Tim O’Brien writes about his approach to telling war stories through his book titled “The Things They Carried.” O’Brien’s uncompromising approach to story telling offers a higher level of understanding the Vietnam War. The author’s most powerful tool is his ability to write and convey to the reader feelings and emotions as well as retelling facts. As a writer he lets it all out whether based on factual happenings, emotional outbursts or images from descriptive vivid dreams. The line drawn between historical facts and fictional retellings are blurred as O’Brien expresses to readers his critique of searching for the ‘facts’ to tell ‘what really happened.’ I found this book to be a captivating exploration of the relevancy of fact versus fiction, as well as an engaging testament of the Vietnam War.

As a talented writer who questioned the war, went to Vietnam anyway, and then came back, O’Brien is a most valuable and unique storyteller. In O’Brien’s experience he could tell a war story but, as he states, “And then afterward, when you go to retell about it, there is always that surreal seeming ness, which makes the story seem untrue, but which in fact represents the hard and exact truth as it seemed.” The pressure of trying to convey his experience is not so easy as just telling the truth. A simple retelling of a war story could never convey his physical and emotional experience before, during, and after the war. He states that a true war story is never moral, its creditability is questionable and as he boldly expresses, “you can tell a true war story by its absolute and uncompromising allegiance to obscenity and evil.” Throughout the book he lists his ideas about what makes a true war story showing his determination, yet extreme difficulty with expressing his war experiences.

My favorite quote of his that guided me though this work is, “I want you to know why story-truth is truer than happening-truth.” He is comparing and battling between what is considered the truth—facts (happening-truth) or stories (story-truth). A textbook can set up a context with facts and numbers on the Vietnam War, however, are basic numbers and facts to be the only relevant understanding of such a controversial war? O’Brien clearly doesn’t believe so and either does the reader after reflecting on “The Things They Carried.”