"The second reason I told you this story is that none of it's true. Or very little of it. It's - invented. No Ellroy, no Tip-Top Lodge, no pig factory, I'm trying to think of what else. I've never been to the Rainy River in my life. Uh, not even close to it. I haven't been within two hundred miles of the place. No boats. But, although the story I invented, it's still true, which is what fiction is all about. Uh, if I were to tell you the literal truth of what happened to me in the summer of nineteen sixty-eight, all I could tell you was that I played golf, and I worried about getting drafted. But that's a crappy story. Isn't it?"
--Tim O'Brien, President's Lecture, 21 April 1999
This quote is from a lecture that O'Brien gave at Brown about The Things They Carried. You can read the rest of the interview here: http://www.stg.brown.edu/projects/WritingVietnam/obrien.html. This quote jarred me when I first read it. If I had to pick one story from the book that was factual, I would have picked On the Rainy River. It's so full of sickening tension -- the scene where O'Brien looks across the river and becomes paralyzed by his decision -- that part made my stomach turn. It was as painful and moving as the death of Curt Lemon/Baby Buffalo, even though there was no death and no violence.
I was initially upset when I read that the Rainy River story was made up -- this beautiful, melancholy passage -- just a lie. But really, it's not at all a lie. It's more true than the actual events. There's not way to show the gut wrenching anxiety about that summer with the 'truth.' That would have sounded like he only momentarily considered being drafted -- then went back to his strawberry milkshake.
O'Brien is not concerned with what actually happened. He's concerned with conveying the truth about how it makes you feel. And that's where making a story up comes in.
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Feelings speak louder than facts. If O'Brien told the truth about the details, he would be lying about the emotions.
Couldn't agree more. It goes back to what O'Brien says about "making the stomach believe." There are things that we know or do without using those excellent reasoning skills our species is so proud of. When I'm trying to make a decision, I rely on those subconscious feelings when my reasoning can't take me any further. For example, when I was touring colleges as a junior and senior in high school, I couldn't understand why some schools that looked and sounded great could leave me with such an overwhelming certainty of "Nah, this isn't the one" (and nice versa). Those kinds of "gut feelings" turned out to be important--that's how I ended up here.
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