How a summary misses the point.

7. How to tell a True War Story

Rat Killey, the medic writes to a friend’s sister about the death of her brother. The narrator keeps pointing out the ways to tell that this is a true story. His friend was playing catch with Rat, and stepped to the side coming down on a mine. He goes into great detail about the gore of the accident, then says that the story is fake.

From Reader’s guide

1. Why is the first story, "The Things They Carried," written in third person? How does this serve to introduce the rest of the novel? What effect did it have on your experience of the novel when O'Brien switched to first person, and you realized the narrator was one of the soldiers?

2. In the list of all the things the soldiers carried, what item was most surprising? Which item did you find most evocative of the war? Which items stay with you?

3. In "On The Rainy River," we learn the 21-year-old O'Brien's theory of courage: "Courage, I seemed to think, comes to us in finite quantities, like an inheritance, and by being frugal and stashing it away and letting it earn interest, we steadily increase our moral capital in preparation for that day when the account must be drawn down. It was a comforting theory." What might the 43-year-old O'Brien's theory of courage be? Were you surprised when he described his entry into the Vietnam War as an act of cowardice? Do you agree that a person could enter a war as an act of cowardice?

4. What is the role of shame in the lives of these soldiers? Does it drive them to acts of heroism, or stupidity? Or both? What is the relationship between shame and courage, according to O'Brien?

5. Often, in the course of his stories, O'Brien tells us beforehand whether or not the story will have a happy or tragic ending. Why might he do so? How does it affect your attitude towards the narrator?

6. According to O'Brien, how do you tell a true war story? What does he mean when he says that true war stories are never about war? What does he mean when he writes of one story, "That's a true story that never happened"?

7. In "Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong," what transforms Mary Anne into a predatory killer? Does it matter that Mary Anne is a woman? How so? What does the story tell us about the nature of the Vietnam War?

8. The story Rat tells in "Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong" is highly fantastical. Does its lack of believability make it any less compelling? Do you believe it? Does it fit O'Brien's criteria for a true war story?

9. Aside from "The Things They Carried," "Speaking of Courage" is the only other story written in third person. Why are these stories set apart in this manner? What does the author achieve by doing so?

10. What is the effect of "Notes," in which O'Brien explains the story behind "Speaking Of Courage"? Does your appreciation of the story change when you learn which parts are "true" and which are the author's invention?

11. In "In The Field," O'Brien writes, "When a man died, there had to be blame." What does this mandate do to the men of O'Brien's company? Are they justified in thinking themselves at fault? How do they cope with their own feelings of culpability?

12. In "Good Form," O'Brien casts doubt on the veracity of the entire novel. Why does he do so? Does it make you more or less interested in the novel? Does it increase or decrease your understanding? What is the difference between "happening-truth" and "story-truth?"

13. On the copyright page of the novel appears the following: "This is a work of fiction. Except for a few details regarding the author's own life, all the incidents, names, and characters are imaginary." How does this statement affect your reading of the novel?

14. Does your opinion of O'Brien change throughout the course of the novel? How so? How do you feel about his actions in "The Ghost Soldiers"?

Todd Pierce - Introduction to Short Fiction

"The Things They Carried"

(1) In what sense does Jimmy love Martha? Why does he construct this elaborate (mostly fictional) relationship with her? What does he get out of it?

(2) When is he most likely to think about her? Why is he thinking about her while one of his platoon members is in the tunnel?

(3) In what sense is Ted Lavender's death his fault?

(4) Here is his excuse for allowing his men to be lax: "He was just a kid at war, in love." Why does Jimmy use this excuse? In what sense does it excuse him? In what sense, doesn't it?

(5) Why do the soldiers tell jokes about the war, about killing?

(6) How is the idea of weight used and developed in this story ("Jungle boots, 2.1 pounds")? How do you, as a reader, feel reading those lists of weight? What effect does it have on you?

(7) If this is a story about sacrifice, what does Jimmy sacrifice, and why?

