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.
Ryan, I completely agree with your third point you share about how unique Tim O'Brien's role in this novel is with himself being not only the author, but also sharing partially his own stories from the war. It gives these stories a sense of reality, causing the message of each to be set in bold text in every single story. I think that the main problem we face in Hollywood is the extreme disconnect from the writers of these war movie to the actual war itself. The writers have no true experience of war and therefore usually fall into the pit of romanticizing the war and creating a hero so that the movie has an uplifting ending. But, as O'Brien exposes, even if you do survive the war, it does not mean you are a hero. Perhaps this is why I was so shocked when I began to read this novel, because of how different the tone is.
ReplyDeleteIn this novel, Tim O'Brien does not hold back. The tone of this novel is very melancholy and dark, which was surprising to me at first because although I knew war was filled with death and terror, I was never actually exposed to the truth of how it affected those in it. O'Brien has been affected by the Vietnam War first hand, so these war stories are credible, as you stated. Tim O'Brien's many roles in this novel are crucial to the way these stores are told and how effectively messages are conveyed.