The nature of truth

[TheEllipticalDisillusion]

Which story is true:

A) A family van nearly careens off a cliff after hitting an icy patch on the road. Quick reaction from the father (driver) results in the van only crashing into the guard rail. The son suffers a broken arm in the crash.

B) A family van nearly careens off a cliff instead hits an on-coming truck killing the entire family after the van hits an icy patch. The father (driver) cuts the wheel to regain control of the car sending it into the other lane of traffic. Before the crash the family had been singing along to the Beatles "Day Tripper" when the father mangled one of the lines and his kids yelled "dad! you're singing it wrong." The wife remarked, "daddy was never very good at remembering lyrics to songs."

The nature of truth is very interesting to me. We all speak about the truth at times, but what really is truth. How can you know truth? Where does that knowledge reside in your body? Does it reside in your body?

Eye-witness testimony is not necessarily the most reliable in a trial because of the nature of memory: it fades over time. Does it mean that the witness is lying? The witness believes that he or she is telling the truth even if facts may have changed without recording their change.

There is an idea brought forth in The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien that denotes the separation between story-truth and happening-truth. Happening-truth is the necessary facts of a story. In my examples: a van that hits an icy patch, a crash. Story-truth is more of the human experience behind the facts; that which gives the story emotion. In the short story "How to Tell a True War Story," the narrator remarks that you can know a true war story if you can feel it in your stomach.

What makes something true for one person and not true for another (like in the case of religion)? What makes a true story resonate with you? What are the qualities of truth? Are there qualities to truth? Is it all a matter of perspective?

[axordil]

I think objective truth is a slippery notion in any case, so I prefer to speak of knowledge instead. I think it comes in two flavors: empirical and revelatory. The latter approaches the status of truth, but only for the individual perceiving it. The former is murkier, but can with time achieve consensus, at least in those aspects not mingled with the other kind of knowledge.

The flip side of this is that stories in particular can convey truths of either kind, despite being devoid of factual events.

I would say whether the occupants of the van lived or died probably edged into the realm of the empirical, btw.

[TheEllipticalDisillusion]

Truth may be relative to what you are seeking from a story.

[axordil]

Certainly. One person's scripture is another's faerie tale. But faerie tales have lessons too.

[TheEllipticalDisillusion]

I'd say all stories are about truth-seeking in some way. Some are more overt than others.

To go back to my opening, which story seems more true to you? Any reason why?

*Note: there is no "right" answer to my question. I'm just curious what makes a story resonate as true for different people.

[JewelSong]

I guess I am too thick to understand what is being asked here.

To me, the two stories are completely different. I don't know how one can be more "true" than the other. In the first one, the family lives, in the second one, the family dies.

Are they supposed to somehow be the same story? I don't see how they can be - either the family lived or it died.

Neither of them seems "truer" than the other to me. They seem like two separate incidents.

[TheEllipticalDisillusion]

Well, if they were the same, then the difference would be one is bare bones and one is more in depth. Would one of those resonate as more true? What are the qualities of a true story? So many movies are "based on true events," but what makes those less true than their true events or more true than their true events? Is it emotionality? Is it plausibility? Is it...?

Another set of stories from TTC: four soldiers on patrol, a grenade sails out, one guy jumps on the grenade, saves his friends; four soldiers on patrol, a grenade sails out, one guy jumps on the grenade, but it is a killer grenade and kills everyone, before they die, one of the dead guys says "what the f you do that for?" the other dead guy responds, "story of my life, man." Same questions.

Does this makes more or less sense?

[axordil]

TED--

In terms of verisimilitude, the second sounds more like a narrative, while the first sounds more like a police blotter. My problem with answering your question is that I smell the tools of narrative from a long way off, which makes it impossible for me to answer without bias.

[vison]

I agree with Teremia.

The second story is "more interesting" to me because we are told much more about the people in it. I'm only interested in stories with people (or other interesting beings) in them, and only if the characters elicit some sympathy from me. I don't mean "sympathy" in the sense of "feeling sorry" but some sort of common human feeling. So in that sense, it's more 'truthful'. I can enter into it.

I could, and maybe I will, write a "sympathetic" version of the first, baldly bare story. I bet we all could. I bet there's a lot of "truths" about those people that are hidden in the short sentences.

On another forum where I occasionally post, a guy who had lived a very interesting life was trying to write his memoirs. But even though HE was interesting, and his life was interesting, the memoirs were so boring they were a good cure for insomnia. We, the other posters there, tried repeatedly to get him to SEE where he was going 'wrong', but in the end he decided it would be 'dishonest' for him to alter his method and in the end, no one would publish his story . . . but I guess he had the fun of telling it. Truthfully!

As was pointed out, "truth" and "fact" are not the same. Alice Munro's wonderful stories are not "factual" but they are Truthful in the best sense.

[Frelga]

I don't get it either. In a fiction story, learning more about characters helps build rapport, which is why sharing pictures of girlfriends is lethal in war movies. In non-fiction - well, in the second version of both stories everyone dies, so how the heck would anyone know what they said? For me, the addition of dialog that clearly had to be made up by the narrator makes the story feel LESS true.

[TheEllipticalDisillusion]

TED--

In terms of verisimilitude, the second sounds more like a narrative, while the first sounds more like a police blotter. My problem with answering your question is that I smell the tools of narrative from a long way off, which makes it impossible for me to answer without bias.

Oh, you are so astute, Mr. Ax. Is there a problem with bias?

vison, I'd love for you to write a "sympathetic" version of the first. I'd like to see what comes of it.

[axordil]

Bias is only a problem when one is aware of it.

[WampusCat]

This discussion reminds me of the conclusion of the book "Arthur Rex," which went something like this:

"So ends the tale of King Arthur -- who never existed, but everything he did was true."

