So here's what I've got so far...
As I've been reading through this book, I've noticed a lot of things that sort of tie it into this whole ambiguous postmodernism thing. And in a way, I feel like I should maybe not be thinking these things, because it's a whole new semester, and I would like to move past postmodernism and shift my focus to more of a contemporary type of deal--but there are many postmodern things about The Things They Carried, as I'm noticing them. For one, it's very self-aware: Tim O'Brien constantly states things like "This is true" (pg 67) and "This is one story I've never told before" (pg 39). In a way, O'Brien is tearing down those walls, between narrative and reader; every story has the feel of not a chapter in a book, but a living, breathing story, being told by a living and breathing storyteller, told directly to the reader, who is supposed to listen and take it for what it is, what it isn't, what it might be...
The whole subject of "truth" is a central (how funny, using the word "central," considering the fact that postmodernism is all about the total absence of a center...) theme behind postmodernism, and I would say it's also a predominant theme in The Things They Carried (at least, so far, and in my general observations). I guess the biggest example of this in the text is the whole story, "How To Tell a True War Story." And then the whole story proceeds to tell you just how impossible that is, or at least tries to: "A true war story is never moral... You can tell a true war story if it embarasses you... It's difficult to separate what happened from what seemed to happen." I've been finding it really interesting, how O'Brien twists everything around so you're just not sure what he means and what he doesn't--is he writing about stuff that has actually happened to him, or is it fiction? Or is it a little of both?? I guess in that way it's all deconstructed, and such. It's not just a novel. I feel like I haven't gotten too deep into it yet, so that's all the insight I can really offer... I'm looking forward to analyzing it, though. I'm really liking this book so far.
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I am now writing a comment to your bloog, and am speculating over what you said about the odd sense of perspective. I really believe that truth and perspective really do tie in together in this story. Maybe he was trying to make a point about where the truth comes from. It comes from a single perspective, and that perspective is your own. Bby telling it this way he is insuring that it is true, at least to him.
ReplyDeleteWell Marin, I do believe you are right. Truth, the attempt to converse what truth is in one person's eyes, is too hard and almost impossible; to tell a true war story, a moral or a reason behind it all cannot exist, or else that war story is a falsehood. For O'Brien, truth I think is derived from many sources and deep reflexion, much like "The Man I Killed" and "Speaking of Courage". So yeah. I'm done...
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