The Secret Life of Stories

One of the rewards of committing to read and review two or three new nonfiction books a week is that it forces me to expand my range. There is a continual flow of books I would not normally consider buying or reading. Whole categories of them. But my reading has led to all kinds of discoveries for me, and some of them light a fire for more. Here for example is a totally engaging book that demonstrates the very real power of the disabled (both physically and intellectually), both as characters in fiction and in their appreciation and interpretation of it. It’s an approach that has its own universe of scholarship, and this particular book is an intriguing eye opener of an introduction to its massive scope.

The Secret Life of Stories has just three chapters: Motive, Time, and Self-Awareness. Each looks at an aspect of fiction from two angles: how a disabled character affects the work, and how a disabled reader or character sees that work. In particular, Self-Awareness is a fractal, recursive vortex of possibilities, as Bérubé examines how disabled characters do or do not, can or can not see themselves in their own narrative.

He perceives that writers use the disabled to expand literary possibilities by an order of magnitude. Normal rules don’t apply to the disabled. Relationships go off the track and don’t ever have to come to a stop. The disabled’s special powers and deep and different perceptions, free the author to go way outside the box of standard narrative. In examples from Don Quixote and Robinson Crusoe to Martian Time-Slip and the cult films Galaxy Quest and Memento, mind twisting events all start with the disabled.

Bérubé has a nice, light touch. But he also has an academic’s unfortunate tendency to replace perfectly adequate English words with clinical equivalents. This slows the read while adding little value. So the book moves easily, but hits moguls all over.

Bérubé calls it “a short and sharp book, delineating a few of the most important and engaging uses of intellectual disability in fiction” and he delivers solidly. Then unaccountably, and having almost nothing to do with intellectual disability, his Conclusion bashes the literature of the field. It’s so inconsistent with the chapters, it appears to belong in some other book. It ties together nothing he has painstakingly demonstrated.

I was rather hoping he would postulate a new literary discipline born of intellectual disability, or a breakthrough insight for psychology, or new literary categories to make them stand out. But no such luck. If you leave off after the three chapters, you will be mightily impressed.

David Wineberg

Michael Berube draws comparisons between the way stories are narrated – something mankind has always done – and the way we perceive the world and think. The capacity of understanding narrative is sometimes argued to be the decisive difference between human beings and other species, but Berube shows that we have to extend or understanding of intellect at this point.

What I really appreciated in this highly demanding book was Berube’s very personal approach to the topic. He manages to convey his ideas to readers who are not totally immersed in the topic by providing his personal experiences and drawing parallels that everyone can easily follow. By using many popular novels with which many readers should be familiar, he provides access to his theory and thus expands our understanding of disabilities and the way they are portrayed in fiction and film. I am sure that after reading this book, I am now much more sensitive to how people with disabilities are depicted and take a closer look at the stereotypes used.