Living Narrative: Creating Lives in Everyday Storytelling

by Elinor Ochs, Lisa Capps

This pathbreaking book looks at everyday storytelling as a twofold phenomenon―a response to our desire for coherence, but also to our need to probe and acknowledge the enigmatic aspects of experience. Letting us listen in on dinner-table conversation, prayer, and gossip, Elinor Ochs and Lisa Capps develop a way of understanding the seemingly contradictory nature of everyday narrative―as a genre that is not necessarily homogeneous and as an activity that is not always consistent but consistently serves our need to create selves and communities.

Focusing on the ways in which narrative is co-constructed, and on the variety of moral stances embodied in conversation, the authors draw out the instructive inconsistencies of these collaborative narratives, whose contents and ordering are subject to dispute, flux, and discovery. In an eloquent last chapter, written as Capps was waging her final battle with cancer, they turn to “unfinished narratives,” those stories that will never have a comprehensible end. With a hybrid perspective―part humanities, part social science―their book captures these complexities and fathoms the intricate and potent narratives that live within and among us.

Genres: Academic, Psychology, Linguistics, Narrative, Anthropology, Nonfiction

368 pages, Paperback

First published June 11, 2001

Reviews

[Tory S. Anderson · Rating 5 out of 5]

A truly excellent book. Blending psychology, sociology, discourse analysis, and philosophy, Dr. Ochs provides a broad, rich look at narrative as the tool mankind universally uses to shape and make sense of reality, proposing a multi-dimensional grade that is used not to define "what is narrative" but rather, to determine the narrative qualities at work in a given discourse. The text discusses narrative for sense-making, for planning, and as our minds develop from child to adult and the changes apparent in the narrative we employ. I particularly enjoyed the chapter on narrative and prayer, which both considers narrative in prayer and also the elements of prayer in all narrative. This is a book worth reading and studying, with principles that could be of use to anyone. Although it takes an academic and theoretical approach, it is grounded in real (and interesting) examples from adults, children, the autistic, agoraphobic, and more, and is quite accessible. It suggests that our daily, conversational narratives, narratives of personal experience, deserve understanding at least as much as the polished narratives that have been the principle studies of narratology.

[Mike Mena · Rating 3 out of 5]

Will be an excellent guide for those interested in the discourse analysis of narratives that emerge in everyday life. The book is generally very interesting and written at an extremely accessible level.

The three stars is related to my preference in content and topic. The research in this book is impeccable and not reflected by "stars." (For research and methodology, definitely 5 stars.)

[Tara · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed the psychological aspect of this book. Ochs is a linguistic anthropologist and Capps was a psychologist, and the combination brought the personal and population levels of narrative analysis together.