(8) How has Jimmy changed by the end of the story? How will he be a different person from this point on? What has he learned about himself? Or to put it another way, what has he lost and what has he gained?

(9) Do you think the war will effect him in a different way now that he refuses to think about Martha? How will it be different? What did "Martha" save him from?

"On a Rainy River"

(1) How do the opening sentences prepare you for the story: "This is one story I've never told before. Not to anyone"? What effect do they have on you, as a reader?

(2) Why does O'Brien relate his experience as a pig declotter? How does this information contribute to the story? Why go into such specific detail?

(3) What is Elroy Berdahl's role in this story? Would this be a better or worse story if young Tim O'Brien simply headed off to Canada by himself, without meeting another person?

(4) At the story's close, O'Brien almost jumps ship to Canada, but doesn't: "I did try. It just wasn't possible" (61). What has O'Brien learned about himself, and how does he return home as a changed person?

(5) Why, ultimately, does he go to war? Are there other reasons for going he doesn't list?

  "How to Tell a True War Story"

(1) Why does this story begin with the line: "This is true"? How does that prepare you, as a reader, for the story? In what sense is "this" true?

(2) In this story O'Brien relates a number of episodes. What makes these episodes seem true? Or, to put it another way, how does O'Brien lull you into the belief that each of these episodes are true?

(3) Find a few of O'Brien's elements of a "true war story" (such as, "A true war story is never moral.") Why does O'Brien believe these elements are important to a "true" war story?

(4) In what sense is a "true" war story actually true? That is, in O'Brien's terms, what is the relationship between historical truth and fictional truth? Do you agree with his assessment that fictional truth and historical do not need to be the same thing?

(5) According to O'Brien, why are stories important? In your opinion, what do we, as people, need from stories--both reading them and telling them?

(6) Why is the baby water buffalo scene (85) more disturbing than the death of one of O'Brien's platoon members, Dave Jensen (89, top of page)?

(7) Why does Rat Kiley kill the baby water buffalo? Explain the complex emotions he experiences in this scene.

(8) On page 90, O'Brien explains that this story was "not a war story. It was a love story." In what sense is this a "love story"? Why?

(9) Finally, O'Brien says that "none of it happened. None of it. And even if it did happen, it didn't happen in the mountains, it happened in this little village on the Batangan Peninsula, and it was raining like crazy..." If O'Brien is not trying to communicate historical fact, what is he trying to communicate? Why change the details? What kind of truth is he trying to relate, and why is this truth set apart from historical truth? Is it OK that this "true" war story may or may not be entirely true?

  "Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong"

(1) Is this a war story, per se? Does it use those elements we've discussed in class? If so, who is the main character, and why?

(2) Again, this story plays with truth. In the first paragraph (101), O'Brien tells us, "I heard it from Rat Kiley, who swore up and down to its truth, although in the end, I'll admit, that doesn't amount to much of a warranty." How does O'Brien engage you in a story which, up front, he's already admitted is probably not "true"? How does this relate to his ideas for a "true war story" found in an earlier story?

(3) How does O'Brien use physical details to show Mary Anne's change? (Think of her gestures, her clothes, her actions.) How, specifically, has she change? And why?

(4) Why do you think O'Brien keeps stopping the story so that other characters can comment on it. (i.e. page 108) How do these other conversations add to Mary Anne's story?

(5) Does it matter what happened, in the end, to Mary Anne? Would this be a better story if we knew, precisely, what happened to her after she left camp? Or does this vague ending add to the story? Either way, why?

  "The Man I Killed," "Ambush.," & "Good Form"

(1) When Tim O'Brien introduces the subject of "The Man I Killed," he does it with the following description. Why does he start here? Why use these details? "His jaw was in his throat, his upper lip and teeth were gone, his one eye was shut, his other eye was a star-shaped hole, his eyebrows were thin and arched like a woman's, his nose was undamaged, there was a slight tear at the lobe of one ear, his clean black hair was swept upward into a cowlick at the rear of the skull," etc.

