The Case of Norman Bowker

          I found the story Speaking of Courage a fascinating examination of a soldier that feels that his life is empty and worthless after the war.  It juxtaposes well against Field Trip, the story where O'brein returns to the field where Kiowa died to bring closure to his war.  Norman Bowker is incapable of closing his war story.  He just keeps driving in circles, around the same lake, seeing the same sights and thinking many of the same thoughts.  O'Brein writes the chapter in a way to parallel Bowker's wandering mind.  The writing jumps around from one topic to another as Bowker's severely bored mind drags him deeper into depression.  Bowker's thoughts go from remembering the war to observing a woman fishing along the lake's shore.  Bowker has a strange conversation with a fast food worker over the intercom as Bowker wants to vent a war story to him, but then decides against it.  At the end, when Bowker wades into the lake, it seems as if he might be trying to be at peace and is trying to readjust to civilian life.  However, as it is revelead at the beginning of the next chapter, Bowker commits suicide as he can't deal with the damage that the war did to him.  It is clear throughout the chapter that Bowker is spiraling into insanity and a deep depression.  At the first hints of Bowker's strange behaviors and jumbled thoughts, I thought that he was going to commit suicide.  I think O'Brein did a fantastic job of foreshadowing this as he builds upon it throughout the chapter.  While I enjoyed the chapter and thought it was very well written, it is a sad and all too true story of a soldier driven to depression and eventually suicide by the war.

Tim and Kathleen on a Field Trip

          I enjoyed the story Field Trip in O'brien's Vietnam war collection.  I found it a fascinating take on how soliders are affected by the war and how they deal with the war many years after its conclusion.  Compared with Norman Bowker, it seems that O'Brien is beginning to cope with the war well.  He decides to make peace with his experience along the Song Tra Bong river by wading out to where Kiowa went under.  The place that had brought him so much pain, horror and bad memories had suddenly become a place of peace.  It became a place where O'Brien could wade into the water and just sit in the warm stinking mud and not be bothered by it.  He recognizes that the war is over.  Not only does he recognize that the war is over, but he recognizes that his internal war, at least with Kiowa's death, is over.

          The second powerful moment in this chapter is when O'Brien wades out of the water and an old  Vietnamese man is looking at him.  Kathleen says, "He looks mad."  Despite Kathleen's evaluation, O'Brien says that he isn't mad and reassures Kathleen that everything is okay.  He finishes the chapter with a powerful line saying, "No, all that's finished."  O'Brien is saying that the war is over between him and that man and symbolical between America and the Vietnamese.  He is laying the war to rest once and for all for himself and his country.  This moment was a powerful one as it explores how long it takes for a solider to lay the war to rest and how it takes returning to a place filled with bad memories to finally bring closure.

Elroy Is Such A Great Guy

          My favorite story thus far has undoubtedly been On the Rainy River.  No, it is not just my favorite story because it has fishing in it, although that doesn't hurt its standings in my mind.  My favorite character thus far has been Elroy, coincidentally featured in my favorite story.  Elroy is my favorite character for many reasons.  First off, I can't get over how nice this guy is.  Without asking questions, he took in this young man who he immediately identified was distraught and needed help.  Also without asking, he helped that young man get what he needed, which was to think over his life and have a wise voice helping him think over his life.  One of the most valuble things that Elroy gave O'brien was actually nothing at all.  Elroy would give O'brien his silence.  Whenever O'brien needed to be alone in his own thoughts or needed to just talk things out, Elroy would listen or act like he didnt even notice O'brien's presence.  Elroy was nurturing when he needed to be and let O'brien alone and let O'brien grow up, be a man and figure things out for himself when he needed to.  Elroy must have the highest emotional intelligence of all people for the way that he managed O'brien's stay.  Elroy always knew what to do and what to say in every situation.  The thing that capped of Elroy's amazingness was by giving O'brien money after his stay.  O'brien really owed Elroy for not only room and board but for everything that Elroy helped him with, but Elroy insisted that O'brien had earned the money for the work that he had done for the lodge.  Elroy's kindness is not a normal level of kindness, it is an extraordinary level of kindness.

