“Entities must not be reduced to the point of inadequacy” – Karl Menger

:D

Seriously tho…

My main man Karl Popper argued that an argument for simplicity may be justified by his falsifiability criterion.

Occam’s axiom is easy to wield but difficult to wield well.

I’m not saying there isn’t something to this idea that “every story has conflict” I’m suggesting that it isn’t necessarily the case they are as synonymous. I have to have something to write about in these reviews Julie!! ;)

And Occam’s Razor?

Take two statements:

1. Jesse is immortal.

2. Puppies are better than kittens.

Statement one can be shown to be false rather easily. Kill Jesse, burn his body.

Statement two, on the other hand, cannot be easily shown to be false. For even if I can show you a bunch of reasons why any particular kitten is far superior to any particular puppy, my sweeping declaration (statement 2) doesn’t guarantee that it is universally true of all puppies and all kittens. One exception doesn’t defeat such a statement. Just like Freud (purportedly) would argue about his cigar.

Sometimes a statement isn’t wrong – it’s of the far more insidious “not even wrong” kind. Theories which cannot be falsified or used to predict anything fall into this category.

I have to take issue with that concept as a whole. There is nothing wrong with examining ideas that seem too simple to be true. However, to go in with the mindset that if something is straight forward then it is probably partially false is a prejudice that just doesn’t make sense. I mean, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar and to extrapolate too much is to deliberately bend things into shapes they were not meant to take on … just for the sake of argument.

Although looking back at that comment, it seems unnecessarily complicated in itself.

To summarize: Occam’s razor.

Darn. Soft soled shoe. Must go get a different shoe.

James Powell describes himself as a “pussycat writer” because his stories tend to not put murder and violence on the page, having them happen “offscreen” as it were. This is kind of like avoiding the conflict directly. I can’t say that a lot of what I’ve read of his (or even of what you’ve read aloud) is conflict free though. It is conflict adverse. ;)

‘All GOOD stories have conflict.’

Don’t feel silly about looking up something in the dictionary. I do it multiple times daily. Love th things. Sometimes I just read dictionaries without the prompt. Words are ideas. I love ideas.

My meaning in this was to try to avoid spoilers. Which I won’t bother about any more. He’s trying to figure out where he would go if the station had to be shut down. Earth? The galaxy? This is a pressing worry as he packs. Perhaps our problem is that I am not thinking loftily about such things as “man against himself” but rather of very concrete examples such as the girl who is whipped by her father and runs to Enoch for help … while he holds them off with his rifle.

Reading through your comments, it occurs to me that our basic disagreement seems to be that you feel conflict must have resolution to be considered true “conflict.” Resolution is not required for conflict to be present. I even resorted to that tired old tactic of looking through dictionary definitions of conflict, which has a surprising amount of variations and applications.

Listening to part of The Scarlet Letter this morning I realized that this book also would probably go down as a “nonconflict” book by my understanding of your argument. As would The Dauthger of Time by Josephine Tey. As would several of the gentler Agatha Christie mysteries.

These books are very different enough from each other and from Simak’s Way Station and they are far from being “conflict in narrative form.” Yet each has conflict within it. Otherwise we might as well be reading a travelogue.

I have been racking my brains for a story without conflict of some sort. Can’t think of one.

Nothing feels forced. Simak is telling a story without following any sort of Aristotelian story formula.

I love Simak’s stories, in part because they are so very different than other writers.

I guess you’re talking about the idea of ‘man against himself’ when you say Enoch is reconciling “his humanity with a possible larger destiny.” I think it had the potential to go that way, but I’m not sure it did. Just like the gun being used in the final act. We see that as a possibility, but it didn’t come to fruition in the way any formula would have dictated.

One other thing to consider – if I am to accept the idea that ‘every story must have conflict’ – I must accept this as a claim of the kind like that of: “all men are mortal.” What I mean, that it iwould have to be a general claim about all stories rather than as a specific claim such as “Jesse is mortal.” We could easily test the latter, but the former is subject to a far more rigorous standard.

General claims about “all” (anythings) must be very wary of being labeled only tautologically true. To avoid this fate they must be at least logically falsifiable (or logically refutable). What I mean is there must be the logical possibility that “there is a story without conflict” and that “it would look like…X”. Without that, we have a truth, but in only of the “trivially true” kind (like saying “all bachelors are unmarried males).

To restate, if we cannot find even a theoretical story without conflict, then we have simply described all stories as being conflicts in narrative form. That doesn’t sound right to me, not when reading a Simak story anyway.

BTW, that something is “falsifiable” only means that if it is false, then this can be shown by observation or experiment.

And when you say that galactic conflict does not come into the story, what would you call the gun-toting alien who tries to kill Enoch and then goes out into the wide world?

No, no, no … plenty of conflict, even if it is written about in a way that you perceive as too gentle. About which, I also disagree.

Although, yes, some of the scenarios are solved too easily. But those were not the conflicts which Simak was interested in exploring (for example the body being stolen … that was a device to bring about a greater conflict for Enoch to consider and deal with).

The audiobook is definitely unabridged.

Probably best not to read my responses til you finish the book.

I will admit there is certainly an air of possible conflict from chapter to chapter. Like you said, the government agent who gives his report, he doesn’t have all the facts – as those facts come to light there certainly is the possibility of conflict – but does it come to fruition?

For instance, there’s the matter of the body in the grave being removed. When Enoch says “I need that body back ASAP” he gets it back ASAP.

Also, recall Chekhov’s rule about a gun over a mantle. There’s a gun in this story, it is fired. But is it ever fired in anger? Does it resolve a conflict? There’s a scene in which Enoch is practicing his marksmanship, but the way its structured we think he’s killing living targets (thus conflict), but then we are shown the truth, that it’s a special alien holographic shooting range. When the gun get’s used for real in the third ac, again the gun is brought out – but does it resolve the conflict? Enoch’s a highly skilled marksman, but the gun doesn’t solve a conflict.

As to the galactic conflict, I agree there is definitely some sort of friction between aliens out there, but is that not like saying there is conflict in Canada because refugees coming to Canada from Sudan are saying there is conflict in Sudan?

I think most stories do rely on conflict to drive the plot. But I worry that the problem with defining conflict as a mystery as a two characters in conversation may reveal that we’re stretching the definition of conflict. Is a big central or even a series of small conflicts the essential character of Waystation? Or are those mysteries that get revealed more like getting to know a friend? Or even like hearing him tell you a story about his childhood?

I forgot to add that this is a simple enough story that one sees already the location of the Talisman and it’s sensitive operator as soon as the Talisman is explained. That is not a lack of conflict necessarily, but merely a transparent part of the story which can be easily foreseen.

I am about two-thirds of the way through this book and am wondering if you actually have an abridged copy to say there is very little conflict. There is conflict from the very beginning starting with the agent’s report. When one adds in Enoch’s internal conflict both emotionally, in his necessary separation from the outside world, and with his desires for Earthmen as a whole; his conflict with the Fishers; a faction of the Galaxy’s conflict with Earth;; and, as has just been revealed, possible conflict with an angry mob. Not to mention the conflict within the Galaxy over expansion, largely due to the loss of the Talisman.

I agree that this is communicated in a gentle, thoughtful way generally but that is very far from having conflict largely absent. It is woven throughout the book. I submit and argue strongly that this book upholds the “necessary conflict” standard.

Although I am also grateful for your stance as it propelled me to seek out the book which I am greatly enjoying and, indeed, foresee that I must buy for rereading.