Fact is fact. Truth illuminates the human journey. Sometimes they intersect, but it's not necessary.

I'm not sure I can explain why something feels like Truth to me. It's in the gut. It's a recognition of something I've always known but had no words for.

Sorry, that's about the best I can do. But I know it when I see it.

[TheEllipticalDisillusion]

I'm not sure I can explain why something feels like Truth to me. It's in the gut. It's a recognition of something I've always known but had no words for

That's a perfect explanation. In The Things They Carry one of the qualities of a true war story that the narrator discusses is whether you can feel it in your stomach. Not to limit this only to true stories, but what about other "truths" in this world (or things one holds as true)... are there qualities that makes you (or anyone else) think something is true vs. untrue?

[vison]

A) A family van nearly careens off a cliff after hitting an icy patch on the road. Quick reaction from the father (driver) results in the van only crashing into the guard rail. The son suffers a broken arm in the crash.

He was in a foul mood to start with. Hung over, for one thing. And Sunday was his only real day off and he figured he’d hang out with Carl, watch a game, hoist a few. But no, Brenda had other plans.

Eddy didn’t want to take the kid , but Brenda insisted. “You never do anything with him, Eddy, and he wants to go to the mall and do his Christmas shopping. It won’t kill you to take him.”

“I’ll take the van then,” Eddy said. “I only got enough gas in the Pontiac to get to work and back tomorrow.”

Brenda frowned. “Remember there’s no seat belt on the passenger side. Make him ride in the back seat.”

So there they were, Eddy and the kid, heading to the mall. The kid didn’t say anything, just sat in the back seat staring out the window, and that irked Eddy. He lit a cigarette and turned the radio up as loud as it would go.

The parking lot was a zoo and finally Eddy pulled up in a loading zone. “Look,” he said. “You go in and do your shopping. You don’t need me, do you? I’ll just find somewhere to sit and then I’ll meet you here. Say, in an hour?”

He could see the kid didn’t like it. “Come on,” Eddy said, “you’re eleven years old for chrissake, you don’t need your old man to hold your hand, do you?”

“I thought we could get Mom something together,” the kid said. “I don’t have much money.”

“OK, buddy,” Eddy said, “then just spend all your money on your Mom. Don’t worry about getting me anything.”

“But I want to, Dad,” the kid said.

Eddy lifted himself up off the seat and hauled out his wallet. “Here, here’s ten bucks.”

Carl was in his shop, changing the oil on his truck. “Hey,” he said. “Get yourself a beer, there, Ed, and get me one while you’re at it.”

One thing and another and Eddy looked at his watch and swore. “Christ almighty,” he said. “The kid. I forgot. I left the kid at the mall.”

The kid was standing out on the ramp. He looked cold and little and afraid. Eddy could see he’d been crying as soon as soon as he got into the van.

“I thought you forgot me, Dad,” the kid said.

“I got busy,” Eddy said. “I was helping Carl.”

“I lost the present I bought you, Dad,” the kid said. “I put it down while I was paying for Mom’s present and then I forgot it and when I went back it was gone.”

“I don’t need no present,” Eddy said. “I told you.”

“But I wanted to get you something,” the kid said. His lip trembled. “I wanted to, Dad.”

When he left Carl's, Eddy had stuck a beer in the cup holder and he handed it to the kid. “Open that for me, okay?”

“You shouldn’t drink beer while you’re driving, Dad,” the kid said.

“Just open the godamned thing, I don’t need no lectures,” Eddy said.

It was good and dark now, and it had started to snow. “I shoulda brought the Pontiac,” Eddy said, as the van fishtailed around the corner at the bottom of the hill. “This bucket of crap is useless in the snow.”

Then, the kid yelling. “Dad!! Dad!!!” and the van hitting the guardrail.

Eddy got out of the van, wet with spilled beer, cursing. Then the kid, crying, holding his arm. “Dad, Dad,” he said. “It hurts. My arm hurts.”

“Christ,” Eddy said. “Look at that. A write-off for sure.” He stood in the dark and the snow and listened to the kid crying.

“Jesus H.,” Eddy said. “This is gonna be a great Christmas.”

[vison]

I think I'm going to give it another go.

[WampusCat]

I'm puzzled, TED. Are you trying to say that the differing outcomes or the differing ways they are told make one story seem true and the other false? Because my experience of the world argues against that.

Good happens. Tragedy happens. Mind-numbing sameness happens. Joy happens. Truth weaves through all of these, because this is the stuff of life.

[JewelSong]

I agree with Wampus...I am entirely missing the point of this thread, I think.

[TheEllipticalDisillusion]

In a way, yes. The way we tell stories, the details we choose to subtract or add, all contribute to either making that story seem true or seem to expose some truth or do neither. A story may be factually true... a police blotter, but what are the qualities that make a story seem true for you? If you see something "based on true events," how do you (or do you not) understand such stories as true? Which parts seem truer vs others?

What is it about your experiences that leads you to that conclusion, Wumpus?

vison, I like it.

I don't necessarily have a point to this thread. There is no answer that I am looking for. There is no point that I am waiting to be made to say, "that's the point!" Perhaps it's too open-ended then?

[Primula Baggins]

I agree with Wampus. Fiction, a story, usually has to make dramatic sense and satisfy the reader/viewer in some way to succeed. We often demand fairness from stories, a feeling that the good will succeed and the evil be defeated.

Life as it's lived has none of these requirements. For me, as a fiction writer like Ax, if a story feels "right," if it's satisfying or entertaining, while I may think it's a good story and has "story truth," I'm probably not going to believe it actually happened. Real life really is stranger than fiction: messier, more frustrating, more confusing, more full of bizarre coincidence. And ultimately without anything like the resolution traditional fiction demands.