The Psychological Comforts of Storytelling讲故事的心理慰藉

文/科迪·C.德莱斯特拉蒂 译/郭亚文

By Cody C. Delistraty

The Psychological Comforts of Storytelling讲故事的心理慰藉

文/科迪·C.德莱斯特拉蒂 译/郭亚文

ByCody C. Delistraty

Why, throughout human history, have people been so drawn to fiction? 在人类历史上，人们为何对故事如此痴迷？

When an English archaeologist named George Smith was 31 years old, he became enchanted with an ancient tablet in the British Museum.Years earlier, in 1845, when Smith was only a five-year-old boy, Austen Henry Layard1奥斯丁·亨利·莱亚德（1817—1894），一译赖尔德。英国考古学家、近东考古学的创建者、楔形文字专家、艺术史专家、绘图家、收藏家、旅行家、作家及外交家。他以发掘尼尼微（Nineveh，今伊拉克北部）以南的亚述文化遗址尼姆鲁德（Nimrud，又译作宁录）而闻名于世。对揭示巴比伦和亚述的古代文明有重要贡献，被称为“英国西亚考古学之父”。, Henry Rawlinson2亨利·罗林森（1810—1895）,英国东印度公司军官、政治家、东方学专家，被称为“亚述学之父”。, and Hormuzd Rassam3霍姆兹德·拉萨姆（1826—1910），出生在现伊拉克北部地区，后移民至英国，亚述考古专家，曾担任奥斯丁·亨利·莱亚德的助手。began excavations across what is now Syria and Iraq. In the subsequent years they discovered thousands of stone fragments, which they later discovered made up 12 ancient tablets. But even after the tablet fragments had been pieced together, little had been translated. The 3,000-year-old tablets remained nearly as mysterious as when they had been buried in the ruins of Mesopotamian palaces.

乔治·史密斯是一名英国考古学家。31岁时，他迷上了大英博物馆里的一块古代泥板。早在1845年，史密斯当时只有5岁，奥斯丁·亨利·莱亚德、亨利·罗林森和霍姆兹德·拉萨姆就在现在的叙利亚和伊拉克境内开始了考古挖掘。他们在随后的几年里，发现了数以千计的泥板残片，并从中选出碎片拼成12块泥板。即使在泥板拼接好之后，上面文字的释义工作也几乎毫无进展，这些3000年前的泥板一如当年埋在美索不达米亚宫殿群废墟中一样，神秘莫测。

[2] Cuneiform is incredibly difficult to translate, especially when it is on tablets that have been hidden in Middle Eastern sands for three millennia. The script is shaped triangularly (cuneus means“wedge” in Latin) and the alphabet consists of more than 100 letters. It is used to write in Sumerian, Akkadian,Urartian, or Hittite, depending on where,when, and by whom it was written.It is also an alphabet void of4void of缺乏。vowels,punctuation, and spaces between words.

[3] Even so, Smith decided he would be the man to crack the code. Propelled by his interests in Assyriology and biblical archaeology, Smith, who was employed as a classifier by the British Museum, taught himself Sumerian and literary Akkadian.

[4] In 1872, after the tablets had been sitting in the British Museum’s storage for nearly two decades, Smith had a breakthrough: The complex symbols were describing a story. Upon translating the 11th tablet, now widely regarded as the most important part of the story, Smith told a coworker, “I am the first person to read that after 2000 years of oblivion.” The U.K. Prime Minister at the time, William Gladstone,even showed up to a lecture Smith later gave on the tablets, whereupon an audience member commented, “This must be the only occasion on which the British Prime Minister in office has attended a lecture on Babylonian literature.”

[2]要将楔形文字翻译过来难度近乎登天，更何况这些泥板已在中东地区的沙土中深埋了3000年之久。泥板上的字母呈三角形（在拉丁语中cuneus是“楔子”的意思），字母表上有100多个字母，用于苏美尔语、阿卡德语或者希泰语的书写，具体取决于何时、何地以及由谁所写。这也是一种缺少元音、标点符号和空格的字母表。

[3]即便如此，史密斯还是下定决心破译这种文字。他受聘于大英博物馆，是一名分类员，出于对亚述研究和圣经考古学的浓厚兴趣，他自学了苏美尔语和古阿卡德语。

[4] 1872年，泥板在大英博物馆储藏室尘封了20年之后，史密斯取得了突破，他发现这些复杂的符号讲述了一个故事。在翻译第11块泥板，也就是现在普遍认为整个故事最重要的内容时，史密斯告诉同事：“泥板被遗忘了2000年之久，我是第一个破译的人。”时任英国首相威廉·格莱斯顿甚至出席了史密斯之后主讲的关于这些泥板的讲座，其中一个听众这样评论道：“这一定是在任首相参加过的唯一一个有关巴比伦文学的讲座。”

[5] The story on the 11th tablet that Smith had cracked was in fact the oldest story in the world:The Epic of Gilgamesh.

[6]Gilgameshhas all the trappings of a modern story: a protagonist who goes on an arduous journey, a romance with a seductive woman, a redemptive arc,and a full cast of supporting characters.