(2) "The Man I Killed" describes fairly intimate aspects of the dead man's life? Where do these details come from? How can Tim O'Brien know them? What is going on here? "(From) his earliest boyhood the man I killed had listened to stories about the heroic Trung sisters and Tran Hung Dao's famous rout of the Mongols and Le Loi's final victory against the Chinese at Tot Dong. He had been taught that to defend the land was a man's highest duty and highest privilege. He accepted this," etc.

(3) For the remainder of the story O'Brien portrays himself as profoundly moved by this death: "Later Kiowa said, 'I'm serious. Nothing anybody could do. Come on, Tim, stop staring." How would out describe O'Brien's emotional state in this scene?

(4) In "Ambush," Tim O'Brien's daughter, Kathleen, asks if he ever killed a man: "'You keep writing these war stories,' she said, 'so I guess you must've killed somebody.'" Following this, O'Brien relates two possible scenarios of the death described in "The Man I Killed" to explain "This is why I keep writing war stories." In your opinion, why does O'Brien keep writing war stories?

(5) Reread "Good Form" (it's extremely short). In it, O'Brien tells two more versions of "The Man I Killed" story. In the first, Tim simply sees a dead soldier, the one with the star-shaped hole in his cheek, laying at the side of the road. "I did not kill him." Following this, O'Brien admits that "even that story is made up." In the second version, he explains the he merely saw many faceless, dead men. Where does truth reside in this book? What is the connection between O'Brien's actual experiences and the events in this book? Why is O'Brien using lies to get at "the truth"?

(6) In "Ambush," O'Brien tells part of "The Man I Killed" story to his daughter, Kathleen. Consider that O'Brien might not actually have a daughter. Would that change how you felt about the story? If he doesn't have a daughter, what is she doing in this novel?

  "Speaking of Courage" & "Notes"

(1) To begin with, why is this story called "Speaking of Courage"? Assume the title does NOT hold any irony. In what sense does this story speak of courage?

(2) Why does Norman Bowker still feel inadequate with seven metals? And why is Norman's father such a presence in his mental life? Would it really change Norman's life if he had eight metals, the silver star, etc.?

(3) What is the more difficult problem for Norman--the lack of the silver star or the death of Kiowa? Which does he consider more and why?

(4) Like other male characters in this novel (for example, Tim O'Brien and Lt. Jimmy Cross), Norman Bowker develops an active fantasy life. Why do these men develop these fantasy roles? What do they get from telling these fantasy stories to themselves?

(5) Why is Norman unable to relate to anyone at home? More importantly, why doesn't he even try?

(6) In "Notes," Tim O'Brien receives a letter from Norman Bowker, the main character in "Speaking of Courage." Why does O'Brien choose to include excerpts of this seventeen page letter in this book? What does it accomplish?

(7) Consider for a moment that the letter might be made-up, a work of fiction. Why include it then?

(8) In "Notes," Tim O'Brien says, "You start sometimes with an incident that truly happened, like the night in the shit field, and you carry it forward by inventing incidents that did not in fact occur but that nonetheless help to clarify and explain it." What does this tell you about O'Brien's understanding of the way fiction relates to real life?

  "The Lives of the Dead"

(1) Reread the first paragraph of "The Lives of the Dead." How does O'Brien set us up to believe this story? What techniques does he use to convince us this story is "true"? In general, how are details used in this collection of stories in such a way their truth is hard to deny?

(2) In your opinion, why does O'Brien chose to include this story about a young girl, named Linda, in this collection? What does it accomplish?

(3) In many ways, this book is as much about stories, or the necessity of stories, as it is about the Vietnam war. According to O'Brien, what do stories accomplish? Why does he continue to tell stories about the Vietnam war, about Linda?

