Bears Discover Fire · 2:45pm Jun 7th, 2014
In 1990, Terry Bisson's short story "Bears Discover Fire" won all the awards in science fiction. (Odd, since there's no science in it.) This January, Lightspeed Magazine put it online for free.
This story has puzzled me for a long time. Why is it a story at all, let alone a good story?
(You have to read the story to understand this post.)
Nobody in the story seems to know what they want. There's no struggle or deliberate action. There are three narratives:
1. The narrator's relationship with his brother. The narrator is more old-fashioned, and less uptight. His brother is one of those people who thinks they know everything. They have a disagreement about how to raise his brother's son. Nothing major.
2. Bears discover fire. Also, they discover a new kind of berry.
3. The narrator's mother. She lives in an old folks home. She's bored. She goes to sit by the fire with the bears. Then she dies.
That's it. Three narratives, none of which are a story, none of which connect to each other except circumstantially. None of them seem to support, parallel, or relate tothe others.
So why are they a story when you put them together? I like this story, but I don't know why.
Read more Douglas Coupland. This story is doing all its heavy lifting thematically, telling stories about imperfect cooperating with otherness, about acceptance and harmony.
It's pretty diffuse, which is one big handicap of doing that stuff. If you're dedicated to telling theme/texture stories without events you have to have pretty big images to carry the load, like the Grandmother's peaceful death. It's not at all about her death in the usual sense, it's about the way she went about it, and especially the context she insisted on. Had she not shushed her kin it would be a different story.
I don't like writing stories like this
but I can still answer your question. It's a published and awardwinning story, because it's doing a heck of a lot of communicating thematically—about ways of interacting with the other, and about alien perspectives such as fire-makers who have no verbal speech. The latter is why it's a science fiction story.
It's so bereft of narrative because you kinda have to do that when you lean so heavily on the thematic and want people to See What You Did There: any narrative will instantly take the foreground, so writers of this type of thing typically choose to make it eventless.
I still think it's rather a stunt
you can work with theme and still have narrative. All that happens is, people talk about your narrative, get hooked on the story/book/series, and can't explain why. To leave out the narrative is like shooting for Fancy Writer cred, lampshading the theme work which is usually sensed rather than directly read.
Does that help?
Shit, I don't know. I read the damn thing in a philosophy course about 3 years ago, when I started college. I think it's just because it's a somewhat interesting story while is a rather enjoyable read.
Tell me, have you read The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas? I'd like to see what you could think up about that one.
No science in it?
But the story's all about evolution and entropy. Those are scientific thingees, aren't they?
Mike
A lot of the story seems to me to be about mood. There's something about the image of people playing out their subdued personal struggles while in the background something big and weird is happening.
Also, I suspect there is something in what 2183443 says, though I can't be entirely sure. I'm not really picking up on a lot of the story's themes. I can believe there's something there but I'm not seeing it clearly. I can't tell if it is from some want in my apprehension or an incompatibility in the cultural associations used to tell it.
2183526
I'm not sure about evolution, truth be told, but I take your point. There's a scientific conceit at the center(?) of it, albeit an ethological one.
Nobody in the story seems to know what they want. There's no struggle or deliberate action.
I like the story, but there's a numbness to it for that reason. The premise suggested by the title is treated as little more than a curiosity, as though everyone in the story has seen this kind of thing happen often enough that it's a mild surprise only because of the species involved. You walked into the garage last week and found a fox using the lathe, or a puma using the belt sander. You look at each other to gauge a threat, then nod without a sound and go about your business. (Damn I hope this doesn't sound snarky - I like the story). Maybe that's part of the appeal of this story, that there's a level of acceptance of strangeness in it that's only portrayed as less in those in a position of spiritual or legal authority.
Just on the side, I also enjoyed this because the narrator has some similarities to my father. He frequently (out of need rather than desire, I think) worked his own tires in exactly the same way, and I could do it myself in a pinch because of that. He'd rebuild an engine (heh, Olds 350, usually) at night and on the weekends, because he had to. Then he'd drive 90 miles to Pasadena on Monday and spend the day at JPL machining parts with less than 1/10,000" tolerance for the Galileo probe that was eventually crushed by Jupiter's atmosphere. I have to wonder how he'd react to bears standing on the edge of a highway, holding torches and watching him fix a flat.
Interesting story. Thanks for bringing this to us.
2183487
Let me point you toward:
Our Gracous Host's little piece "The Ones Who Walk Away from Equestria" from a year or so ago...
