What Is Literature For? – A Symposium on Angus Fletcher’s “Wonderworks” (LARB): Three reviews of Wonderworks (two glowing, one scathing) and a reply by the author. Erik J. Larson: “All of this tech-talk injected into literature would seem superficial, perhaps, except that Fletcher makes an entirely convincing case that literature really does function like this, and that the form of the narrative is a key to understanding its impact on us and why we find these creations so important. While the neuroscientific accounts of what’s happening in our brains when we find love or let go of old sorrow might be debatable, the overall achievement of Wonderworks strikes me as immensely important. It’s rare in academic literary circles to find mainstream criticism of literature that reaches outside of theory and into the hearts and minds of real readers. Fletcher no doubt does this. The result is a fantastic tour through the world’s literature, an explanation of how it works as a technology, and a scientific discussion that opens the lid on our complex brains, tying it all to our most ancient and cherished activity: reading stories.”
Ed Simon: “Show me a scholar who claims that science can explain all of literature, and I will show you someone who is performing schtick. According to Angus Fletcher, in Wonderworks: The 25 Most Powerful Inventions in the History of Literature, his subject is a “narrative-emotional technology that helped our ancestors cope with the psychological challenges posed by human biology,” an argument that isn’t as inspiring as he thinks (nor as much as the volume’s breathless publicity would indicate). Fletcher has traded in grammar and syntax for serotonin and dopamine; gone is the literary critical commandment to “worry about themes or representations or what the author is saying,” replaced now with invocations of the “amygdala” and “hippocampus,” as if naming parts of the brain was adequate for interpreting a text. Theory becomes therapy and criticism pharmacology, so that literature’s only purpose is to “alleviate depression, reduce anxiety, sharpen intelligence, increase mental energy, kindle creativity, inspire confidence, and enrich our days with myriad other psychological benefits.” Ask your doctor if George Eliot might be right for you.”