(4) Reread the final two pages of this book. Consider what the young Tim O'Brien learns about storytelling from his experience with Linda. How does this knowledge prepare him not only for the war, but also to become a writer? Within the parameters of this story, how would you characterize Tim O'Brien's understanding of the purpose of fiction? How does fiction relate to life, that is, life in the journalistic or historic sense?

(5) Would it change how you read this story, or this novel, if Linda never existed? Why or why not?

(6) Assume for a moment, that the writer, Tim O'Brien, created a fictional main character, also called Tim O'Brien, to inhabit this novel. Why would the real Tim O'Brien do that? What would that accomplish in this novel? How would the strengthen a book about "truth"?

(7) Finally, if O'Brien is trying to relate some essential details about emotional life--again, as opposed to historic life--is he successful in doing that? Is he justified in tinkering with the facts to get at (what he would term) some larger, story-truth?

"All of his books deal in one form or another with the theme of courage, and he equates courage in all of his works with having the moral integrity and strength to take control of one’s life and do what one know is ethically right" (Kaplan 8)

"memory, imagination, and storytelling are three words that summarize his major concerns as a writer" (Kaplan 9)

For O’Brien "In fiction, the limited facts of memory and reality are reconstructed, and a boundary is crossed into a realm of infinite possibilities" (Kaplan 9)

"A main theme of his writings is that people create and live their lives with the help of memory and imagination" (Kaplan 9)

"The repetition of minute facts and seemingly insignificant expressions gradually penetrates a reader’s consciousness as the novel [Going After Cacciato] unfolds, so that they constantly gain in importance and vividness" (Kaplan 17)

"One explanation for O’Brien’s habit of varying and echoing and repeating phrases and thoughts and scenes and stories in his writing sis that this stylistic device mirrors his notion of fiction as a means for conveying the fluidity of all experience. According to O’Brien’s approach to fiction, one can use the same phrase or tell the same story again and again, and yet each time one does so, the phrase or the story somehow takes on a new character. Fiction and language for him do not mirror life: they transform life" (Kaplan 18)

in Things "O’Brien emphasizes the magical powers of storytelling. He also takes the readers straight into the middle of the process through which facts and memory are transformed into fiction" (Kaplan 171)

 Tim O’Brien. Interview. Fresh Air. Terri Gross. April 21, 2000. WNYC.

On why he makes reader wonder what is truth and what is fiction in Things They Carried "I love to play; fiction should be fun" (Fresh Air)

On using Tim O’Brien as a narrator: "by typing sentences with the word Tim in them, I felt myself going down deeper, deeper, deeper" into his own experiences in Vietnam.(Fresh Air)

 Herzog, Tobey, C. Tim O'Brien. Twayne's United States Authors Series No. 691. New York: Twayne Publishers, 1997.

"True, the real Tim O'Brien did ponder fleeing to Canada in the summer of 1968, and the thoughts and fears of the real Tim O'Brien did mirror those of his fictional counterpart. Yet the incidents on the Rainy River simply did not occur" (Tobey 2)

"According to the author, the focus should be on the emotional truths -- story-truths-- in his short stories and books. Moreover, as O'Brien privately admits, understanding the who, what, and why of the real son, solider, and author is not an easy task; it is a quest that O'Brien himself is still struggling to complete and may never fulfill" (Tobey 2). I think I understand him now. O'Brien seems to suggest that memoirs, by posing as a non-fictive -- "real" -- portrayal of events is really false, because no one really knows, at some deep level, what really occurred. We're all locked in our own expriences.

