Wonderworks The 25 most powerful inventions in the history of literature

Review by Choice Review

The capacious field of narratology has enriched understanding of narrative structure. In the narratology-adjacent Wonderworks, Fletcher (Ohio State's Project Narrative, the world's leading academic think tank for the study of stories) casts literature in mechanical terms as (he writes in the introduction) a "narrative-emotional technology" with "gears and switches" that can be backwards engineered to identify what authors do and how they do it. Tiptoeing into some recent work on neuroscience, Fletcher (who has dual degrees in neurology and literature) discusses ways the human brain responds to various emotions elicited by authors. He offers a "catalogue of 25 literary inventions that [one] can put to work right now" (p. 26). In viewing literature as a "multipurpose tool," the author conflates technology and technique and risks downgrading authorial craft and genius to a clinical, sterile, step-by-step method. For example, after identifying Alison Bechdel's use of the "invention" of blending comedy and tragedy in her graphic memoir Fun Home, Fletcher encourages readers to use Bechdel's book as a blueprint by reading a story "clinically." He also urges readers not to worry about themes or "get lost in the words of literature" (p. 400). Fletcher celebrates literature, and does so by reducing it to generic, standardized building blocks that anyone can reassemble and imitate. Summing Up: Highly recommended. All readers. --Debra J. Rosenthal, John Carroll University

Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.

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Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

Fletcher (Cosmic Democracies), professor of story science at Ohio State's Project Narrative, delivers an innovative take on storytelling that shows how stories "plug into different regions of our brain." Each chapter examines a literary invention, such as "The Empathy Generator" and "The Fairy-Tale Twist," and shows how engaging with various authors and thinkers can shed light on the way modern works of literature and pop culture are received. One chapter focuses on the "Valentine Armor," meant to ward off heartbreak, and begins with Cervantes's Don Quixote, which inspired the mock romance of Henry Fielding's Tom Jones and led to themes in Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility. This blending of love and irony, Fletcher writes, is especially powerful because the two are processed in different parts of the brain, and "open our heart to other people without duping us into mistaking our own desires for the laws of reality." The "Stress Transformer," meanwhile, shows how Frankenstein led to such modern horror films as The Cabin in the Woods and considers the "physiological rush" from the fight-or-flight response and fictional scares. Fletcher proves that understanding the classics brings new life to the craft of literary creation. The result is a fresh take on the history of literature and a testament to the enduring power of reading. (Mar.)

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Review by Kirkus Book Review

Reading good books doesn't just entertain us; it teaches us how to better use our brains and our emotions, as this lively treatise tells us. Fletcher, a professor of story science at Ohio State's Project Narrative, holds doctorates in both literature and neuroscience, which meet fluently in this thought-packed survey. The long-held pedagogical view of literature, he writes, has instructed us "to see literature as a species of argument." The author believes, however, that literature is a type of technology, "any human-made thing that helps to solve a problem." Our problem is what to do when we think about such things as love, which, in terms of the storytelling about it, involves two elements: self-disclosure and wonder, "a feeling of awe, of specialness." A good story about love "primes the dopamine neurons in the reward centers of our brain, sweetening our thoughts with a touch of pleasure." So it is that Sappho's love-drenched lyrics, a Chinese ode in the Shijing, and certain poems of Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman lead us to "discover wonder intimate." There's plenty of deep diving into the workings of the brain in discussions framed by works of literature, some well known and some not, as well as by genres. For example, horror stories "give us a fictional scare that tricks our brain into an invigorating fight-or-flight response." That response, Fletcher recounts, implicates various parts of the body, from the hypothalamus to the kidneys, and it can yield an entertaining rush. Other emotions and mental states that are less easy to tame, such as shame, depression, and alienation, can also respond to literary prompts, yielding paranoia and anger. The trick to calming them? Maybe try reading Winnie-the-Pooh, which "instead of giving us a reason to quake at the imagination's wilds…treats our brain's fear regions entirely to fun." An idiosyncratic, richly detailed, often lyrical invitation to reconsider how and why to read literature. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

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