I don't know much about war. Sure, I've read All Quiet on the Western Front and Slaughterhouse Five and I've learned about WWI and WWII and the Korean War and the Vietnam War and I've heard about the Gulf War and the wars in Iraq and the war in Afghanistan... But I don't know much about war.
Okay, sure. So when I read O'Brien and he tells me that he's trying to convey some truths about war, regardless of the fact that The Things They Carried is a work of fiction, I accept it. He's a vet, he's been through these things, I'm sure he's just trying his best to represent the Vietnam War as what it felt like, from what he remembers. After all, maybe it seems too self-indulgent, or maybe it's too difficult, to write nonfiction about such experiences. So, I immerse myself in the book. I try to be receptive. I'm almost there with these characters and these places, almost feeling, almost believing. It's nice. Sometimes I'm emotional. I think I like the book.
Of course, O'Brien never forgets to remind us of this nebulous idea of truth, versus, say, reality, and how feelings and perceptions might play with actual facts when you're telling a story, and how paradoxes and contradictions are everywhere, and sometimes I find it a bit disruptive. Maybe it's because I'm lazy. If you tell me to believe you, I will, but I really don't appreciate you constantly calling into question if what you're saying is believable (it's kinda hard thinking about all of this!). Or, maybe it's just that I don't really understand what exactly O'Brien is trying to get at. Is he trying to prove a point about how truth is just what feels the most real? Is his purpose more making a distinction between story-truth and happening-truth, or sharing the Vietnam War? It's not super clear and I'm confused (and I don't really like being confused). Things seem a bit more clear during our class discussions, but when I'm thinking about these things on my own, I'm not sure where I'm supposed to go.
The Things They Carried starts off very well. I love the first story and feel deeply for the men, and especially Jimmy Cross. I enjoy the following ones as well. Our discussions in the classroom make me think about what I'm reading a bit more, but I'm not fazed or cynical about O'Brien's intentions or his representation of the war and the people. I guess what really changes things for me is finding out how the O'Brien's dear daughter Kathleen is actually a figment of his imagination. Maybe that sounds silly since it seems like such an inconsequential thing, but it seriously makes me reconsider my beliefs and what exactly I think O'Brien is doing. Kathleen ruins "Good Form" and "Field Trip" for me. I can't believe O'Brien would betray me like this. I give him my trust and I believe that he's earnest, even if not accurate, and he spins up this fictional daughter who serves only as a literary device. "Good Form" is supposed to be a heart-to-heart talk where we distance ourselves from story-truth for a while, and reflect, but it's not. I'm a much milder version of disgusted.
I'm at the end of the book. Perhaps I'll be able to get back into it. But in the back of my head, I know that it won't be the same. Once I've come to know something and accept it, I can't pretend otherwise. When I finish the last story, I'm unsatisfied. Linda, like Kathleen, ruins the story she's in. She doesn't fit here, in a book about truth. For one, you can't fool me into believing that 9 year olds know what real love is like! Unless, I guess, it's all relative and depends on your perception at that time and how you ruminate over those experiences and feelings over the years and decide that--see how O'Brien makes things so confusing?!
Parts of The Things They Carried are still profound, and I do find them true (or I'd like to convince myself that they are true). I can separate, for the most part, what I like (most of the characters and their humanity, sad or pleasant feelings) and dislike (some of the things O'Brien forces me to think about, Kathleen, Linda), and that's nice. I have enjoyed some of O'Brien's meta moments. Sometimes he sounds cool, and sometimes things really do click. Feeling alive is exhilarating, war is absurd, and facing certain truths, such as death, is really difficult. I wish I could elaborate more, but this blog post is really getting kinda long, and I'd like to reduce some things to platitudes or generalizations just to make O'Brien disappointed, because that's how he'll react as that's how I imagine he would react (see how being meta can be annoying? this totally is to prove a point and not because I'm getting tired of typing).
Would this book have the same effect on you if you had accepted the entire thing to be a work of fiction? That is, if you stopped thinking about Tim O'Brien as the writer and focused only on him as a character? What made some of these stories most powerful for me was how incredibly real the emotions were. Those would have been equally powerful I think, if the author's name was Bob Jones, because they felt so real, too real to be made up. As you said, O’Brien’s point seems to be that truth is just what feels the most real. When I read these stories I understood that these may be fictional characters and events, however I was grounded in the fact that they were rooted in an underlying truth. Like we talked about in class, the deaths in this book may not have really happened, but it’s hard to deny that the author has been deeply affected by death and portrays that through many of the stories.
ReplyDeleteThis frame of mind made it much easier for me to accept Kathleen and Linda as still critical parts of the story. When you take a step back and look at the entire collection you begin to realize just how incredibly complex and rather beautiful the composition is. It was almost a coming of age story. O’Brien even says “…I realize it is as Tim trying to save Timmy’s life with a story”. Timmy seems to be O’Brien’s pre-war self, his still child-like self, while Tim is the same fundamental person but now carrying his experiences from the war. The stories of Vietnam seemed to be O’Brien’s transformation between Timmy and Tim, since he went into the war a child and as he began to carry more experiences and memories, he lost his child-like self. A lot of people were put off by Linda in the ending, however I saw her as a plot device put in for the purpose of drawing a full-circle conclusion. Linda was an important part of Timmy so bringing her back seems to draw parallels between Timmy and Tim, showing that he is fundamentally still the same person but also highlighting the things he now carries.
The book wouldn't have had exactly the same effect on me, but I think I would have been just as moved by his stories and pretty much just as annoyed by his shoehorning in of Linda and Timmy at the end. Though, before we started discussing the whole truth/fiction thing in class, I was happily taking everything as real, despite the "a work of fiction" label. Maybe I just didn't really care to think more about it?
DeleteI agree that these stories really did make me feel something, and whether that was good or bad was pretty much a toss up. Obviously a lot of the class had strong feelings about O'Brien's use of deception, but in a weird way, I felt a sick sense of satisfaction when I felt completely invested in a story, and then watched as O'Brien ripped it apart before my very eyes. Good post!
ReplyDeleteI both agree and disagree with you. I think that O'Brien's manipulation of truth was absolutely necessary in giving us a real look into the experiences of a soldier. Secondhand experiences give us much less emotion and understanding than firsthand ones, so in order to give us even a fraction of what soldiers felt, O'Brien had to spice it up. I also believe that him forcing us to doubt his stories took away the sensationalism of his stories and helped us retain the emotions they invoked while throwing away the stories themselves. However, I do think that his telling us to doubt him was disruptive. If he had put a little note at the beginning and end, and maybe even in the middle, he would've gotten his point across just fine (and maybe even better). But eventually I think O'Brien muddied up his true goal and we didn't take away as much as we could have from his stories because our focus was screwed. This is a really engaging post; I dig it!
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