Timely in the desperately needed answers, meaning and understanding it brings to our world, and seismic in the truth and hope that this knowledge brings to our future. Every human needs a copy of this book. Jun 27, Gary Clark added it. This is a book that warrants serious thought. How are we to decide if these claims are legitimate or if they are emotive hyperbole? Griffith claims his theory is scientific — therefore it should be empirically verifiable and open to proof or refutation. In fact many of his claims are based on emotive assertion. He offers no empirical data to support many of his claims — therefore the reader is unable to reproduce his analysis and confirm or reject his findings.
In circular fashion he claims people who reject his theory are being evasive and in denial. This tactic - of claiming the opponents of your theory are in denial while offering no data as to why you are correct - is one adopted by circular or pseudoscientific theories such as Marxism or Freudianism. Griffith seems to be on track here — although it is incorrect to say science has not acknowledged this fact. The most widely accepted theory in human evolutionary studies at the moment assumes that an intensification of parental care relative to other primates is central to the human emergence.
He rightly argues that nurturing is important in human evolution — but he then makes the leap that nurturing in early infancy is what creates our adult personality. And why is science in denial about the role of nurturing in human evolution? Simple — scientists have damaged souls because they received inadequate nurturing and therefore they have institutionalised the denial of the role of nurturing into science itself.
There are two problems here. The first is the assumption that infancy determines variation in adulthood personality. The second is that lack of nurturing in the background of scientists has produced the systematic denial of nurturing in studies of human evolution — which as I have suggested does not exist, with the role of intensified parenting being at the heart of contemporary human evolutionary studies. Griffith believes the lack of nurturing in our background is the core problem at the heart of the human condition.
He also argues that our personality is indelibly grafted into us during the first few years of life and that this is something that is determined and which we have little hope of changing or overcoming — that is by the time we reach childhood and adolescence the die is cast so to speak by the degree of early nurturing we receive.
And it is the degree of nurturing that we receive that determines our ability to think clearly about the human condition. The major studies in human behavioural genetics undertaken by people such as Robert Plomin and Judith Rich Harris indicate that early nurturing explains very little of the differences in adult personality. Most of that variation — that is why my personality might be different to yours — is explained by heritable variation in addition to environmental influences outside the home that occur after infancy — that is amongst peers within the broader culture during childhood and adolescence.
And what is his strategy in making his case — claiming in circular fashion that people who reject his thesis are in denial. This is not how science works. Griffith offers no data sets which can be used to replicate his findings.
Upon this flawed foundation, for which not robust scientific data exists, Griffith constructs an entire system — in fact an entire model of how we are to construct a future civilisation. Because he believes that our character is indelibly grafted into us during infancy and early childhood he makes the further point that our ability to think clearly and honestly is determined by the degree of nurturing we received in our infancy.
He also claims that our world should be ordered according to the quality of nurturing we have received in infancy for it is our degree of nurturing that determines the nature of our adult character and therefore our ability to think soundly. Consequently, it will only be those of us whose have a sound character as a result of early nurturing who will be free of insecurity and consequently able to develop a more truthful and honest understating of human nature and therefore help develop a new more psychologically healthy society.
When you actually begin to seriously investigate what Griffith is arguing the unscientific nature of his thinking becomes apparent and consequently the entire edifice of his theory begins to crumble. The most significant issue here is that there is very little evidence that differences between our individual characters are the result of nurturing in early infancy.
Abuse and neglect outside the range of what is considered normal parenting can result in life long psychological problems that require significant therapeutic interventions. However, most of the variation that we see in human character is not the result of the degree of early nurturing we have received. Differences between individuals, based on the data of behavioural genetics, seem to be attributable to environmental effects outside the home that is the broader culture and peer group combined with hereditary influences.
