Something Understood

Original version

BBC Radio 4 LW

Religion & Ethics

Ethical and religious discussion that examines some of the larger questions of life

Ethical and religious discussion that examines some of the larger questions of life, taking a spiritual theme and exploring it through music, prose and poetry

BBC Radio 4 FM

Something Understood: The Instinct for Meaning

The Instinct for Meaning

BBC Radio 4 - Something Understood, The Instinct for Meaning

Jake Arnott explores how a sense of narrative is essential for how we understand the world

Novelist Jake Arnott believes narrative is a powerful force. He thinks the instinct to create stories is innate within us, and is vital to our understanding of the world.

Writer Jake Arnott believes narrative is a powerful force. In this week's Something Understood, he explores the idea that the instinct to create stories is innate within us all, and is vital to our understanding of the world and our own lives. After all, without a narrative to join everything together, our time on earth becomes little more than a series of random, unconnected events. 

As a novelist, stories are Jake's stock in trade, it's his job to engage with them. But he thinks the desire to do so is universal - since our earliest evolution humans have been telling tales. Fairy stories in particular, passed down through an oral tradition, echo across time and across cultures. EM Forster described story as a 'low atavistic form'. Atavistic, yes, and deeply engrained, but Jake argues that Forster's insistence that story is mere causality is wrong. Story occurs without anything having had to happen, it's not just an order of events. Beckett's 'Waiting for Godot' is a play in which nothing much happens, and yet it resonates with a powerful sense of story.

Jake speaks to Jane Davis, founder of The Reader Organisation. Jane's charity invites people to come together and read aloud, using narratives from books to engage with their own life stories. Through her work and her own personal experiences, she has found that stories can transform lives. And the telling of our own life story can be a powerful tool. 

Readings from Jeanette Winterson and Joan Didion, and music including the Beatles' Eleanor Rigby and Schumann's Fairytale Pictures, help Jake to unravel the potent energy of narrative. 


Producer: Jo Coombs
A Loftus production for BBC Radio 4

BBC Radio 4

Intelligent speech, the most insightful journalism, the wittiest comedy, the most fascinating features and the most compelling drama and readings anywhere in UK radio.

Accessibility links

Programme Index

Something Understood

The Instinct for Meaning

Genres

Brand

BBC Radio 4 LW

About BBC Radio 4