I thought the chapter “How to Tell a True War
Story” in The Things They Carried had
many similarities to Cat’s Cradle. Just
like during Cat’s Cradle, I found myself
reading about stories within stories and trying to solve the never ending
puzzle of “what is the author actually referring to?” In this chapter, O’Brien
discusses qualities of a true war story. At first, it seemed as though he was
explaining why his war stories are definitely true. However, this is confusing
because as a reader I knew before even opening the book that this is a work of
fiction. I found myself wondering if O’Brien used this particular chapter, which is a story of its own, to
discuss the truth in all of his other stories. It becomes even
more confusing because he is talking about the idea of true war stories during a war story,
which reminds me of the confusion we found in Cat’s Cradle while reading about books within books.
O’Brien wrote later in the chapter
that “in any war story, but especially a true one, it’s difficult to separate
what happened from what seemed the happen.” This implies, similarly to what
have discussed in class, that “truth” might not be one definite thing. That
line in the chapter shows that O’Brien believes stories can have events that
didn’t definitely happen, but the story can still be true. This brings us back
to the question of, what is truth and what makes a war story true or not true? O’Brien
wrote on page 80 that “a thing may happen and be a total lie; another thing may
not happen and be truer than the truth.” Can something be true without ever
happening? Maybe the truth in a war story comes less from what
actually happened and more from the way the story makes people feel. However, the
concept of something being true without ever actually happening is definitely hard to wrap your mind around.
I think you bring up a really important point here, and one that O'Brien clearly tries to convey to his readers. The truth may not be one definite thing, which we, as readers, find very difficult to grapple with, as we usually have the strong desire to anchor ourselves to a concrete truth. In response to your question about what makes a war story true or not true, I think O'Brien is trying to get the message across that a true war story is actually a lie. He says that a true war story must have no moral, it cannot be believed, it's never absolutely true, and it doesn't generalize. So how can a war story be true? Furthermore, you can tell war stories, but you can never actually talk about the war. The stories he tells might be true in the sense that they are stories, but not in the sense that they actually took place.
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