The most robust evidence in support of this view has come from twin studies. These studies have shown that identical twins separated at birth and raised in different homes have quite similar characters. Most significantly they are more similar to one another than they are to their respective siblings in the adoptive home. This should not occur if parenting style and nurturing in the home determine adult character. This research is based upon a whole battery of psychological measures such as susceptibility to depression, schizophrenia and psychoses, as well as character traits such as degrees of happiness, timidity, confidence, introversion and extraversion.
The only way to explain this phenomenon is that similarity in character evident in identical twins is due to hereditary factors. If nurturing did determine character, as Griffith claims, then identical twins separated at birth would show greater affinities to their siblings in their adoptive homes. The fact that they do not, and that they resemble one another more than their adoptive siblings, means that something else is involved in the formation of human character in addition to the influence of early nurturing.
Given that identical twins share the same DNA, the only way to explain their similar characters is by invoking hereditary factors. Once we realise that foundation stone is without any empirical support major aspects of his apparently liberating intellectual edifice begin to crumble.
The essential point here is that no matter how you alter the early parental environmental important aspects of character will not be affected. Given that much of the variation in human biology — which includes height, body shape and hair colour — are based on genetic differences, it stands to reason that aspects of brain function underpinning human character vary in human populations. If this were not so then humans would be an evolutionary anomaly — that is a species with a nervous system that lacks genetic diversity.
To assert such a position is anti-evolutionary.
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This is because for evolution or natural selection to operate there must be genetic diversity within the population. It is unlikely that the human brain is the sole exception to this universal fact of organic life on earth. Griffith takes no account of these studies but merely makes emotive assertions that his view is correct — with the caveat that anyone who does not accept his theory is being evasive of the truth. This is kind of circular reasoning, presented in the absence of robust longitudinal data sets, is not how science works.
Therefore until he can produce a longitudinal data set indicating correlations between parenting styles, the degree of nurturing we receive in early infancy and variation in adult character, his work can only be described as pseudo-science. If Griffith is incorrect on this issue then it seems he is misleading and deceiving his readers and those individuals who believe he has discovered the indubitable truth about human nature. It should be added that I do not believe Griffith is deceiving people intentionally — in fact I believe he is a decent man with honourable intentions.
However, honourable intentions do not necessarily produce robust, experimentally verifiable science. The main reason I believe his ideas are deceptive, misleading and potentially harmful is that people may actually attribute various character dispositions they have to the degree and quality of nurturing they received in early infancy.
Freedom: The End of the Human Condition
Not only is this a scientifically untenable view but it may also lead individuals to make inaccurate interpretations of their own character and the character of other individuals, that far from being therapeutically beneficial, may actually cause more problems than they solve. If we wish to solve our psychological problems we need to know what their causes are. And attributing them to the wrong cause may result in years of pointless navel gazing and hashing over ones infancy and childhood — without any positive therapeutic outcome. Griffith claims that Left wing political analysis is oppressive, hindering liberty and the search for knowledge - and that the political Right is at the van guard of intellectual freedom and exploration, fulfilling our two million year search for knowledge.
He extolls the virtues of leaders such as John Howard and Margaret Thatcher and her belief in liberty and other forms of neo-conservative ideology that developed during the 80s and 90s. This is legitimate as an ideological preference and there is — or was prior to the Global Financial Crisis in — evidence that neoliberal free market ideology did deliver economic and social benefits as a result of opening up markets and reducing the power of unions.
Thatcher was a big fan of F. What this means is that neoliberalism is not about any concept of abstract freedom — it is explicitly a model of how societies should be organised economically in order to create healthy and stable populations. In other words it was based on a moral assertion that neoliberalism is the best means of creating societies that are prosperous and that benefit all. This was based on the notion that increased profits will trickle down the social and economic hierarchy, raising the living standards of all and lifting people out of poverty.
Since the crash this has been shown to be a fallacy — the waves of boom and bust resulting from the financialisation of markets eventually becoming a tsunami that has produced a global economic crisis, with the banks being bailed out, absolved of any responsibility and their mistakes foisted onto the general populace who are suffering under unjust and economically disastrous austerity measures. In other words neoliberalism failed to deliver on its promises and is now considered a failed economic model that is responsible for the current state of social disintegration in Europe and America.
