and go, stories stay."            world around you, laden with
                                                trillions of details.  Try to
    p. xxvii                                    describe it and you will find 
                                                yourself tempted to weave a  
                                                thread into what you are     
   I have trouble understanding                 saying.  A novel, a story, a 
   why he regards the primacy                   myth, or a tale, all have the
   of narrative with such                       same function: they spare us 
   disdain... his acceptance of                 from the complexity of the   
   it is reluctant, a sad necessity             world and shield us from its 
   for dealing with such poor                   randomness.  Myths impart    
   broken things as human beings.               order to the disorder of human
                                                perception and the perceived 
                                                'chaos of human experience.'"
        My own first reaction to this
        sort of thing is a certain                             -- p. 69
        sense of satisfaction...

        Myself I like stories --
        I submit that we all like
        stories -- and the thought
        that understanding the way
        stories work and what they
        can do may be of central
        importance does not fill               TAKEN_LIGHTLY
        me with regret.

           For me, a central question
           would be why one of our
           favored narratives is that
           stories are trivial, childish
           things that are not to be
           taken seriously.




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