: Can a book be written without an antagonist? I have had this thought running through my head and wondered what your thoughts were on it. Can a book, a story I should say, be written without an antagonist or antagonistic

The question can a book be written without an antagonist
My first thought was- yeah probably, but it won't be good if you're not an expert level writer
other people said- HELL NO! A story/book can't exist without SOME form of conflict or antagonist.
I dunno, man. 3 themes of conflict: man against man, man against nature, or man against self. Every single story has a conflict in it? Seems like a stretch.

Once upon a time. Not much happened. People did some stuff. Life went on. Everything eventually turned to dust. The end. (it's not entertaining, but is not a boring story still a story? And a good writer could probably make even that entertaining)

OK some of these examples below contain conflict, but I think some of them do not
These are books where "nothing happens"
If someone was trying to do a book without conflict- these might help. i dunno.

A Rebours aka Against Nature by J-K Huysmans is a book with no plot, it's really just a long description of the main character's taste in art, books, and interior decorating.

Room Temperature in which a man feeds his infant son and Box of Matches in which a man sits in front of the fire each morning before his family awakens, both by Nicholson Baker.

Beckett's Waiting for Godot is considered to be literally about "nothing". You might prefer to watch the play in addition to reading it. Its very different from anything I've read before and its quite short so it's hardly a commitment. But still, very interesting. I still think about it randomly every once in a while even though I read it years ago.

Stoner by John Williams. (maybe about a dude that gets high)

Catcher in the Rye. I've always considered it a book where nothing happens (Not sure if it counts. this might be man against self)

On The Road by Jack Kerouac, one of my favourite Beat books and about as chill as you can get without being boring. Also pretty much any Murakami book- try Colourless Tsukuru Taziki

The Slow Regard of Silent Things, by Patrick Rothfuss. Literally nothing happens and the main character is basically a nutter; from the preface by the author:
You might not want to buy this book. I know, that’s not the sort of thing an author is supposed to say. The marketing people aren’t going to like this. My editor is going to have a fit. But I’d rather be honest with you right out of the gate. I think it’s only fair to warn you that this is a bit of a strange story. I don’t go in for spoilers, but suffice to say that this one is ... different. It doesn’t do a lot of the things a classic story is supposed to do.

Although there's different events happening in Tao Lin's Taipei, it really feels like nothing important is going on.

Shopgirl (Steve Martin)

The slow regard of silent things (rothfuss)

A gesture life by Chang ray lee was very very chill.

Greensleeves, by Eloise Jarvis McGraw might fit the bill.

"Wherever You Go, There You Are", by Kabat-Zinn. It's a book on mindfulness, which is literally the philosophy of being "chill".

I'd recommend Island by Aldous Huxley. Pretty much nothing happens until the end, and it's a very chill book about a chill way of life.

Franny and Zooey by JD Salinger

The tartar steppe by Dino Buzzati, nothing happens but after reading it i felt really changed. Beautifully written.

You might like Less Than Zero by Bret Easton Ellis.

I think it's Flaubert who famously wanted to write 'a book about nothing at all'. For that, try Sentimental Education or Madame Bovary.

A lot of Anne Tyler's novels leave me with the feeling that not very much happened, apart from the characters learning things about themselves. And sometimes each other.

And, this might be my bias against a novel I had to read, but did anything happen in the second half of The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James? Anything at all?

White Noise, by Don DeLillo.

Anne of Green Gables

So little happens in Bartleby & Co that there isn't even a book, just the footnotes that would exist if there were a book. It's about writers who stopped writing.

I believe that nothing really happens in "Cider with Rosie" by Laurie Lee, however his descriptions of everyday things and life are wonderful.

The Windup bird chronicle by Haruki Murakami. Midway through I thought something was going to happen but no. Nothing happened.

Ham on Rye by Charles Bukowski (probably a book about a dude making a sandwich- someone might argue that the conflict was that he was hungry. but he wasn't- he was going for thirds (somebody might argue that the conflict was still in there, but I think the author just wanted to write about the sandwich making process))

(The conflict in this one is probably Man against Himself so it probably doesn't count) Oblomov by Ivan Goncharov, 1859. From the wiki: "Oblomov is a young, generous nobleman who seems incapable of making important decisions or undertaking any significant actions. Throughout the novel he rarely leaves his room or bed. In the first 50 pages, he manages only to move from his bed to a chair."
(But imagine a version of him that isn't incapable-he just doesn't care. That would be basically the same story and there'd be no conflict. of course the ending would probably be different if he never changes or improves himself)

Life: A User's Manual by Georges Perec is about just that. A moment in the life of an apartment building where a man is trying to spend a lifetime and a fortune with nothing to show for it. Tons of things don't happen all at once. (the conflict in this one is probably man against himself, but imagine a similar character who just has a fortune and is spending it with no worries like that)

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I know this is years late, but I disagree that books must have conflict and an antagonist to be interesting.

One type of book that seems relevant to this question is one that paints a picture of a time and place; the people living in a location and their relationships with each other. These relationships don't have to result in major conflict to be interesting, and I think the mood created by these books is special. I'd also argue that it two minor characters don't get along, that doesn't make one of them the antagonist of the whole book. I'm thinking of books like The Country of Pointed Firs by Sarah Orne Jewett and The Summer Book by Tove Jansson. In The Country of Pointed Firs, the protagonist is an author who takes up lodging in a country town with the goal of getting some work done. No one interferes with this goal, and the book itself is a series of vignettes about the people of the town and how they live. Similarly, The Summer Book is a series of stories about the summer vacation of a small girl and her grandmother. I might classify Trout Fishing in America by Richard Brautigan in this group as well. It certainly evokes the attitude of a time and a place, but I'm not sure I could tell you who or what the antagonist of this book is.

Another type of book that might fit the idea of exploring what Judeo-Christian Heaven would look like is the travelogue. Describing the physical journey of the protagonist can be interesting and even full of adventure without being antagonistic. Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K. Jerome has plenty of comic mishaps, but I don't think I'd be able to point to an antagonist. Even something like The Towers of Trebizond by Rose Macauley might fit this. There are some conflicts during the travels, but most of the character growth is the narrator introspecting on events in their recent past. One might count this as self-antagonistic, but I also think you could argue this isn't so much conflict as just taking the time necessary to sort through some mental baggage. I guess having the character reflect on past antagonism and grow from that is a bit of a cheat, but one that might work for a book set in heaven. (Admittedly it has been a while since I read the Towers of Trebizond, so I might be misremembering it a bit.)

Finally, I think it is possible for a book to create a relationship between two characters that isn't necessarily one of conflict, but which can be interesting and lead to character growth. Tove Jansson has another book that fits this category: Fair Play. This is about two women who have been friends for years, and how they both live, relate to one another, and get on with their creative endeavors. Their relationship isn't all flowers and sunshine, and they do have disagreements, but they don't interfere with each other's main goals, so I don't know that I'd feel comfortable calling them antagonists.

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