At the moment those who are in denial of reality and who are supressing freedom and the search for knowledge are recalcitrant neoliberals who refuse to register the fact that their ideological preferences and economic models have failed to deliver on their promises. Real knowledge and insight is coming from people who are willing to abandon neoliberal dogma — which is currently eating away at the social fabric of our civilisation and the intellectual and political freedoms that should be at the heart of our democratic institutions.
Recent history has basically shown his thinking to be redundant. Who are the strong and resilient — and hence well nurtured — members of our community? Griffiths claims it is conservatives who have the strength of character to take up the fight against idealism and fulfil our destiny to find knowledge. And who are the poorly nurtured and psychologically exhausted in our community? Given Griffith seems to value Laing's thought so highly, and is someone who is constantly quoted as providing support for Griffith's thesis, the question then arises as to why they differ so dramatically in their assessment of Foucault?
It may be that Laing actually read Foucault and understood him whereas Griffith seems more intent on making him a scapegoat for society's ills and its unwillingness to confront the ideas articulated in his own work. Intellectually rigorous or death by dogma? I know who I would tend to side with.
Living through times of hope and despair
The final irony here is that Foucault actually provides a powerful argument in support of Griffith's main thesis - that is the cause of the current epidemic of mental illness and depression amongst human populations is not to be found in genetic factors but in the cultural, social and economic atmosphere within which humans have to struggle. Foucault would argue that civilisation, not genetic factors, makes people ill. This work is actually one of the major advances in our understanding of the history of psychiatry and of Western cultural attitudes to the mentally ill. I do not see how it could be conceived of as a dogma leading to collective spiritual death as Griffith claims.
My concern is by promulgating such opinions Griffith seems to promote in his readers the sense that they understand these ideas and their supposed inherently malevolent nature. The problem is this kind of view is based on ignorance and misunderstanding of the very ideas Griffith dogmatically rejects. So what are we left with?
A writer with conservative ideological sympathies and with a deep antipathy to postmodern thought and any critical analysis of the conservative world view. And somehow conservatives have been all along at the vanguard of human knowledge, fulfilling the two million year struggle to find knowledge. This is not really a serious scientific hypothesis but an ideological preference dressed up as objective biology.
Griffith is entitled to his preference — but it definitely does not make for good science. It warrants thoughtful — yet critical analysis. Given the current vexed state of humankind any contribution as to how we are to get out of the mess we are in as a species is welcome. However, I do not believe he is offering robust and verifiable science.
In this sense his work — and the grandiose claims of being the final word on the human condition — can be quite misleading particularly to those without a background in science. Hopefully this and my other reviews which deal with his anthropological writings which I have writen on Amazon will help readers develop a critical and informed attiude to his work. This book will literally change the world. You must read this.
I feel inspired to write something about this truly amazing book, but where to start! I cannot do justice to I feel inspired to write something about this truly amazing book, but where to start! Chapter 1 starts by re-connecting the reader with what the human condition actually is, which is really important because what you will realise from reading this book is that we all walk around in a state of total denial of the issue of the human condition and therefore in a completely superficial, alienated state.
Then once this all-important issue of the human condition has been established, Griffith proceeds to concisely summarise and totally demolish the current mechanistic scientific paradigm that is dedicated to avoiding the issue of our psychologically disturbed human condition. This explanation finally brings meaning and understanding to all the suffering in the world and my own life which has brought enormous peace and love to my whole being. This chapter alone saves the human race and cannot be read too many times! I love chapter 3.
I find it connects me with the profound beauty that is the whole journey of life on Earth and brings more awe and majesty and love and meaning and wonder to our lives than an overseeing, supernatural God ever could. This knowledge does not strip us of our spirituality, it nourishes it exponentially.