"Tim O'Brien observes that `everything that I am doing flows out of the life I have led.'" (qtd. in Tobey 3)

On the personal in his work: "[it's] not only numerous, but they're alos incredibly important in my work: the father theme, the theme of heroism, the theme of history and war, the theme of loneliness and alienation, the theme of the importance of imagination in our lives as a way to escape and to change the owlrd. There's also the theme of magic which runs through all of my work" (qtd. in Tobey 4)

O'Brien's mother: "she cared about were the commas, apostrophes, and dashes go, things that in the long run make a huge difference to a writer. Without comman of the code, which is English Grammar, you cannot fulfill yourself as a writer. You can't make full use of the English repertoire" (qtd. in Tobey 7)

O'Brien on the middle-class America: "a peculiar sort of ingrown smugness . . . a kind of smugness with respect to personal virtue. A kind of smugness that takes delight in ignorance in some way. Those high-falutin' Easterners, those crass Westerners, those redneck Southerners" (qtd. in Tobey 8)

College: writers that he felt moved by Hawthorne, Joyce, Faulkner, Hemingway, and Dos Passos (Tobey 10)

"As O'Brien admits, he was not then nor is he now a pacifist; instead, he believes that certin wars are justified, such as World War II and possibly Korea. In the summer of 1968, however, he vehemently opposed Vicetnam and analogous wars (the Spanish-American War, the Crimean War, and the Boer War) -- and he still does. Citing political and humanistic grounds, he believes that a legitmate war rquiers 'some sor tof just cause,' not a war fought to impose one country's will ont eh 'legitimate aspirations and desires of another nation (Herzog, Interview). He also notest tha from his perspectve 13, a wide range of moral, legal, philosophical, hitorical, and factual ambiguities clouded the issues and complicated America's entry into Viet Nam" (Herzog 12-13)

on joining the army "In my case I committed an act of unpardonabe cowardice and evil. I went to a war that I believed was wrong and participtaed in it actively. I pulled the trigger. I was there. And by being there I am guilty" (qtd in Herzog 14)

Was radio operator in Viet Nam (Herzog 16)

"In a year, I only saw the living enemy once. All I saw were flashes from the foliage and the results, the bodies" (qtd. in Herzog 17)

"Time is scrambled in our memories and in our imaginations and in our dreams . . . . We don't remember events, most of us, always in chronilogical order" (qtd. in Herzog 22)

"If you were to go through my manuscripts and look at the changes I make in the final stages of editing a manuscript, editing the proofs, even making changes for the paperback edition of In the Lke of the Woods, you would see that every comma matters to me. The rhythm of every sentence matters to me; the look of the page matters, the blend of elements" (qtd. in Herzog 23)

Influences:

"Shakespeare (themes, dramatic monologues, and deft use of flashbacks in such plays as Hamlet, Macbeth, King Lear, , and The Tempest"; Hemingway (clarity of sentences but a distrubing simplicity in his moral philosophy); Falukner (the ambiguity, complexity, and mystery of content and structuer at the heart of his stories; Fowles (the moral significance of his themes); Joyce ( a master of language and story structure); and Conrad (despite his awkward sentences, a simple, direct, and clear storytelling by 'one of the two or theree greatest writers who ever lived'' (Herzog 23)

"O'Brien indicates that his goal as a writer is to be 'read by the centures' -- but not as a war writer. He bristles at this narrow label often pinned on him: 'It's like calling Toni Morrison a black writer or Shakespeare a king writer" (Herzog 23)

"The Vietnam War affords a familiar moral and physical terrain that engenders inherent intensity, conflict, and genuine emotions. As a writer, therefore, he doest not have to work at creatgin these elemnets in a story but instead can explore deeper moral, policial, and human issues that are timelesss and not confined to the battlefield. The subject of war becomes a starting point for O'Briens's self-described quest for 'everness' and 'alwaysness' to his writing. Consequently, his broad themese relate to his ultimate goal of having his works contribute to 'understading the war of th eliving' (McNerney, Interview 24) -- individuals' daily struggles with issues of conscience, despair, deteriorating relatiosnhips, evil, temptation, moral dilemmas, self-discovery, and, of course, mortatlity. And at the heart of an O'Brien story is the mystery that is related to these characters, outcomes, and truths and that is ultimately shared by readers and the auhotr. This underlying focus of O'Biren's writing is what Catherine Calloway labels a postmodernist interest in the 'probliectmatic natuer of relaity, a process that engages both the protagonist and the reader'" (Herzog 24).

