Forrrrrrrr sho

More of the same themes are brought up as we finished the book.  The most referenced theme would have to be the effects of war.  One chapter is of O’Brien being shot twice, another of how Rat Kiley begins going crazy, and the last of O’Brien’s memories of his childhood sweet heart.

The part that best shows the terrible effects of war is the chapter “Night Life,” in which Rat Kiley begins to go insane.  Their platoon receives an alert warning and is forced to move through the night.  Rat Kiley began to go crazy, first completely silent, then constantly talking.  He’d scratch at his bug bites, rip off the scabs, and scratch the open wounds.  A thing as simple as switching from daytime to night time drove this man crazy because of the aprehension caused by this war. 

War is also able to bring back painful memories of death.  His childhood sweetheart, Linda, came flooding back through O’Brien’s mind.  After his first death experience with an enemy he is reminded of a terrible reminder in his childhood.  In a way, this event with Linda foreshadowed O’Brien’s participation of the war, even though ironically this event wasn’t even introduced to readers until the last chapter.  Overall, this book was one of the best and most interesting books I’ve ever read and I look forward to reading more Tim O’Brien books in the future.

This chapter brings about how O’Brien began to start writing about the war.  He was given the idea by one of his fellow soldiers.  Kohler had wanted to write something about his war memories, but thought that he wasn’t talented enough with words to write it, which was where O’Brien came in to write it.

Kohler hung himself three years after the writing of the short story that he gave to O’Brien.  The reason for this was because Kiowa’s death was not mentioned and his bravery was not given credit.  O’Brien continued to write and (as we saw in this novel) included the real names of the soldiers and gave credit to everybody who deserved it.  This is yet another theme that is introduced, which is whether or not the details or names of a story really matter as long as people know that a soldier was courageous enough to support his country.  Because honestly most people will never meet the soldiers read about in war books, but maybe people will be so influenced by a characters action that they become attached to a name and end up doing things like naming their kids or pets after these characters.  Does it matter?

This section tells of two stories.  One of which is how O’Brien first killed someone in war and his feelings.  The next was how he was feeling and what his life was like some time after the war when he was back in his old neighborhood.

The first part really goes into how awful O’Brien felt after killing this man.  A skinny, unsoldierlike scholar came unknowingly strolling into their base area and O’Brien threw a grenade at him, killing him in the explosion.  This brings up another theme of how fighting in a war and actually killing and taking someone else’s life in a war are different things.  For a countless amount of time, he stays next to the body simply staring at the poor man.  O’Brien imagines the life that this man leaves behind and realizes that he was the sole reason that he would never be able to return to it.  Then in the second part of the reading, he still is able to realize the horrible events of war and spends a whole day reminiscing about the terrible things that he witnessed and could have prevented… but didn’t. 

This section of the book exclusively deals with the stories of Henry Dobbins.  It tells of his good luck charm, his girlfriend’s pantyhose, and his completely different mindset brought about when taking cover in a church.

The overall idea cast by this part of the book is to show how war affects people.  Many times, it will kill relationships and end up completely changing their lives.  When Dobbins’s girlfriend ended their relationship, this is what happened to him.  A man who was never a big churchgoer and didn’t even pay attention when he actually went to church, formed a special bond with the two monks that remained and cared for the soldiers.  The amount of gore and blood the war had exposed him too, he was beginning to appreciate a peaceful life.  He admired these monks because of their lifestyle and what they have chosen to do.  The war seems to be very close to saturating the amount of violence in Henry Dobbins life, and becoming a monk or obtain some other peaceful living, he won’t be able to remain sane for much longer.

This section starts out with a story about Curt Lemon.  He is a man who actually enjoys combat and fighting in the war.  O’Brien tells this story from after Lemon’s death, and describes his feelings toward Lemon’s not being around anymore as, “hard to mourn.”  The other chapter in the selected reading is a story about Rat Kiley, who tends to greatly overexagerate everything he says.  All of his stories are out of proportion taking us back to a main philosophical question of the book, how can you tell if a story is true?

Though a bit rediculous, this story about Fossie and Mary-Anne is very entertaining.  Although it was probably impossible and probably illegal to bring in a girlfriend to your military base in a helicopter, it did happen to the story.  Was this story real?  Did it really happen?  I think that because of Kiler’s reputation its easy to say that, yes this story is made up, or at the very least, incredibly exagerated.  But this raises another issue to finding out the truth of stories… how much someone’s reputation can change people’s opinions of what is the truth.  For example, if someone else had recounted this story that didn’t have a known history of exageration, would it have been considered true?

This book is definitely one of war.  Through the first 86 pages a few stories are told.  The author and narrator of the novel, Tim O’Brien, fought in Vietnam, which is the setting around where this book takes place.

The novel starts out by giving a few stories.  The first chapter, however, just consisted of telling readers what things the soldiers carried, hence the name of the title.  A variety of objects from pictures to drugs are listed.  The soldiers can be characterized by the things that they carry.  For example, Sgt. Cross, a main character, carries two pictures of the woman he loves, Martha.  This tells us that he is a very passionate man and truly loves her.  Though his love is requited, he still hopes that she will one day return his intense feelings.  During battle he finds it hard to concentrate and finds himself daydreaming about her.  All this is brought up from two little pictures. 

There is also a great deal of philosophy involved in this book, which I found to be very surprising.  One of the questions that is brought up is how to tell if a war story is true or not?  O’Brien claims in the book that he can truthfully tell this daughter that he’s killed a man, but also truthfully tell her that he’s never killed anyone.  The novel is much more complex and abstract than I thought it would be.  It’s abstract in that its not written chronologically, in the very beginning you’re in the war, then you’re 20 years later reminiscing about it, and then next chapter, you’re back in the war.  A soldier named Ted Lavender is killed in the first part of the book and then he is seen in a later chapter, which obviously is very bizarre.  This book looks to be very interesting, promising, and different and I look forward to reading it.