And chapter 4 is captivating. Solving the human condition is literally the unlocking point to explaining so much about life on Earth, especially human life. He draws on the latest fossil evidence and the evidence provided by our closest living relative, the gentle bonobo.
Chapter 5 is another demolition of dishonest biological thinking that is being published by academics around the world, this time exposing the theories that have been put forward for how we acquired our altruistic, cooperative instincts. This is more extraordinary, denial-free, truthful thinking, and the answer is again remarkably simple, but I think to be able to fully absorb it requires an appreciation of the earlier chapters and, in particular, just how alienated and therefore hamstrung our thinking has been as a result of our fear of the human condition.
Chapter 7 is a gripping narrative of the entire psychological journey our species has been on, from our cooperatively behaved, innocent hominid ancestors at the dawn of consciousness, through to ourselves, the psychologically troubled species that is Homo sapiens sapiens. Along the way Griffith explains many aspects of human existence, including the differences in the historical roles of men and women. This unravelling of the ancient psychological war between the sexes is a revelation in itself.
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And chapter 8 provides the extremely important and incredibly exciting solution to how the hell do we humans cope with having the blinds drawn so suddenly on all our mad behaviour! We truly have been set free from our insecurity about our worth! And, by being fundamentally explained and defended at last, our preoccupation with finding egocentric relief such as with seeking hunger for power, fame, fortune and glory is lifted, and we are free to become a unified force, joyously focused on repairing humanity and our world rather than our own selfish, seemingly insatiable need for self-distraction and reinforcement which is currently destroying our planet.
Any one of the insights contained in any one of these chapters is an astonishing breakthrough with startling implications. But to say I encourage readers to put in the effort to ponder on its profound insights is to put it mildly — because once you do absorb this explanation of the human condition, your life, and eventually the whole world, will be transformed. How to recommend the book that literally can, and will, save the world!? There is so much "noise" or distraction in the world these days it's almost impossible to find any clear air to just think and have the room to absorb anything meaningful.
Fiction is designed to take us away from the day to day and any so called facts are hidden amongst so much peripheral clutter that they are like finding the all so elusive needle in a hay stack. But reading this book was like someone turned on the lights, it answers so many questions and reconciles nearly every issue I previou There is so much "noise" or distraction in the world these days it's almost impossible to find any clear air to just think and have the room to absorb anything meaningful.
But reading this book was like someone turned on the lights, it answers so many questions and reconciles nearly every issue I previously thought irreconcilable. When I read this book I couldn't help but feel transported away from a world that seems so hopelessly lost and destined to implode into one so full of redemption, promise and fulfillment. This book cuts through all the noise and is literally as though it's been written by someone from another planet. It is so direct and to the point and cuts so deep into the issue of what it is to be human. I can't believe how lucky I am to have come across such a penetrating and liberating piece of work and can not recommend it highly enough.
Apr 13, Susan Armstrong rated it it was amazing Shelves: Your natural tendency to try and pigeon-hole this book will fail. After reading it, life goes from the usual bewildering and confusing mess to transparent clarity. Why we blocked out these questions as adults, in fact why we necessarily lived in complete denial of the whole issue of the human condition is dealt with early in the book and apart from being fascinating, it is important to understand as it affects our early absorption of these ideas.
It makes sense of yourself -- it completely explains who you are — from every perspective be it biologically, psychologically or physically. It makes sense of the whole world around you from any perspective you like, politically, religiously, sexually, culturally etc. There is nothing in the world that means more to me than the information in this book and once you read it, you too will see how it saves the world no less. It really is beyond your wildest dreams!
This story is the best thing you will EVER read. Every great thinker and writer and philosopher through the ages have tried and failed to bring understanding to this core issue of our human condition. Well Jeremy Griffith has answered it! At the heart of the Story of Adam Stork is the understanding of the difference between our instinctive self gene-based learning system and our intellectual self nerve-based learning system.
