Blog Post 1
Short story: How to Tell a True War Story
Question: According to Tim O'Brien, what is a "True War Story"? What is "Truth"? What is an example of truth in this story? Do you agree with his definitions? Why or why not?
A true true war story according Tim O'Brien is a story in which there is no obvious moral or point. After hearing a war story you should feel as if the person telling it should of went on and concluded in some way as if it is not finished yet, but it is finished. You are feeling this way because it is a true war story. Tim O'Brien tells us, "Often in a true war story there is not even a point, or else the point doesn't hit you until twenty years later, in your sleep, and you wake up and shake your wife and start telling the story to her, expect when you've gotten to the end you've forgotten the point again." (pg. 78). Just as O'Brien exuded a definite unsureness of the point inside of truth in this passage, he does so relating to a way way in which he tries to understand what the point of life is as a whole. Tim O'Brien is able to meticulously acknowledge when truth exists but he consistently fails to find the point that lays inside of it.
The definition of truth is "something that is true" and the definition of true is "in accordance with fact or reality." In the definition of the truth we have just received a great clue unto why Tim O'Brien believes that no true war story has any real point. Telling the truth means telling something that actually happened but O'Brien does not like what reality is made up of due to the events that have occurred in his life, so he fails to find the point in reality because he feels depressed towards the subject. He was drafted into war unwillingly and it made him so sick to his stomach that he ran away from it all- literally- and then had to face the disgusting truth of his life when reality hit him. What was the point of selling his soul to a war he didn't even want to be apart of? There was no point in his mind, and that was a true story. There is no point.
One example of truth O'Brien offers us in this passage is the story of Curt Lemon and how he was killed. "This one wakes me up. In the mountains that day, I watched Lemon turn side-ways. He laughed and said something to Rat Kiley. Then he took a peculiar half step, moving from shade into bright sunlight, and the booby-trapped 105 round blew him into a tree." (pg. 79). That is how O'Brien ends this "true war story." As a reader you are left grasping for more, looking for some type of moral, some point, and you can't find it. According to O'Brien, this must mean that this story is a piece of nothing other than truth.
Although I believe the story of Curt Lemon dying is true because there is nothing spectacularly amazing detail wise to it therefore giving it no point to be told other than the point that it actually did happen, I do not believe that all true stories have no point. Most true war stories are most likely difficult to get the point out of because war stories are told from just one person's point of view. A painting is better understood when you look at everything from far away, rather than just one piece up close.
Tim O'Brien does.