"Like his characters, author O'Brien frequently cannot answer the questions about human motives and desires he has raised. Rather htan forcing an answer, he simply lets the ambiguity develop in the story, building it into the structure, characters, and themese as he explores possibilities: 'Like all things that aer interesting to me, I don't want to ebe positive. To be positive explains itself, and the world doesn't usually explain itself. The world usuaully has mystery . . . . Too many writers want to solove their own mysterieis. That's what kills books" (Herzog 25)

"the 'noble lies' created by a writer's imagination become vehicles for arriving at a higher level of truth: 'Lies aren't always told just to lie; lies are sometimes told, and always stold by good ficiton weiters, to get at the truth,' which O'Brien labels 'story-truth'. This truth, portrayed by authors and felt by readers, contrasts with 'happening-truth,' which is lived by authors and characters. The latter contains the facts of an event, the surface details; the former presents the udnerlying truth of events, the pain and passion surrounding the experience: what is felt 'in your [readers'] bowels, and in your gut, and in your heart, and in your throat'" (Herzog 29)

on the political in his fiction: "I think anything I've ever written has that as its center theme, even more than issues of courage -- hou individual human lives are influence by global forces beyond the horizon" (qtd in Herzog 35)

Things "mirror[s] the soldier's chaotic psychological landscape and the political, moral, and military disorder related to America's Vietnam experience" (Herzog 79)

"The question emerges whether author O'Brien efforts at confusing the reader by including so many of these real facts from his life are more literary tricks? Ir is the technique part of the overall message of the book about truth, literary lies, angles of perspective, storytelling, and the relationship between memory and imagination? The answer seems to be the latter; the method is the message illustrating the elusivness of truth. As he does throughout this interconnected novel, frequently telling the same story from different perspectives and with different information, O'Brien seems to be exploring his own life from different angles that combine facts and invented details. The results are a heightened dramatic intensity to incidents, increased emotional responses from readers, and perhaps from O'Brien's point of view additional opportunities to explore possibilities for himself and his characters" (Herzog 115)

The solider attempt mind games to exert control, "Such control gained through these mind games is fleeting, however. Memories can also unsettle and weigh down the mind and spirit; stories can end without closure or certein; and daydreams replacing concentration during a combat mission can kill" (Herzog 119)

O'Brien on Things"If there is a theme to the whole book it has to do with the fact that stories can save our lives . . . the livingness that's there as you read and that lingers after" (qtd. in Herzog 124)

O'Brien, Tim. "The Magic Show." Writers on Writing. Ed. Robert Pack and Jay Parini. Hanover, New Hampshire: Middlebury College Press, 1991. 175-183.

"illusion" is "the creation of a new and improved reality" (O'Brien 175)

"Beyond anything, I think, a writer is someone entranced by the power of langauge to create a magic show of the imagination, to make the dead sit up and talk, to shine light into the darkness of the great human mysteries" (O'Brien 177)

"In part, at least, storytelling involves the conjuring up of spirits -- Huck Finn or Lord Jim. And those spriits, in turn, make implicit moral claims on us, serving as models of a sort, suggesting by implication how we might or might not lead our own lives" (O'Brien 177-78)

"characters [in fiction] live in the way spirits live, in the memory and imagination fo th ereader, as a dead father lives int eh memory of his son or in the imagination of his dauther" (O'Brien 178)

"The more I writh and the more I dream, the more I accept this notion of the writer as a medium between two planes of being -- the ordinary and the extraordinary -- the embodied world of flesh, and the disembodied orld of idea and morality and spirit" (O'Brien 179)

Writing offers faith: "Faith that as writers we might discover that which cannot be known through empirical means. (The notions of right and wrong, ofr instance. Good and evil. Ugliness and beauty.)" (O'Brien 179) This is the "Story truth" he mentions in Things

