First off, I really really like this book. My favorite book of the year hands down.
I mean, yes, my squeamishness comes out in full force during many stories in this book (Ted Lavender, anyone? Curt Lemon? BABY BUFFALO?) but still. I can feel this book.
And I don't mean "feel it" like "Hey man, I totally feel you", but more as if there is a tangible presence to this book, and it's taken up residence in my lungs.
Breathe in, Vietnam. Sunshine demise and baby buffalo and blood in my mouth.
Breathe out, Tim O'Brian. 43 years old, a writer who still breathes in as a soldier and out as a father who tells his nine-year-old daughter that of course he didn't kill anyone.
Breathe out breath out breathe out.
And alright, yes, I admit I might have read ahead. A little. Or a lot, maybe: I finished the book.
And I can only think "Well damn."
Because what about all the soldiers we're still sending out?
Are they pulling their brothers out of trees, peeling them off the dusty, explosion-riddled road, digging them out of a sloppy, mushy shitfield in the pouring rain?
Probably.
Are there men out there like Tim O'Brian, who don't really want to fight but they do it anyway, because they'd feel like they were betraying everyone they know but themselves if they didn't?
Absolutely.
I've been reading a lot of war stories lately, and I gotta tell you, I cry. At all of them. Sob my eyes out like there is no longer any rainbows or unicorns or happiness in the world. None.
I cry like a five year old who has just been informed that Santa, the Tooth Fairy, and the Easter Bunny have all been heartlessly massacred.
And I wonder what would happen if the head honchos, the men and women who start the war but send others to end it, would they feel like a different decision is in order if they read one of these books?
Do you think maybe, that if people who felt like war was necessary to solve whatever problem they have, do you think if someone made them read these war novels, this book, The Things They Carried, would we maybe get somewhere towards convincing the world just what a stupid idea it is to go out and shoot at people, and get shot at, and die, and watch your friends die, ( "Four guys go down a trail. A grenade sails out. One guy jumps on it and takes the blast, but it's a killer grenade and everybody dies anyway. Before they die, though, one of the dead guys says, "The fuck you do that for?" and the jumper says, "Story of my life, man," and the other guy starts to smile but he's dead.")...
Will anyone care at all? Will anyone try their damndest to make a dead soldier breathe again?
Will anyone listen to the breathing of a dead soldier?
Recent Comments