Why do we continue to desire the factual truth when it can't be ascertained? Readers are relentless in their search for truths. I was reminded of this near the end of our class discussion today when the ending was “spoiled” for us. In the chapter entitled “Good Form”, we are initially led to be believe that Tim O'Brien, the real author, is going to set aside his jumble of truth and fiction to present the reader with the “real” facts. Not surprisingly, most of us, including me, fell for this ploy. This one paragraph where we, as readers, believe we will actually be given some reliable information seems to be such a believable relief that we latch on.
Of course, O'Brien gives us no such relief. We are still as unsure as we were on the first page. What I find interesting about this is that we so desperately want the absolute truth from O'Brien, even after he was spent almost 200 pages and the majority of the book telling us this is not possible or even true. A true war story is never true yet we can't just accept this and move on, probably because a true war story is flooded with contradictions. O'Brien reminds us of these contradictions at the end of “Good Form.”
““Daddy, tell the truth,” Kathleen can say, “did you ever kill anybody?” And I can say, honestly, “Of course not.” Or I can say, honestly, “Yes.””
These sentences really pack a lot of meaning. I think there placement just after the trickery I described above is O'Brien's way of making sure that the readers who were tricked at the beginning of the chapter understand that this book doesn't contain the sort of truth that is either yes or no. These truths are driven by emotion and storytelling. They allow the reader to feel grief, love, and pity.
And so if the question is whether O'Brien killed a man or not, the answer is yes or no depending if you want the emotional truth or the “happening” truth.
What I find particularly insightful about this blog entry is the way that you distinguish between different types of truths, with "factual" truth, emotional truth.... truths without yes or no answers. So far in this class we've been eager to say that the line between truth and lies is blurred ... but the line between two different TRUTHS, I think, is the more important matter.
ReplyDeleteThe situation you describe about reading the "Good Form" chapter is the reader wanting to construct their own truths while being uncomfortable, because we don't know where the narrator's truth is. The thing is, though, O'Brien deliberately shows us here the that the truth doesn't have to be what happened, and the narrator himself might not be sure what is the truth.
What I mean is, the narrator's truth is only one angle to a million-angled.... a trillion-angled situation. Lots of those angles contradict each other, but that doesn't mean that any are lies. They all offer some brief glimpse into who we are, and one could argue that in order to even remotely understand the most important things about humanity, you have to get used to a lot of paradoxes.
So does it matter whether the narrator tells us the "happening" truth? Do we have to know where the narrator stands? It is intriguing to guess at, I know, but I think the most important thing about this piece is not that it presents thought but that it provides a framework where readers can think and construct new truths for themselves.
This even happens within the story. The narrator tells us stories by telling about other people telling them, and you get the impression that how the narrator presents them and how the original person presents them are not quite the same. The retelling constructs something new. There's something different -- someone else's mind has played with these stories before presenting them back out to the world.
A new truth is born, and the framework of the story passes on to the next person, who can then use it to construct something else.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteChris, I think your point about “Good Form” bringing us back to page one and reminding us that none of the stories are true (which therefore perpetuates our uncertainty), is a great one. This uncertainty has many forms; whether we can trust the author, if we can trust stories, emotions, or even if we can trust our own judgment of what is true. Like you, when I read I’m always seeking out some sort of truth, something that I can gain from the reading. What I seek to gain may differ depending on my purpose for reading, and probably differs from what others may want to gain from the book. When reading for an assignment, I tend to search for what you describe as “happening truth.” When I read for pleasure though, I want to be taken in by the story, usually through characters and their relationships and emotions. Therefore the truth I seek is emotional. I don’t claim that these truths stand on their own; in fact there are both “happening” truths and emotional truths in any story. It is just up to the reader to decide which they value more.
ReplyDeleteThe importance of the blurred line between two different TRUTHS that Emma brings up reflects our agitation about finding the ultimate truth. The two different truths that can be ascertained are dependent on the individual; we get out of the story out what we want to, and like Emma says, this can lead to millions of truths, each interpreted differently. However, as readers, we tend to place the author or narrator’s interpretation above our own, when really it is just another one of the millions of possible truths. We value their interpretation as the correct one, so when the narrator proves untrustworthy, as O’Brien does, we become very uncertain. I would argue then that we don’t need to be uncertain; we should place value on our own interpretation of the truth, and allow the author’s interpretation only to subtly guide us without over analyzing it, or letting it dictate or constrain us.