When our intellectual self emerged some 2 million years ago, it went in search of understanding and an unavoidable battle broke out between it, and our already established instinctive and, it is revealed, loving and cooperative self. Astonishingly, what Griffith reveals is that this corrupting journey to self-enlightenment was unavoidable. Humans truly are redeemed!
Griffith Review 38: Annual Fiction Edition
This is beyond amazing. The flow-on and far-reaching effects from this simple explanation are unbelievable. Our human condition is the root cause of all our problems, and now Jeremy Griffith has solved it, our problems are literally all solved! With this understanding, our upset can now subside.
It is like a logic-driven magic wand unravelling and reconciling every question, every part of human behaviour, conundrum, every ounce of pain and suffering, every inequality and every dilemma, every hypocrisy, every pole, every argument big or small, every devastation of our physical world.
It literally transforms everything you look at including yourself. Chapter 8 is a case in point, an unbelievably fascinating read. Jeremy Griffith tells the true, denial-free, never before told story of the human race over this entire 2 million year period. This understanding does wrench you out of your necessary-until-now denial -- and it needs to for our species to evolve.
Each one of us does live in this hugely divided state: As you absorb this information more deeply, you realise that this book really has personally reconciled this deepest of chasms inside. Humans ARE finally defended, gloriously so -- we are upset but we are good! The battle to find understanding, that produced the human condition, is now over and the world that opens up for humans now is just spectacular.
It really does transform your life from being an utterly preoccupied and selfish victim of the human condition to a person effectively free of the human condition, saturated in relief and excitement about yourself, all humans, and the absolutely fabulous future before us. We all fit into this story, the greatest story ever told and we are all reconciled and redeemed through this book.
All the lives, hopes and dreams of you, and everyone that has ever lived, are fulfilled through this understanding. In fact it fulfils the whole of life on Earth. This is not a fleeting thought or inspiration, it is with you forever. You are standing in this new landscape of knowledge where we all belong. This is the book that saves the world. All I dream of now is that you will read it!
May 27, Alison rated it it was ok. But I found the subject matter repetitive, unnecessarily wordy and dismissive. The premise that humans are intrinsically kind and loving is not a new concept. Nor is the duality with which humans struggle unfamiliar. But there is circuitous thinking, under-examined "scientific" conclusions and not the insight that is promised in this huge book.
And how convenient that those who do not accept the findings are deemed to be in denial! The numerous high ratings for this book conjures for me the story of the emperor's new clothes. Some of us see the emperor is in his birthday suit. This I do not deny! Masterpiece this book is not. It does not deliver what is promised! This book feels like the truth.
I can't explain it. He talks about all sorts of topics that are really really really interesting and he just describes the world so well, what a mess it is all in, a mess we are all in! The chapters on childhood and nurturing and his 'love indoctrination' theory are jsut really fascinating and really impressed me. I'm doing lots of 'really reallys'!!. I felt impelled to writes a review because it just feels like a really!
View all 5 comments. May 23, Anthony Clarke rated it it was amazing. Imagine being able to truly understand and love yourself and those around you. Imagine having genuine hope for the future of humanity! You simply have to read this book for yourself! The End of the Human Condition" explores the traditional 'no-go-zone' of the subject of "the human condition" - humans' capacity for both good and evil - and fully explains it in layman's terms.
Griffith is able to go where nobody else has been able to go before The depth and breadth of the book's material is simply astounding: This book could be the most incredible, truly powerful, and transformative book you will ever read! In a nutshell, it solves almost all of the world's problems! This is no ordinary book. The End Of The Human Condition is the spectacular culmination of more than 40 years of researching and writing about the human condition, its effect on the psychological state of humanity and its relieving and transforming explanation.
This is because FREEDOM presents the profound and comprehensive explanation of ALL the elemental questions that have baffled humanity — science in particular — surrounding our existence on this planet. These, Griffith explains, are the major stalling points that science has heroically but fearfully tried to penetrate, but without the fundamental explanation of ourselves it has been a confounding and increasingly impossible task. The situation is very serious, the need for clarity urgent.