[7] Humans have been telling stories for thousands of years, sharing them orally even before the invention of writing. In one way or another, much of people’s lives are spent telling stories—often about other people. In her paperGossip in Evolutionary Perspective,evolutionary psychologist Robin Dunbar found stories’ direct relevance to humans: Social topics—especially gossip—account for 65 percent of all human conversations in public places.

[5]史密斯破译的第11块泥板上，讲述的其实是世界上最古老的故事——《吉尔伽美什史诗》。

[6]《吉尔伽美什史诗》具有现代故事的所有特征：一位正在经历旅途坎坷的主人公、与一位充满诱惑力女子的一段罗曼史、一段救赎的戏份和一套完整的配角阵容。

[7]数千年来，人们一直在讲述故事，早在文字发明之前就口口相传。人们生命大部分的时间都在以不同的方式讲故事——通常是别人的故事。进化心理学家罗宾·邓巴在其论文《进化视角下的流言蜚语》中发现了故事与人类的直接关联——社会话题，尤其是流言蜚语，占据了人们在所有公共场所聊天内容的65%。

[8] Stories can be a way for humans to feel that we have control over the world. They allow people to see patterns where there is chaos, meaning where there is randomness. Humans are inclined to see narratives where there are none because it can afford meaning to our lives. In a 1944 study conducted by Fritz Heider and Marianne Simmel at Smith College, 34 college students were shown a short film in which two triangles and a circle moved across the screen and a rectangle remained stationary on one side of the screen.When asked what they saw, 33 of the 34 students anthropomorphized the shapes and created a narrative: The circle was“worried,” the “little triangle” was an“innocent young thing,” the big triangle was “blinded by rage and frustration.”Only one student recorded that all he saw were geometric shapes on a screen.

[9] Stories can also inform people’s emotional lives. Storytelling, especially in novels, allows people to peek into someone’s conscience to see how other people think. This can affirm our own beliefs and perceptions, but more often, it challenges them. Psychology researcher Dan Johnson recently found reading fiction significantly increased empathy towards others, especially people the readers initially perceived as“outsiders” (e.g. foreigners, people of a different race, skin color, or religion).

[10] Interestingly, the more absorbed in the story the readers were, the more empathetic they behaved in real life.Johnson tested this by “accidentally”dropping a handful of pens when participants did not think they were being assessed. Those who had previously reported being “highly absorbed” in the story were about twice as likely to help pick up the pens.

[8]故事也是一种让我们觉得自己在掌控世界的方式。故事可以让人们在混乱不堪中看到秩序，在混沌和随机中找到意义。人们想看那些无中生有的故事，因为故事能赋予我们生命意义。1944年，史密斯学院的弗里茨·海德和玛丽安娜·西梅尔做了一项研究，他们让34名大学生观看一部短片，片中两个三角形和一个圆形划过屏幕，屏幕的一边有一个静止的矩形。当被问及看到什么时，34名学生中的33人给这些图案赋予了人物特征，并创造出了故事——圆形“焦虑不安”，“小三角形”是一个“天真无邪的年轻人”，大三角形 “由于愤怒和挫折失去了理智” 。仅有一个学生说他在屏幕上只看到了几何图案。

[9]故事也会影响人们的情感生活。讲故事，尤其在小说中，人们可以偷偷潜入某个人的意识来观察别人如何思考。这样做会强化我们的信仰和观念，但是在大多数情况下，会让我们对自己的信仰和观念产生怀疑。心理学研究者丹·约翰逊近期发现阅读小说会极大地提高读者对他人的共情能力，尤其是对最初被认为是“外人”的那些人（例如外国人，即外族人，种族、肤色和宗教信仰迥异的人）。

[11] A recent study inSciencemagazine adds more support to the idea that stories can help people understand others, determining that literary fiction“uniquely engages the psychological processes needed to gain access to characters’ subjective experiences” .

[12] But why start telling stories in the first place? Their usefulness in understanding others is one reason, but another theory is that storytelling could be an evolutionary mechanism that helped keep our ancestors alive.

[13] The theory is that if I tell you a story about how to survive, you’ll be more likely to actually survive than if I just give you facts. For instance, if I were to say, “There’s an animal near that tree, so don’t go over there,” it would not be as effective as if I were to tell you, “My cousin was eaten by a malicious, scary creature that lurks around that tree, so don’t go over there.”A narrative works off of both data and emotions, which is significantly more effective in engaging a listener than data alone. In fact, Jennifer Aaker, a professor of marketing at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, says that people remember information when it is weaved into narratives “up to 22 times more than facts alone.”

