Truth?

The Things They Carried is a great book, no doubt about it. It gives many different ideas of war through many different perspectives and is packed full of details and emotions. Each story is unique and important for different reasons.

Yet, among all of these terrific characteristics of the book, there is one aspect that puts me off. That characteristic is the emphasis that O'Brien places on the fact that many of the details and stories aren't factual. It draws me out of the stories and ideas of the book and puts me back into my own thoughts.

Tim O'Brien does a great job discussing truth in one of his short stories titled How to Tell a True War Story. Throughout this story O'Brien constantly emphasizes the fact that true war stories don't have to actually happen. What he is trying to explain is that it is possible to get across an idea through something that didn't happen and that makes it true because the idea is true. However, O'Brien bluntly states in later stories, such as Good Form, that many earlier parts of the book were invented.

I'm honestly not quite sure why he does this because it almost destroys the nuance he set up in How to Tell a True War Story. It was implied through that story that he took some liberties with his other stories. When I'm flat out told that chunks of a story are untrue, it doesn't give me deeper meaning, it just draws from the core of the story. Personally, I would prefer if I wasn't sure if parts of the book were factual or made-up, because then believing and connecting with the story would be easier.