This essay by Barry Lopez, Landscape and Narrative, is one i recommend to anyone I meet who tells stories -- journalists, photographers, filmmakers. There is in it a recipe for honesty and integrity and respect, a high and deep regard for the land and for relationships within a landscape, and for the voice of empathy. An excerpt (graf breaks mine for ease of reading): In stories like those I heard at Anaktuvuk Pass about wolverine, the relationship between separate elements in the land is set forth clearly. It is put in a simple framework of sequential incidents and apposite detail. If the exterior landscape is limned well, the listener often feels that he has heard something pleasing and authentic - trustworthy. We derive this sense of confidence I think not so much from verifiable truth as from an understanding that lying has played no role in the narrative. The storyteller is obligated to engage the reader with a precise vocabulary, to set forth a coherent and dramatic rendering of incidents-and to be ingenuous. When one hears a story one takes pleasure in it for different reasons-for the euphony of its phrases, an aspect of the plot, or because one identifies with one of the characters. With certain stories certain individuals may experience a deeper, more profound sense of well-being. This latter phenomenon, in my understanding, rests at the heart of storytelling as an elevated experience among aboriginal peoples. It results from bringing two landscapes together. The exterior landscape is organized according to principles or laws or tendencies beyond human control. It is understood to contain an integrity that is beyond human analysis and unimpeachable. Insofar as the storyteller depicts various subtle and obvious relationships in the exterior landscape accurately in his story, and insofar as he orders them along traditional lines of meaning to create the narrative, the narrative will ring true. The listener who takes the story to heart will feel a pervasive sense of congruence within himself and also with the world.
Posted on: Fri, 24 Oct 2014 09:40:42 +0000