2183624
In my mind, the story's structure has always been as follows:
Every story stats with a Person in a Place with a Problem. Here, we've got Bobby, our narrator, down on his hands and knees beside Interstate 65 outside Bowling Green, Kentucky, changing a flat tire on his 1956 Cadillac. As in every story, trying to solve the Problem leads to the discovery that the actual Problem is something even larger: in this case, while changing the tire, Bobby learns that evolution is still active in the world and that bears have discovered fire. End of Act One.
Act Two is where the Person tries to solve the new, enlarged Problem. In this case, Bobby tries to solve it--like so many of us--by ignoring it. He's doesn't care much for evolution, after all: he drives a car more than thirty years old, for instance, and fixes old tires rather than buying new ones. Unfortunately, he can't ignore the problem because the TV is full of documentaries about the bears, and this leads him to start thinking about the bears in a different way: he goes and cuts some firewood for them "just to be neighborly." The bears are his neighbors now, and he thinks that solves his Problem. End of Act Two.
Act Three is where the Person discovers not only that he hasn't solved the Problem but that it's even bigger than what he'd thought, and the Person's final attempt to solve the new Problem must result in Victory or Death. Here, Bobby's mother escapes from the hospice, and he finds her at the bear's fire. He solves the Problem by accepting the bears not just as neighbors but as family, all of them sitting together during his mother's last night on earth.
The Epilogue, then, is the part of the story where the Person gets their Validation, and here, it's when Bobby goes back to cut more wood for the bears after the state troopers have scattered the bear's stockpile and tells us "I could see the fire through the trees that night."
One of my all-time favorite short stories, and so much fun to read aloud on my radio show!
Mike
2183443 You sound like you know what you're talking about. "imperfect cooperating with otherness, about acceptance and harmony", you're onto something there. But why death? And how does his brother fit into it?
2183487 You can read the author's note & comments in my The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas ponyfic.
I'm usually a sucker for small stories with bigger things happening in the background, but it feels like 3 ok ideas smooshed together, and the author had the good sense not to do so forcefully or clumsily or lazily, but ended up not accomplishing a lot.
I read that story years ago in an anthology, and read it again recently when Lightspeed published it. The title, of course, always stuck with me, which is why I probably remember it at all. As a story I think... well, you were talking about this the other day. The difference between a story and a mere narrative. To me, Bears Discover Fire really lacked as a story. Yet it's won all these awards and such, so I was forced to consider why it does or doesn't work.
What I came up with on my own isn't much. Mostly, it felt like the literary equivalent of modern art. That is, an artist deliberately going against established modes and expectations, then claiming that rebellion itself as an art form. Ex: The white painting on white background, or that famous "song" 4'33" which is nothing but silence for four minutes and thirty three seconds. In a way, it almost feels like Bisson wrote this story on a dare... like some friend said "I bet I can come up with a topic that you couldn't possibly make boring!" So we end up with this great premise and title, and yet it has all the story taken out of it.
Maybe I'm looking at it wrong though, maybe it's not white on white, maybe it's a story in negative space. That is, the story exists in the holes where the words aren't. But again, to me, that's not a story, that's just intellectual shenanigans, of the kind I usually think should be left to the poets with their seemingly arbitrary restrictions on form, rhyme, and meter.
In summary, I find it an interesting read, but not "a good story." Same way I can look at canvas painted entirely by the artist's little toe, and go "hmmm..." but not really want it on my wall.
2185264 I find that hard to reconcile with my experience of Terry as a Kentucky boy who doesn't talk much and drinks whiskey straight from the bottle. I know he probably wasn't on the Kentucky side of the sixties, and he's been an activist leftist for decades, but it's still hard for me to picture him wearing a black beret and reciting bad poetry.
2185264
It always comes back to:
The oh-so-nebulous definition of "story." I've been meaning to post this on several of these blogs when BH is talking about what makes a story, but I'm flightier than a bag of budgies when it comes to non-fiction writing, so I keep forgetting to do it. But since I already brought it up when I outlined my view of "Bears Discover Fire" a few posts ago--
Here's the structural definition I've used for writing and selling stories over the past 25 years. It grew from my own studies of ancient Greek and Roman literature and got refined when I met Algis Budrys after a story of mine won 3rd place in the annual Writers of the Future contest back in 1990. His long out-of-print book "Writing to the Point" goes into all this in more detail, but essentially, it consists of these seven elements:
1) A Person
2) in a Place
3) with a Problem
4) the Person tries to solve the Problem and fails. That failure, though, reveals to the Person that the Problem is larger and more complex than the Person thought.
