“War is hell.” A succinct saying that has become an axiom, proven through the certainty of bloodshed and terror that are the experiences of the young and old, the soldier and the civilian. But Tim O’Brien is not so sure that war is only hell.
His novel, “The Things They Carried,” covers his own experiences and the experiences of others during the Vietnam War. What sets apart O’Brien’s work from other war stories is that he does not follow a single narrative, campaign or protagonist, but rather investigates the nature of war stories through their retelling.
These stories vary widely. One covers the discovery of a puppy by one soldier — cared for and trained over the weeks — only for another soldier to strap the puppy to a claymore. Another covers the supposed tale of a soldier’s girlfriend managing to sneak onto the battlefield to visit him, only to join the Green Berets and collect a necklace of ears to record her kills. Another covers a survivor’s guilt in witnessing a friend drown in mud during a storm, and another follows the silent suicide of a veteran years after the war.
These are just a few standouts among the many. They are gruesome, without a doubt, but they often communicate more than war being hell. Some say “War is love”; others, “War is art”; the one after says “War is hate”; another says “War is indefensible,” just for the next to say “War is human nature.”
The goal of O’Brien’s novel is not to point to a single statement and declare it the ultimate truth. His stories communicate the oxymoronic nature of war, the knots of truth that bend and fold on top of each other so tightly that they cannot be pulled apart without undoing the whole thing.
O’Brien goes so far as to illustrate this point by admitting that some of the stories he includes are totally fictional. Some of the events may have happened, but all of them feel real. It’s through feeling what constitutes a “real” war story that we can begin understanding the truth of war.
War is everything and nothing, its permanent hand printed upon the impermanence of life. But the killing remains.
“Under the (Hard) Covers is an opinion column by Ethan Reisler — a published author, satirist, and journalist — reviewing modern and classic novels alike for their craft, storytelling and general enjoyability.”