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It is in this arena that Griffith compassionately illustrates what the problem is — the human condition — and then goes about paragraph by soothing paragraph to outline the simple, logical, dignified, biologically-based explanation for this condition. The psychological outlook on our lives is upturned and re-laid out in the most simple, rational and refreshingly original explanations. The answer lies in understanding the two million year old conflict between our instinctive, genetically orientated brain and our intelligent, nerve-based brain.
It is explained that these necessary pioneering efforts of the newly emerged conscious mind, defied our already established instincts and caused the psychological conflict that has compounded over two million years resulting in the states of extreme psychosis and neurosis we see today. We became angry, egocentric and alienated or in a word: More often than not, publications that attempt to explain elusive subjects like the human soul, religion and consciousness etc. Never before has there been such a totally symmetrical and holistic illustration of the problem facing the world and its compassionate solution.
However, one hurdle remains for humanity before we can reach the ultimate fully-integrated, peaceful and reconciled state — the distressing question that is posed in the title of the book: Is humanity, and particularly our scientific establishment, too entrenched in our alienated human condition to adopt what is being explained?
Reading this book puts us squarely in the hot-seat of our species predicament. The outcome is up to us. Griffith uses a whole kitbag full of alternate, mainstream, left-field, right-field, popular cultured, philosophical, sceintific, biological, psychological thinking and theoretical application to achieve this book. The glowing introduction from a Canadian psychiatrist is interesting in its own right, but onto the book. Its big, long and with numourous concepts to attempt to explore.
The idea that our origins are steeped in love, yes our very own real life Garden of Eden while surely appealing is Griffith uses a whole kitbag full of alternate, mainstream, left-field, right-field, popular cultured, philosophical, sceintific, biological, psychological thinking and theoretical application to achieve this book. The idea that our origins are steeped in love, yes our very own real life Garden of Eden while surely appealing is increcibly difficult to accept and not one readily supported by maintstream science. This Griffith is upfront about and often shreds the bejezus from what he describes as 'mechanistic science'.
So yeah, that's a brain starter for one. His Love Indoctrination Hypothesis which is what actually gave rise to the peaceful society mentioned earlier is the real chestnut. The basis in it is so simple and logical that it does appear to have potential, despite that annoying 'genetic problem' But again Griffith counters that, and persuasivley. It is his elaborate dissection of our historical path to alienation that will create some uproar, let's just say he's hardly politcially correct and I'd like to see my sister and mother read the chapter on nurturing, but again I'll give it to Griffith that his arguments are debated very convincingly, if not conventionally.
If you genuinely want to understand human behaviour and make sense of the mess in the world - then read this book! Feb 17, Aussiescribbler Aussiescribbler rated it did not like it Shelves: Originally I was a supporter, even though I felt that his theories were flawed. Over time my attitude changed. Now I look on it less as a first stab at a cure and more as a distillation of the disease itself. I have points of agreement with Griffith.
I do believe that our problems as a species can be traced back to a pervasive sense of insecurity about our own worth. As our self-acceptance is undermined we become more embattled and more selfish. Idealism is one of the major things which undermines our self-acceptance. Griffith believes that it is innate. He believes that we are born expecting ideal behaviour from others and that we have an instinctive demand for selfless behaviour from ourselves. I believe that idealism is essentially a thought virus, that it arose from our capacity for reason and took hold because we found it hard to argue against.
On the surface it seems to make sense that, if we want a better society and want to be better people, the way to do so is to insist on high standards, to try to pursue better behaviour by an act of will and insist on it from others. The fact that this approach tends to undermine our self-acceptance and thus robs us of our capacity for such improved behaviour is not obvious. This is comparable to obsessive compulsive disorder in which the peace of mind of the individual is conditional on certain strict requirements being met.
So idealism can make us intolerant towards others and angry about what we feel are their imperfections. Our anger at our own apparent inability to meet the demands of idealism can be turned inwards in the form of depression, which in the extreme may lead to suicide, or it may be turned outward in the form of anger towards those who express or represent to us the ideals we feel unable to live up to. I believe that this is why some people end up feeling compelled to inflict suffering on defenceless children. This is something he does not recommend we do.
