I really enjoyed Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried. Or, at least, I really wanted to.
There was a consensus in our class of feeling hurt and betrayed by the almost-nonfiction narrative O'Brien delivers. I guess I'm part of the mob. I'm mad at O'Brien, too. I'm not mad that he fudged the truth of his Vietnam experiences in a book of fiction. In almost every story, he tells us that we aren't reading factual information. What I'm mad about is that he didn't stick to the whole meaning of war stories that was pushed throughout the book.
O'Brien's Basic War Story consists of who, where, and what The Narrator saw. Usually, readers are left to figure out the meaning, if there was one at all. In "Spin," we are told that "What sticks to memory, often, are those odd little fragments that have no beginning and no end." These stories aren't supposed to have a structure. They're just moments. Memories. The narrator (who is named Tim O'Brien and 'wrote the book' but is, by now, clearly not the Tim O'Brien who sat at a typewriter to write the book and sell it) tells us in "How to Tell a True War Story," that the moral of a war story is not the point of the story. War stories aren't supposed to have a meaning. We aren't supposed to feel "uplifted." We aren't supposed to feel like we get it.
So why. Why. For what possible reason does he try to tie it all together in "The Lives of the Dead"? O'Brien goes on about "keeping the dead alive with stories," which... fine. Okay. But how are you gonna write an entire book about war stories having no meaning and then say "just kidding, I'm telling these because I want you to meet my friends, look there is a point." What I'm trying to say is that O'Brien goes to great lengths to tell us true war stories shouldn't have a clear ending. He contradicts himself in giving these stories a point.
Another inconsistency is O'Brien's willingness to let us understand. For most of the book, we get incredibly vivid descriptions of a situation without going too deep into the narrator's feelings, so we can almost feel like we're there. But we're also constantly reminded that war is an experience only relatable to people who fought in said war. We can't understand because we weren't there and we'll never be there. And Linda. Seeing the embalmed body of a kid who died of cancer doesn't seem even comparable to seeing the mutilated body of an old man with gnats and flies buzzing around his face. The bodies that the middle class, relatable, pre-war Tim O'Brien saw and the way he preserved those people in his mind feels like Tim trying to say, "Think back to the last wake you went to. You've seen a body. You know what I'm talking about." But, dude, we don't. I've seen plenty of bodies from the safety of a funeral home, but I've never smelled rotting flesh or seen someone's skin peeled back from their face.
Linda felt like an attempt to make me get an experience that I am not capable of getting. O'Brien told me I wasn't capable of getting it in "Spin" and "How to Tell a True War Story" and basically the whole book. I'm not mad that he lied about his daughter or Norman Bowker's existence. I'm mad that he lied about Narrator Tim's purpose in writing the book in the first place.
There was a consensus in our class of feeling hurt and betrayed by the almost-nonfiction narrative O'Brien delivers. I guess I'm part of the mob. I'm mad at O'Brien, too. I'm not mad that he fudged the truth of his Vietnam experiences in a book of fiction. In almost every story, he tells us that we aren't reading factual information. What I'm mad about is that he didn't stick to the whole meaning of war stories that was pushed throughout the book.
O'Brien's Basic War Story consists of who, where, and what The Narrator saw. Usually, readers are left to figure out the meaning, if there was one at all. In "Spin," we are told that "What sticks to memory, often, are those odd little fragments that have no beginning and no end." These stories aren't supposed to have a structure. They're just moments. Memories. The narrator (who is named Tim O'Brien and 'wrote the book' but is, by now, clearly not the Tim O'Brien who sat at a typewriter to write the book and sell it) tells us in "How to Tell a True War Story," that the moral of a war story is not the point of the story. War stories aren't supposed to have a meaning. We aren't supposed to feel "uplifted." We aren't supposed to feel like we get it.
So why. Why. For what possible reason does he try to tie it all together in "The Lives of the Dead"? O'Brien goes on about "keeping the dead alive with stories," which... fine. Okay. But how are you gonna write an entire book about war stories having no meaning and then say "just kidding, I'm telling these because I want you to meet my friends, look there is a point." What I'm trying to say is that O'Brien goes to great lengths to tell us true war stories shouldn't have a clear ending. He contradicts himself in giving these stories a point.
Another inconsistency is O'Brien's willingness to let us understand. For most of the book, we get incredibly vivid descriptions of a situation without going too deep into the narrator's feelings, so we can almost feel like we're there. But we're also constantly reminded that war is an experience only relatable to people who fought in said war. We can't understand because we weren't there and we'll never be there. And Linda. Seeing the embalmed body of a kid who died of cancer doesn't seem even comparable to seeing the mutilated body of an old man with gnats and flies buzzing around his face. The bodies that the middle class, relatable, pre-war Tim O'Brien saw and the way he preserved those people in his mind feels like Tim trying to say, "Think back to the last wake you went to. You've seen a body. You know what I'm talking about." But, dude, we don't. I've seen plenty of bodies from the safety of a funeral home, but I've never smelled rotting flesh or seen someone's skin peeled back from their face.
Linda felt like an attempt to make me get an experience that I am not capable of getting. O'Brien told me I wasn't capable of getting it in "Spin" and "How to Tell a True War Story" and basically the whole book. I'm not mad that he lied about his daughter or Norman Bowker's existence. I'm mad that he lied about Narrator Tim's purpose in writing the book in the first place.
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