Honest to God and Other Whoppers - A Story About a Storyteller

A story about a Storyteller

The far-flung regions my readers have come from  to share in my stories strains the imagination. What a marvelous invention electronic technology is! It got me thinking about storytelling in all its various forms over time, so I thought I would share my thoughts with you.

The Storyteller and The Global Village

I couldn’t believe my eyes when I discovered the far-flung places from which people have come to read my stories! I say a warm welcome to readers from the Netherlands, Mexico, Japan, China, Columbia, Chile, Australia, Chile, Moldova, Norway, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Peru, the United Kingdom, France, Slovenia Germany, Russia, New Zealand, United States, and Canada. What greater reward can there be for a storyteller than to be surrounded by such a diverse audience gathered around the campfire? It’s intoxicating!

In a time long ago, before the advent of all the electronic gadgetry that allows for long distance communication, the Storyteller’s stage was perhaps the village theatre, or the town square. Before that, it was perhaps the village or clan campfire. Whatever the stage or the setting, there was always a Storyteller and there was always an audience, be it large or small. But throughout our evolution, regardless of the “stage” or venue, there has always been a Storyteller to feed the insatiable appetite of his or her audience. Just as the Story Stone did to the young boy in the village, something in the make-up of the human spirit draws us irresistibly toward yet another story.

And so the whole business of storytelling keeps evolving. The storyteller has kept pace with technology in the method of delivering his stories to make the most of new vehicles such as the printed word and so on. That enlarged the audience quite a lot, making it possible for great numbers of people to buy books and newspapers to read stories. But what it did at the same time was to silence the voice of the storyteller, turning him or her into a faceless entity with a monotone voice that could only be animated by the imagination of the reader. It also meant that one no longer needed to remember the stories as they did before, because they were always available to re-read at any time. Our collective memories became shorter and clouded. Something was gained and something was lost.

With the development of cinematic theatre, the movie business exploded on to the scene, creating a whole new kind of storyteller who disappeared behind the visual effects of the big silver screen. The characters in the stories had different shapes and faces. The storyteller’s words they spoke were no longer his but rather those of them that spoke them. Even the scenery appeared to be real. Nothing was left to the imagination. One only had to sit down in a theatre seat and absorb what was being presented. There was no room for imagination. What you saw is what you got, whether you were in Chicago, Berlin, Moscow, Tokyo, or anywhere in the world, and it was the same no matter where it was seen. But it didn’t account for cultural differences. How is it possible for someone in say, South Africa to interpret the story in the same way as his counterpart in Nome Alaska? Do you see the problem? The story itself is universal as all stories are, but now they can only be told in one way; can only be understood by some, and completely misunderstood by others. The viewer’s imagination is barred from the story. He can no longer interpret it in terms of his own understanding. Added to that, he cannot even hear the story unless he has access to a theatre where it is being shown. Again, something is gained, and something is lost.

And now, through the amazing technology of the electronic age, storytelling has again come full circle. The listener may sit in comfort in front of his/her computer or eBook reader anywhere in the world and interpret the words written there, painting a canvas in the mind of the beholder according to his or her understanding, and thus understand the universal meaning of the story itself.

Even better than that, the technology of audio books makes it possible to hear the voice of the storyteller. He has found his voice once more and can dance through the fertile imagination of the listener, weaving his spells and casting just the right mood in each of our minds. It becomes a one on one, uniquely personal experience for the listener to interpret according to his or her understanding, regardless of cultural background or geographic location. It is truly marvelous!

So the light shines again on the story itself. Be it idle entertainment or profound truth, it now resides in the heart of the listener. It his or her own story, it his or her own truth; and so the story belongs to everyone. The circle is complete.