The more I read Tim O'Brien's book "The Things They Carried", the more I am reminded of our summer reading "Fire and Forget". Was it because they both have an eccentricity on war? Was it because they were both an anthology of short stories? Although those observations are both true, I soon realized it wasn't just those things: it was the variety of style. It occurred to me that every short story I've read in Tim O'Brien's collection of short stories had a different style of writing - some in first person, others in third; some told stories, others commented on those stories. Like a face in various distinct curvy mirrors, his style of writing would take different shapes: in one story he would talk about a certain person's war experience, the next he would scope out into a different time and area to explain the previous story. This happens for many pairs of stories, such as "Speaking of Courage" and "Notes" - he would talk about Norman Bowker's personal experience in that time and place that it happened in the first story, then talk about Norman Bowker's life post-war and his connection to it. This also happens between the stories "The Things They Carried" and "Love" - he would talk about Jimmy Cross and his company's experience in the war, again at that time and place, in the first story, then would scope out and talk about the conversation Jimmy Cross had with her friend, years after and in the U.S. Notice how the first story was told in 3rd person, omniscient and the second was in first person, non-omniscient.
I was amazed by this; the variety in the book "Fire and Forget" is completely understandable, as it was written from veterans from all over the country; but for one author to have that many styles, and talk in that many different personalities? If my prediction that every story will have a unique writing style, there would be 22 different styles - a diverse collection indeed.
This brings up different questions: what did O'Brien feel when writing these stories? How many are made up, and how many are reflecting events that happened to him? Or many happened to his friends? Then again this refers to the idea of Fabula and Sjuzet: who cares if it happened or not: the Fabula is already lost, and Sjuzet is the only thing that remains, and any form of Sjuzet is distorted in some kind of way. What is important is that O'Brien get's his point across, and in this case it is more of a feeling than a moral, the feeling of being in a soldier's shoes.
Although this post has little to do with war, I decided to take a break from such brutality and found out something very different about the author himself and thought I should share it with you guys.