          The second reason that I like Elroy is becuase he reminds me of my Granddad.  They are both old.  They both like the outdoors and like to fish.  They both hail from a northern state that starts with "M", my Granddad is from Maine.  Most of all, they have similar personality traits.  My Granddad is a very kind and selfless person, characteristics that Elroy displays many times.  They both display a level of caring for a young man in their life, a caring that I thank my Granddad for and a caring that O'brien thanked Elroy for by leaving him $200.  They both are good listeners as my Granddad could listen to me for hours prattle on about fishing or any other topic and Elroy listened to O'brien's issues about his getting drafted.  Finally, they both are good role models as my Granddad is certainly someone who I look up to and I think that to a degree O'brien looked up to Elroy.  Elroy certainly is a great guy and his similarities to my Granddad only helped his standings in my mind.  

First Impressions on The Things They Carried

          Thus far, The Things They Carried has been very good.  O'brien's writing style is certainly unique, with his almost excessive use of lists, allowing him to describe war in a way other authors haven't before.  I think that O'brien's depiction of the war in Vietnam is powerful and compelling.  He is not afraid to show the brutal things in war and he really delves deep into the emotional toll that the war took on the soldiers.  His stories of the horrible dehumanizing acts that the soldiers pulled, Jimmy Cross' obsession with Martha and a host of other things provide great examples of the emotional baggage that the soldiers carry and some of the vices they use to try and combat it.
         
          Another thing that I like about the book is that the short stories are linked a lot more so than the short stories were linked in The Thing Around Your Neck.  For example, the characters are the same from story to story and there is a sense of the passage of time as opposed to the random snapshots found in The Thing Around Your Neck that were linked merely by theme.  This makes the overall collection more enjoyable, for me, and it also makes the characters and storylines more memorable and easier to follow.

          A third thing that I am enjoying about the novel is that it is written from the perspective of a character who is a Vietnam veteran and writer named Tim Obrien.  I find it very interesting that the real life author O'brien chose this character as his narrorator.  I think this makes the stories more powerful as while they may not be true, they seem all the more believable because the author almost seems to be writing an autobiography.  I think it is very important to the collection and to the credibility of the stories being at least very plausible that O'brein, the real life author, is a veteran of Vietnam.  This allows him to give the real story of the war and not a story from an outsider or even an outsider who interviewed several veterans.  Things can be lost in assumptions and translation in those two scenarios and O'brien is able to give the raw truth.

If Only She Had Written More

One thing that I disliked about The Thing Around Your Neck was the fact that none of the stories had a concrete ending.  Many of them had abrupt and awkward endings.  I assume Adichie's intention was to provide brief snapshots into her characters lives and she did a very good job of this.  However, I was always looking for more at the end of each story.  None of them provided me with closure.  I think in future writing, Adichie should expand upon the ideas of some of the short stories.  For example, she could continue the story The Thing Around Your Neck.  It would be interesting to see where the woman went next.  Whether she would continue to send money home, whether she would pursue a new relationship, whether she would just go home to Africa.  These are just a few of the questions left in my head after reading that story.  If she expanded upon these and made a longer story with a concrete ending that provided closure, I think it would be a fantastic novel that examined even closer what African immigrants experience when coming to America.

The Thing Around Your Neck After Class Discussions

Now that we have had some class discussions regarding The Thing Around Your Neck, I have a slightly different view on the book.  I didn't like it much before, but I like it better now.  I think that this happens with most books that we discuss in school as discussion and insights that classmates give, enhance our understanding of the book and subsequently our enjoyment of the book.  Our discussion on the short story The Thing Around Your Neck was especially informative as we brought up several ideas that I didn't initially think of.  The main thing was the examination of how much of Adichie seemed to care about this story.  She truly seemed to care the most about this story as she seemed to express how she feels about the challenges African immigrants face when they come to America.  Her passion came through in a critical tone and this story was the only one I recall that had such a critical tone.  If had to rate the book on a five point scale, initially I would have given it a 2 out of 5.  After our class discussions I would rate the book 3.5-4 out of 5 as the things we discussed that Adichie wrote about added more depth to her stories.