5) the Person tries to solve this new, larger Problem, fails again, and discovers in this 2nd attempt that the Problem is once again much larger and even more complex.
6) the Person tries a third and final time to solve the Problem and either succeeds or is destroyed.
7) Success brings a reward, and destruction brings a eulogy.
Now, this is real bare-bones stuff, and there's plenty of juggling, poking, and prodding a writer can do to it. And while Budrys used to get absolutely adamant about it, saying nothing that didn't use this structure could be considered a story, I've never had an opinion on that one way or the other. All I know is that I've found this little chart extremely helpful when I'm getting everything together before I start writing.
Mike
I think that was a joke, but I'm going to respond to it anyway. As I understand it, neither "science" nor "fiction" is a prerequisite for "science fiction". All science fiction has to do is make readers seriously consider what humans could become. That said, I think most people (including 2183443) are missing the main theme of the story, since acceptance (of death? strangeness?) is a personal thing, not a thing that can be attributed to an entire race. Maybe it is about harmony (with other intelligent species?), but I disagree with that too since harmony with the bears is achieved by exactly one person, and it doesn't seem like the story even tries to generalize that to the human race.
I think the story is more about the near-artificial distinction between "person" and "animal", and the typical human reactions to them/others/not-us. The story starts off with the main character being scared shitless of a bear, which I think is a sane reaction. But by the end, the same guy is trying to sit around with them, and the only difference is that bears are now sitting around fires. "I thought bears were dangerous, but they can't be that dangerous if they sit around fires." It's insane, but it seems perfectly natural. A thing that sits around fires must be a person, not an animal, therefore it can be reasoned with, and therefore it is not that dangerous.
There are various reactions to the bears, as seen in the news. Some people are just curious, some people are trying to come up with a Theory of Bears, some develop an animosity towards them, and some people are unphased. I think all of those are meant to inspire some reaction in the reader. It should be despicable that people still hunt bears, despite the fact that they sit around fires. It should be wrong of the kid to bring a gun to the campfire. It should be rude, maybe even "racist", for the troopers to scatter the firewood, and silly that people rely on technicalities in the law to protect bears. All of these things are meant to point a finger at the human race and say "there's something very wrong with us" while giving us the considerate mother to show us what we should be.
I haven't cross-checked this with anything Bisson might have said outside of this story.
2187353 It's a very useful structure. I wonder what Algis Budrys would have said about "Rogue Moon" by Algis Budrys, a story in which the protagonist tries over and over to solve a problem, then solves it, and then realizes to his great surprise that there is no reward, because it was a foolish problem to try to solve.
2185564 Heheh... Okay, fine, less an art-house, snobbish affair, and more a "Hold my beer and watch this..." of fiction. But in all seriousness, I don't mean to suggest I thought it was a deliberate sort of thing like that on the author's part, rather, just the result is something that feels like that to me.
2187353 That is... a curiously specific definition after item 4. Specifically the requirement for three attempts to fix said problem. I can completely imagine, for example, a problem that takes four tries and is still a story, or even one where the protagonist succeeds on attempt two. Maybe those are less-than-ideal stories, but I don't think it would change their fundamental nature as stories. Still, interesting requirements to ponder, so thanks!
2188015 2187353 Have you heard the one where a priest, a minister, a rabbi, and a mullah walk into a bar?
No, you haven't, because that would be 4, not 3.
The magic number 3 is a European thing. For southwest Native Americans, the number is 4. I think there's a culture somewhere for which the number is 2. But 3 is standard for stories and jokes in English.
2188061 I actually remember hearing something to that effect years ago, and just filed it under interesting trivia. Now I'm trying to remember where, because it got me thinking: Is that cultural bias based on aesthetics — is three "ideal" because it somehow "feels" best — or is it more connected to basic concepts of numeracy. Let me elaborate that second one.
You've probably all heard the one about how there's some culture or other whose counting system is literally translated as "one, two, many" (and I have a short story idea based on that as a bad pun) and actually lacks any concept for specific numbers above two. A related concept is that you basically don't have to count low numbers. They are unique concepts, as compared to larger numbers. If you see none of a thing, that's a unique case. If you see one of a thing, that's also a unique case. Two is still just a basic concept (a pair) and in many cases, so is three. Most people/cultures can look at three things, and you don't think of them in sequence, they all enter your conceptual space simultaneously.