[10]有趣的是，读者越是沉浸在故事中，就越会在真实的生活中善解人意。为了验证这种说法，约翰逊“无意间”把几支钢笔掉在地上，先前那些“高度沉浸”在故事中的人捡起钢笔的几率要比其他人高出一倍。

[11]《科学》近期的一篇文章对故事有助于人们互相理解的观点提供了更多的佐证，文章认定文学故事“需要获得人物主观经历的心理过程”。

[12]但是人们到底为什么讲故事呢？理由之一是讲故事有助于理解他人，但是另一个理由则是讲故事可能是帮助我们祖先生存的一种进化机制。

[13]其原理是如果我告诉你一个关于生存的故事，要比只给一些事实更能让你有机会存活下来。比如，如果我说“那棵树下有动物，所以别去那儿”，肯定不如 “我的表弟被潜藏在那棵树下的一头凶恶动物吃掉了，所以别去那儿”更有效。一个故事的展开既需要事实，也需要情感，而情感要比仅有事实更能让听众有效地接受。事实上，斯坦福工商管理研究生院的市场营销专业教授珍妮弗·阿克认为，当信息被编入故事中时，人们对其记忆的效率“比仅仅记忆事实高出21倍”。

[14] The value humans place on narrative is made clear in the high esteem given to storytellers. Authors,actors, directors—people who spin narratives for a living are some of the most famous people in the world.Stories are a form of escapism, one that can sometimes make us better people while entertaining, but there seems to be something more at play5at play起作用。.

[15] Perhaps the real reason that we tell stories again and again—and endlessly praise our greatest storytellers—is because humans want to be a part of a shared history. What Smith discovered on that 11th tablet is the story of a great flood. On the 11th tablet—or the “deluge tablet”—of Gilgamesh, a character named Utanapishtim is told by the Sumerian god Enki6恩基，苏美尔神话中的水神、智慧之神，在《大洪水》中出现过。to abandon his worldly possessions and build a boat. He is told to bring his wife, his family, the craftsmen in his village, baby animals, and foodstuffs. It is almost the same story as Noah’s Ark, as told in both the Book of Genesis and in the Quran’s Suran 71.

[14]对故事叙述者的高度尊重清晰地体现了人们赋予故事的价值。作者、演员、导演——这些靠讲故事为生的人最负盛名。故事是逃遁现实的一种形式，有时可以在娱悦我们的同时让我们变得更好，但其作用不限于此。

[15]也许，我们一遍又一遍地讲故事，不断赞美我们最伟大的故事叙述者，是因为我们人类想成为共享历史的一部分。史密斯在第11块泥板上发现的内容讲述的是一场大洪水的故事。在《吉尔伽美什史诗》的第11块泥板（或称“洪水泥板”）上，苏美尔的水神恩基让一个名叫乌塔·纳匹西丁姆的人放弃他所有的财产，并且建造一艘船。恩基嘱咐他带上妻子和家人、村里的匠人、小动物和食物。这个故事和《圣经·创世记》以及《古兰经》的第71章所讲的诺亚方舟如出一辙。

[16] Humans have been telling the same stories for millennia. Author Christopher Booker7克里斯托弗·布克（1937— )，英国记者、作家。claims there are only seven basic plots, which are repeated over and over in film, in television, and in novels with just slight tweaks. There is the “overcoming the monster” plot (Beowulf,War of the Worlds); “rags to riches” (Cinderella,Jane Eyre); “the quest” (Illiad,The Lord of the Rings); “voyage and return”(Odyssey,Alice in Wonderland);“rebirth” (Sleeping Beauty,A Christmas Carol); “comedy” (ends in marriage);and “tragedy” (ends in death).

[17] Helpful as stories can be for understanding the real world, they aren’t themselves real. Is there such a thing as too much fiction? InDon Quixote,Cervantes writes of main character Alonso Quixano, “He read all night from sundown to dawn, and all day from sunup to dusk, until with virtually no sleep and so much reading he dried out his brain and lost his sanity …”

[18] The next morning, however,Alonso Quixano decided to turn himself into a knight. He changed himself into Don Quixote, deciding he would pave his own journey. Then he went off, “seeking adventures and doing everything that, according to his books,earlier knights had done.”

[16] 几千年来人们一直在讲述同样的故事。作家克里斯托弗·布克认为故事情节有七种基本模式，在电影、电视和小说中重复出现，只不过情节稍有微调而已。七种模式分别是：“战恶魔”（《贝奥武甫》《宇宙大战》）、“贫穷到富裕”（《灰姑娘》《简·爱》）、“征服”（《伊利亚特》《指环王》）、“远航和返航”（《奥德赛》《爱丽丝漫游奇境记》）、“重生”（《睡美人》《圣诞颂歌》）、“喜剧”（以美满的婚姻为结局）和“悲剧”（以死亡为结局）。

[17]尽管故事有助于我们理解真实的世界，但其本身并不真实。有没有虚构太过一说呢？塞万提斯在《堂吉诃德》中，这样描写主人公阿隆索·吉哈诺：“他从日落读到破晓，又从日出读到黄昏，从不睡觉，过多的阅读最终耗尽了他的脑力，使他失去了理智……”

[18]然而，翌日清晨，阿隆索·吉哈诺决定成为一名骑士。他改名为堂吉诃德，决心开启自己的旅程，然后就出发了,“依据所读书中过去骑士的样子，寻求冒险”。