Simplicity and Its Failures

This flow traces Hank’s reliance on Occam’s razor and the moments when simple explanations fail to account for emotion, coincidence, and responsibility.

increasingBearing stren­gth in each eventdecreasing

A Razor for Rumors

The Simplest Prediction Hank’s Reasoning Hank dismisses the threatened faculty purge because similar rumors have appeared in previous Aprils without producing mass firings. He trusts the simplest explanation: the institution will tighten its belt again. A Real Threat Beneath the Pattern This year’s rumors persist, and administrators are preparing actual reduction plans. A principle that helps Hank reject needless speculation cannot guarantee that familiar outcomes will repeat.

The School of Simple Causes

What Caused What A Chain of Decisions Hank links the house to the land purchase, the English Department’s move into Allegheny Wells, and his feud with Paul Rourke. He wonders whether distant causes shape people more than immediate provocations do. A Story Made in Hindsight The explanation gives Hank a sense of order, but he cannot test every link. His own account reveals how easily a search for simplicity becomes a complex narrative about responsibility.

The Stone That Is Not There

A Diagnosis Resists Medical Evidence Phil Watson finds no urinary stone on the X-ray and proposes other explanations for Hank’s symptoms, including an enlarged prostate, a tumor, or stress. Hank’s Preferred Answer Hank keeps imagining a stone because it connects his symptoms to family history and gives the crisis a concrete cause. Watson’s simpler medical explanation may fit the facts, but it does not satisfy Hank’s need for meaning.

The Goose and the Dog

Two Deaths, Different Causes A Public Assumption Hank’s threat makes everyone suspect him when a goose is killed and hung on campus. The bird’s death and the threat share public timing, but not a single simple cause. A Separate Accident Occam later dies in Finny’s car, while Angelo explains that the goose was killed during his own confrontation. Facts can be assembled, yet their human meaning remains more complicated than the first explanation offered.

A Small Plink of Meaning

Symbol and Matter Hank’s Conviction Hank remembers hearing a small plink during his first unrestricted urination and imagines he passed a stone. Phil Watson insists that a stone large enough to make the sound could not have passed through the ureter. An Unresolved Reconciliation Hank accepts that the medical worlds of symbol and matter may be different while keeping his private interpretation. The final joke does not settle which account is true; it shows how people need meanings beyond diagnoses.

early April, during Teddy’s warning

early April, after Hank studies Julie’s unfinished house

late in Part Two, during Hank’s medical examination

near the ending, when the goose and Occam’s deaths are explained

during the summer medical follow-up