A Soldier's Sweetheart

A Soldier's Sweetheart
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HMWK: Read to pg. 162 for Thursday


From an interview with Tim O'Brien.
 It's a great interview.  You can read the whole thing at:
 www3.wooster.edu/artfuldodge/interviews/obrien.htm


DS: Speaking of credibility, in The Things They Carried there are numerous devices-come-ons, enticements, snares for the reader-such as starting out stories with "It's time to be blunt" or "This is true," having one story supposedly give the facts about the evolution of another story, or naming the narrator after yourself. It seems to me that an appropriate metaphor for talking about this aspect of the book would be that you're seducing the reader, and that obviously the reader can have ambivalent feelings toward such a seduction. Do you see that?
O'Brien: I'd say that maybe it is an appropriate metaphor, probably not one I would use, but it's certainly appropriate. I guess that's what I was trying to do, to make the reader feel those sorts of ambivalences. Hearing a story, being seduced, then having the seducer say "by the way, I don't love you, it all isn't true." And then doing it again. And then saying, "that also isn't true, just kidding," and doing it again. It's not just a game, though. It's not what that "Good Form" chapter is about. It's form. This whole book is about fiction, about why we do fiction. Every reader is always seduced by a good work of fiction. That is, by a lie, seduced by a lie. Huckleberry Finn did not happen, but if you're reading Huckleberry Finn you're made to believe that it is happening. If you didn't believe it, then it would be a lousy work of fiction. One wouldn't be seduced. And I'm trying to write about the way in which fiction takes place. I'm like a seducer, yet beneath all the acts of seduction there's a kind of love going on, a kind of trust you're trying to establish with the reader, saying "here's who I am, here's why I'm doing what I'm doing. And in fact I do truly love you, I'm not just tricking you, I'm letting you in on my game, letting you in on who I am, what I am, and why I am doing what I am doing." All these lies are the surface of something. I have to lie to you and explain why I am lying to you, why I'm making these things up, in order to get you to know me and to know fiction, to know what art is about. And it's going to hurt now and then, and you're going to get angry now and then, but I want to do it to you anyway�and for you. That's the point of the book.
DS: It strikes me as interesting that your first book is a real memoir, while your last is a pseudo-memoir. How do you see that development, the relation between the way you want to accomplish those seductions in nonfiction and in fiction? Would you write nonfiction again?
O'Brien: There are all kinds of things that occur to me in answer to your question. One is that I don't form my career, my writerly interests, consciously. I don't outline a novel and say "Here's where I'm going next" in terms of form and so on. The language just takes me there. A scrap of language will occur to me that seems interesting. And one of the first scraps of language that occurred to me in writing The Things They Carried was the line, "This is true." When that line was written, "This is true," the form of the book wasn't present by any means, but the thematic "aboutness" of the book was there in those three words. "This is true." I had no idea what I was going to do with it, or where it would take me, but I knew in my bones as well as intellectually that this was important, these three words are important words. I didn't know important in what way or how I'd be exploring them, but I knew they were important. In the way I'm responding to your question, I guess I'm not trying to evade it exactly as much as I'm trying to speak in terms of heart. In terms of heart I don't think about these things much, and don't want to think about them. I prefer to look at writing as a heroistic act, finding out what I care about through writing stories. "Why do I care about truth? I don't know why I care about it!" And I'll write a story like "Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong," for example, in which the guy Rat Kiley is telling the story and within the context of the story the matter of truth gets talked about. All along I've cared about this, but now in writing the story I wanted to know how I cared. That is, I always wondered, "Why am I making this stuff up? Why am I writing these stories?" But I never pursued it intellectually. I just said, "Well, I am." But I always wondered, and by writing those words down I began to realize there's a way you can begin to ask yourself a question seriously, methodically.
DB: So you are talking with yourself, then, while you're writing, especially with the stories in The Things They Carried.
O'Brien: In a way I am talking to myself, although it doesn't feel like that. The way it feels is as though I'm composing a story. It feels as if something else is talking to me. I'm not sure what it is. The characters? I'll write a line, fully believing in it. Then, once it's written, I'll believe it's been uttered by this person, Mitchell Sanders or Rat. They would say to someone else, "You guys are sexist. What do you mean you can't have a pussy for president?" Meanwhile, I've just written this line and I'll say, "What pussy? where did this come from?" Then I'll think, "This guy said this!" He accuses these other guys of being sexist and then he himself uses language like that and it jars a little in my head, but in a good way. Here's a guy talking about being sexist while he's doing it himself. It shows me the complexity of the material until I don't feel I've written it, though I know I have, and so I consciously keep the word "pussy," knowing it bounces off the "You guys are all sexist." But, at the same time, I don't feel as though I've written these words, as though the phrase had been directed toward me. Instead, I ask what some character in the story might say in response. Once a story is underway I no longer feel in complete control. I feel that I'm at the whim of my creations. I'll be pulled by them as much as I'll be pulling them. It sounds mystical, probably too mystical, but that's really how it feels. I think you can understand why I feel that way. Your questions here, for example, are tugging me, while I'm partly responsible for these enquiries because of the consequences of the things I've written. But I no longer feel in control of your responses to the things I've written.
DB: Given your statement that everything in The Things They Carried is fiction, can we believe "Notes" is nonfiction, when at least the surface assumption is that here you're giving us the truth about what went on in the composition of another story?

O'Brien: You ought not to believe it. In fact, it's utterly and absolutely invented. It's an example of one more seduction on top of the rest. No Norman Bowker, and no mother. It's a way of displaying that form can dictate belief, that the form of the footnote, the authority that the footnote carries, is persuasive in how we apprehend things. We think once again we're locked into a factual world by form, and that process is a great deal what the book is about, including the next little note called "Good Form," which is sort of the same thing. It says, "Well, I'm going to confess something to you. It's time to be blunt. None of this stuff happened. I'm going to tell you no guy ever died, and here's what really happened." And then the next paragraph is going to say but that story too is invented. Here's the real story. Of course, that one's invented, too. I just don't say so in the story.