"plot is grounded in a high -- even noble -- human craving to know, a craving to push into the mystery of tomorrow" (O'Brien 180)

"A satisfying plot, I believe, involves not a diminution of mystery but rather a fundamental enlargmenet. As in scientific endeavor, the solution to one set of problems must open out into another and even greater set. The future must still matter. The unknown must still issue its call. One tomorrow must imply the next" (O'Brien 181)

Tim O'Brien. Interview. Publishers Weekly 16 Feb. 1990: 60-61. With Michael Coffey. Rprt. In Dictionary of Literary Biography Documentary Series. Vol. 9. American Writers of the Vietnam War. Ed. Ronald Baughman. Detroit: Gale Research, 1991. 199-202.

"My own experience has virtually nothing to do with the content of the book. . . . Every now and then I would draw on my memories or attitudes about Vietnam, but of the whole time I spent there I remember maybe a week's worth of stuff. By and large, in the composition of the book, my attention was on trying to geta feeling of utter authenticity, which meant paying attention t language. My goal was to write something utterly convincing but without any rules as to what's real and what's made up" (O'Brien Publishers 201)

On why he uses the war: "If there is one fundamental thing. . . it's that I want to write stories that are good. To do that requires a sense of passion, and my passion as a human being and as a writer intersect in Vietnam, not int eh physical stuff but in the issues of Vietnam -- of courage, rectitude, enlightenment, holiness, trying to do the right thing it he world" (O'Brien Publishers 201-02)

On "Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong"

"My feeling . . . is that what happened to me as a man in Vietnam could happen to a woman as well. And the reasons it didn't were reasons of sociology and demography, not a difference in spirit" (O'Brien Publishers 202)

"If there is a theme to the whole book it has to do with the fact that stories can save our lives" (O'Brien Publishers 202)

""My hope is that when you finish the last page of this book, or any book, there is a sense of having experienced a whole life or a constellation of lives; that something has been preserved which, if the book hadn't been written, would have lost, like most lives are" (O'Brien Publishers 202)

Tim O'Brien. Interview. 15 March 1991. With Ronald Baughman. Rprt. In Dictionary of Literary Biography Documentary Series. Vol. 9. American Writers of the Vietnam War. Ed. Ronald Baughman. Detroit: Gale Research, 1991. 204-214.

"The Things They Carried depends upont he triparte structure . . . with Timmy, the little boy; Tim the sergeant in the Vietnam War; and Tim, the writer" (O'Brien 15 March 205).

"One doesn't lie for the sake of lying; one does not invent merely for the sake of inventing. One does it for a particular purpose and that purpose always is to arrive at some kind of spiritual truth that one can't discover simply by recording the world-as-it-is. We're inventing and using imagination for sublime reasons -- to get at the essence of things, not merely the surface" (O'Brien 15 March 205)

On Berdahl look seemingly impassively at O'Brien in "On the Rainy River"

"There's a passage in the story indicating that he understands that the two of them are beyond argument, beyond logic or persuasion. And at crucial points in our lives I think it is helpful to have witnesses -- not advisers, not counselors, not people urging us one way or the other. Rather, the witness is simply there, mute and watchful and supportive, a spiritual presence. I suppose Elroy may be an analog for conscience. Or for God. Or for the feeling you get that dead father might still be looking on as you lead your life, as you make moral choices or fail to make them. The passage you cited about he gods watching also suggests that they did not pronounce judgement -- neither damnation nor salvation. That's what I mean by 'mute yet comforting.' Berdhal does not try to sway the character Tim O'Biren one way or the other. . . . What he needs is silence -- external and internal -- at a point when he is making this terrible moral choice" (O'Brien 15 March 208)

On "The Ghost Soldiers"

"We conceive of courage as purely a virtuous characteristic. But it can have an ugly side. Which is what this story investigates" (O'Brien 15 March 209)