I find parts of this book to be enjoyable, though like someone else posted, I'm definitely not a fan of war. I also have to admit, I kind of picture Forrest Gump in all of these scenes, because that's where I learned everything I know about Vietnam. That's probably not good because nothing in the movie was true, but does it matter?? Everyone agrees - it is a GREAT movie. There's even a lot of parallels, but maybe that's just how Nam stories go. There's the girl at home who never loved the soldier the same way he loved her (Jenny and Martha), the soldier later recounts his stories to whoever wants to listen (the whole movie and this whole book), the soldier watches his best friend die.... But like I said, most war stories probably go like that. But Forrest Gump wasn't a war story; it was a love story.
I also think Tim O'Brien wrote this book somehow knowing that a class would someday be created called "Truth, Lies and Literature," in which students would decide whether or not they need to differentiate fact from fiction. He plays with the idea incessantly, putting "Tim O'Brien" as the narrator, dedicating the book to his "fake" war buddies, and rambling for 30 pages or so about truth vs. lies and how to tell a "true" war story. He just plays with our minds, proving for sure (at least to me) that it does not matter if it's true or not. I just don't care anymore. "Almost everything is true. Almost nothing is true" (p. 81). "The truths are contradictory" (p. 80). And on page 83, he points out how the listener or reader would "feel cheated if it never happened." Is that why he refuses to tell is whether or not it's true?
At this point, as long as he just tells a story without contradicting himself about its authenticity, I'll be happy to read it whether it happened or not.
"There's even a lot of parallels, but maybe that's just how Nam stories go." This quote from your post above reads as if it could've come from O'Brien himself! Perhaps this is, in part, what he is attempting to communicate: war stories are all the same--more or less--because they get you in the "stomach." And the closing of your first paragraph above directly echoes O'Brien, yes? That all war stories are, in fact (!), love stories... love stories of what is carried and what is lost.
ReplyDeleteWhat I found most interesting, however, was the contradiction of your "I don't care" attitude toward the truth/lie of O'Brien's text and the need for a stable ground from which to determine authenticity. It is difficult to escape our own trappings as a reader, huh!