However, it gets fuzzy above that. I think in western/european culture, this is at four. Four is somehow, conceptually, a non-unique concept. It's in the same class as five, six, seven, etc. If you look at four or more, it's either simply "a lot" or your brain subdivides/groups/counts it in some way. What I wonder is if, for the native culture Bad Horse mentioned, that conceptual/numerical "uniqueness" doesn't transition until after four, instead of our three. Or if four is just preferred because it's balanced, an even number, or for some other reason simply aesthetically preferable.
2188121 I don't know, but my impression, from reading Navajo stories, is that you gotta have a lot of time on your hands to listen to stories that use the number 4.
2187990
2188015
"Rogue Moon":
Is one of the reasons I don't play video games.
I can't seem to find my copy of whatever anthology I've got that has the story in it, but I'll bet it's got all seven points. And the "three times" thing goes all the way back to the ancient Greeks: a "tricolon crescendo," they called it. Budrys in his writing book says: "Why three times? Because anything less is unsatisfying, because anything more is redundant, because Aristotle and Lewis Carroll said that what I tell you three times is true."
Mike Again
It's not that bad of a story, but the sequels rather spoiled things.
"Rams Discover the Lever" and "Cardinals Discover the Wheel" lacked the same sense of wonder.
And "Packers Discover Domesticated Animals" just jumped the shark.
2187990
Based purely on that summary, I'd say the actual Problem there is the protagonist's own foolishness/stubbornness, not the problem he's trying to solve.
I read a story a couple weeks ago that made me think of this post. It was "A Question of Re-entry", by J. G. Ballard. It's a space-age/sci-fi story, but there's no space and little science in it, it's almost more of a mystery story. Written, and set, after Sputnik but before Apollo. It's got a failed manned spaceflight in it. But the whole thing's set in the amazon.
It feels to me like it's weird in the same kind of ways as Bears Discover Fire, so I thought I'd share.
I see the comments thread has grown massively since I looked at this last. I'll have to come through and read the rest of those sometime.
So, I found this from your blog index thingy, and found the story and discussion interesting. Here's my two cents...
I think this story works, as Applejinx said, because it's heavily thematic. I'd analyze it like this:
Each source of conflict is about change. Specifically, change from an old state of being or method to a new state or way of doing things. Consider:
Radials vs. Old style tires.
Hibernation vs. building fires, eating newberries.
Living in a retirement home, to camping with bears.
I think, through the way each of these fragments is handled, the story attempts to bring up nostalgia for the past and uncertainty of the future, and the different ways these can be addressed. Both of these themes are strong and universal; the story works (and works well) because it manages to bring these things up in a pleasant and deft manner. It contrasts blindly pushing forward technologically (Radial tires don't make you a more pleasant person) against the need for community (bears and fire.)
What's going on here, I think, is that the two sides are raised independently. Bears and tires don't directly interact, but they each represent a different half of the idea. Grandma and the narrator are the unifying threads; Grandma's interaction with the bears and her sons gives the story a feeling of movement and closure as she shifts from one side to the other. (Retirement home to visiting the bears.)
The story is about change. Since each source of conflict resonates with this, the story works even though each one is fairly muted; it's a cord of three strands, instead of one solid rope. It's the deft interplay of each thread that makes the whole satisfying, but tricky to analyze.
Anyways, that's what I think. Thanks for bringing this story to my attention! It was a fun read, especially since I live in Kentucky and drive this sort of road weekly. :D
3113484 You're onto something, but I'm not sure old vs. new is it, exactly. It felt more like country vs. city to me. That's not quite right either; a lot of country boys would love to shoot some bears. Maybe harmony / family / us vs. xenophobia / me / me.
The radial tires bugged me, because you're obviously supposed to root for the old guy saving his giant eyesore of a stack of old tires and patching them, when that's really stupid. You might as well complain about antibiotics. Radial tires are a clear 100% win that makes life safer & better and has no downside except that you can't make good sandals from them, which most of you probably weren't doing anyway.
I suspect that if you could dig an X vs. Y theme out of it, it would look trite and a little silly in the daylight.
2187608 Person vs. animal? Could be. I don't get that feeling, not as much as the "old ways vs. new ways" feeling.
2183443 Your comments made a lot of sense, esp. your observations about leaning heavily on the thematic. Thanks.