My view is that the situation is not this bleak. All we need is to learn to stop fighting with these hostile thoughts and feelings. There is a huge difference between accepting them and acting on them. The less we accept them - the more we fight against them - the stronger they grow and the harder it may be to prevent ourselves from expressing them in our action in some way.
If the world is to be saved it will have to take place through a decentralised process. This is not how living systems work. This book is a Trojan Horse for the idealism virus. There is absolutely no need for us to be ideal, even if such a thing were possible. What matters is that we find a way to cooperate with each other enough to solve as many of our problems as we can solve.
This will require us to become less selfish. Selfishness is the natural self-directedness of the suffering individual. One of the things which may be causing us suffering is feeling guilty about being selfish. This is a negative feedback loop. What can break us out of this loop is to recognise that unconditional self-acceptance will make us less selfish, while trying to be less selfish will only increase the problem.
Our behaviour can only ever be motivated by self-interest. If Griffith feels that not bringing his message to the world will lead to a situation which will make him feel bad and saving the world will make him feel good, then he is being motivated by self-interest. There is nothing wrong with this. For ten days, Boccaccio writes, each told a story — every evening building to a crescendo of saucy, witty, engaging storytelling entertainment. The tales they told, in contrast to the devastation they escaped, embody a satiric cosmopolitan sensibility: And in this act of genius by Giovanni Boccaccio, in response to the most hideous and inexplicable catastrophe, the novella was born.
Its name derived from the spectacular church where his characters began their journey — itself named for the brilliance of a ninth century storyteller — which is now, thanks to Project Gutenberg, available at the click of a mouse. Stories are the best way of exploring lands, ideas and fantasy, of interrogating character, personality and motive, of making sense of complexity, human relations and disaster. Stories have probably never taken so many forms — there are the stories we read, those we listen to, those we watch on the countless screens at our disposal — those we tell to make sense of things, and those we listen to and laugh, forget or just imagine.
While the ubiquitous screens have created new platforms, and demanded new styles, they have also profoundly disrupted the economics of publishing as it has functioned for centuries. Books can now be downloaded, transmitted around the globe and copied, at the click of a mouse; they no longer need to sit in warehouses for months, or to be obtained only from bookshops or libraries.
They no longer need to be fat and beautifully presented, with elegantly designed hard covers and thick pages with rough edges, or monochromatic or salacious paperbacks with porous paper and small print.
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In this context we believe that the time is right for the revival of the novella — of those stories that are longer and more complex than a short story, shorter than a novel, with fewer plot twists, but strong characters. Condensed tales that are intense, detailed, often grounded in the times, and perfectly designed for busy people to read in one sitting.
Publishers have traditionally shied away from the form — the price required to justify getting a book into print could leave customers feeling shortchanged if they were asked to spend the same on a page book as one with just 90 feel the quality not the width. The digital age has disrupted publishing in what many consider to be a calamitous way. But by providing an opportunity to revive the novella — for delivery to the device of your choosing — it may also revive one of the richest and most rewarding literary forms. With the support of the Copyright Agency Cultural Fund we have em-barked on this project to encourage writers to experiment with novellas.
With the help of our judges we have selected six of the best; gritty tales with unique characters, strongly grounded in place and detail, but with a playful edge. Over the next year we will release some as e-books, others will probably grow into novels, and one has already been snapped up by another publisher for international release.
We are excited to play a role in the revival of the novella. Some of the best-known and most-loved novels are really novellas: We hope to continue this project for a few more years, to help foster a new golden age with an antipodean perspective. THOSE OF US with a literary bent can rattle off the titles of great novellas, talk with some assurance about the complexities of the form, its development over the years and its place in the constellation of publishing.
On the streets of the global village novella has acquired its own contemporary meaning.