EDITOR’S LETTER
Fairytales to light the imagination
SOME EVOLUTIONISTS CLAIM being able to tell stories is unique to our species. Some even argue we are human because we tell them. I hope other species are story-tellers, too. Peter Rabbit, Winnie the Pooh, Bigwig and Fiver and Black Beauty are wonderful childhood companions, and a bookshelf without their voices would be the poorer for their loss.
Stories are cognitive play, honing our thinking processes by simulating the world and allowing us to imagine different strategies for coping with it. Peter Rabbit’s mother, Mrs Josephine Rabbit, was careful to tell him where to play while she went shopping for a loaf of brown bread and five currant buns.
“You may go into the fields or down the lane, but don’t go into Mr McGregor’s garden: your Father had an accident there; he was put in a pie by Mrs McGregor.”
Peter, heedless of the caution in his mother’s instructions, had a run-in with Mr McGregor and a near-miss with Mrs McGregor’s pie dish. He needed an early night and a cup of chamomile tea while his well-behaved sisters, Flopsy, Mopsy and Cottontail, ate blackberries for supper. Luck was on Peter’s side that time, and the good- girl bunnies got the sweet treats. Lessons learned.
Few among us would be surprised by the results of recent research showing how human brains light up in response to the plight of literary characters. During the study, subjects knew they were reading fiction, that threats and joys in the lives of the characters were not “real”, yet they had a physical response. Scary passages in Harry Potter books showed heightened reactions in the brain’s empathy network. And imaginative stories about people’s relationships stimulated the part of the prefrontal cortex known to be involved in social decision-making. One study concluded: “A well- constructed hero should, therefore, allow us to travel the world in their shoes, and learn important life lessons as a result.”
NZ Life & Leisure readers don’t need a study to know that stories move us all. Every day, our office is flooded with letters, emails and texts, Facebook posts and other social media communications telling us of the pleasure you get from the magazine. In this issue, we meet many people whose imaginations know no bounds and who brighten our world. That’s why we love them. It’s why we track them down, nationwide, and introduce you to their vivid ways of seeing the world. Their stories expand our horizons and enlighten our lives.
One story for which I am eagerly awaiting a happy ending is one of the first human tales of all. The Epic of Gilgamesh was found engraved on 4000-year- old tablets found in Babylon. “A handsome ruler is blessed with superhuman wealth, but his insufferable arrogance means that he threatens to wreak havoc on his kingdom. Enter a down-to- earth wayfarer who challenges him to a fight...” Ancient and yet something so familiar about it, isn’t there?
And here, brightening my world, is my mokopuna Olivia Hinerere Maxwell, who has already developed a taste (literally) for Winnie the Pooh and Peter Rabbit. I love sharing stories with this little person and watching in wonder at the rapid development of her prefrontal cortex. Her smiles are the widest and most triumphant after a successful upending of the dog’s water bowl — not the sort of social decision-making her mother regards as successful.