Sandy - Picked because she saw Tim O'Brien on the TV show American Masters: The Boomer List, and thought he spoke well about Vietnam. He was so young and that letter on table... My Gawd. My uncle was in the Vietnam War. And why didn't Tim just go to Canada? He was so young and scared. It's one of the saddest books I've ever read guys, I'm so sorry. I can't stop thinking about i..WAIT! Fiction? Really? I might as well have read A Million Little Pieces!! I give it a two!!! Not my type of book! I don't even know what to say... Sandy eventually recovered from the shock of discovering it was fiction and went on to say that the violence was hard to take and she was sick to her stomach with the story of Lemon and the water buffalo and that she was very upset to learn that it was fiction.
Rated: 7.5 8
Rated: 7.5 8
Maggie thought she would hate it, but loved it. Couldn't put it down. She knew that it wasn't autobiographical. She noted that part of the disconnect they experienced when they came back to the states was that they missed the discipline, camaraderie, and kinship that they had during the war. Maggie's dad never spoke of his WWII experiences, but her father-in-law fondly remembers the brotherhood he experienced during it and said that he even missed those parts of the war. She thought that Tim seemed naive going into it. She liked the way he spoke of home and his writing. She would like to read something else by him.
Rated 7.5 7.5
Rated 7.5 7.5
K'Lynn - began by sweetly pointing out that right under the title, in black and white, it says 'a work of fiction'. She didn't understand this at first because it seemed so real. She would double-check sentences. She shared a quote about writing and truth that resolved every argument we've ever had about the fine line between memoir and fiction, but I didn't get it all down! What was it, K'lynn? Her take was there were many perspectives, all based in truth, but it was ultimately a work of fiction. Could there be anything worse than drowning in pond of poop? She found the story of his first love Linda who died at the age of nine very insightful and liked what he had to say about stories bringing the dead back to life. Her favorite chapter was his story about almost escaping to Canada.
Rated: 7 7
Rated: 7 7
Pat - I was surprised by how the hardest story for him to tell was the trip to the Canadian border. It certainly wasn't what I was expecting, but I also thought it was non-fiction and now this doesn't have the same impact. This book drives home that fiction is sometimes more true than non-fiction. Stephen King calls fiction the truth inside the lie. I think O'Brien's point is that it doesn't matter whether these stories happened exactly this way. I think Carolyn said the events of war themselves were not relevant but the survivor's reaction is. This stuck with me.
Rated: 8 8
Rated: 8 8
Becky - has never come to grips why we were in Vietnam. She was overwhelmed with how much was packed into each chapter and how intermeshed they were. She thought the writing was phenomenal, and the story of O'Brien's 9-year old 'girlfriend' made her sob. She felt like it was true even though she knew it wasn't, and doubted his claim that this was not therapy writing. Their mutual experiences of knowing they may die any moment gave the soldiers both a bond of camaraderie, yet enabled them to do horrible things. Trying to sort the truth from fiction was very annoying and she decided the point was there was no truth, only stories.
Rated: 8.75 8.75
Carolyn - thinks even though it says fiction, most of the events must have happened. O'Brien wrote: “I want you to feel what I felt. I want you to know why story-truth is truer sometimes than happening-truth.” Carolyn thinks we believe the story-truth because it captures how we feel and react. She noted that the things they carried also had mental weight. She wondered what was wrong with them to act so horribly, but then realized this was their way of dealing with the war. How they could stay sane through such experiences? She felt for him as he sat in the boat at the Tip Top Lodge and said to himself, "I was a coward, so I went to war." It's all so sad, they were kids and they didn't even know it. Didn't think she would like it, but did and couldn't put it down.
Rated: 6 6
Michelle - Thought she might have rated it higher if she hadn't read The Yellow Birds first. OMG how many times is he going to write, "he had to carry"? Short stories bug her. Her favorite chapter was also the Tip Top Lodge. Michelle shared how she had two uncles who served in Vietnam and ever since she was nine years old, when family conversations revolve around the war she has said that she would go to Canada if it were to ever come to that. One uncle will say nothing about the war, but her father-in-law loves to talk about the brotherhood he experienced in WWII. She has heard many Vietnam stories, so she felt a familiarity while reading, but it drove her crazy with how it was written and she didn't want to read about the bad stuff. Anyone that goes to war has to carry something from it for the rest of their lives.
Rated: 4.5 5.5
Miles figured about 95% of the book was non-fiction but the author was faced with the challenge of recounting true stories with real people experiencing death, remembered dialogue, surreal violence and he had to figure out a way to write about these things while protecting others and himself, so fiction was the only option. War stories are often a combination of worst/best ever experiences, and to have to deal with such things at such an impressionable age has to be incredibly difficult. He gave the example of reading books at age 20 that were great, but were he to read them now, they would probably rate a five or six, so imagine what sort of impression a real life experience like war would make. The writing was fantastic. Gave the punchline at the beginning, and then fleshed out the story. Overall the stories were good, though a bit redundant and they didn't really sum up anything about Vietnam for him.
Rated: 6 6.5
Lola also thought of The Yellow Birds and remembered what a wrecked human that character was at the end, but this was an easier read because the short stories made the subject more palatable. She liked his line that there would be, "Certain blood for uncertain reasons." It was so different from WWII with no clear enemy, all shadowy figures in the mist, but the Draft didn't let you choose which war to fight. There was lots of gallows humor, and she liked the line about a true war story never has a moral. She thought he often brought up how much he felt glad to be alive, even if just to look at the blades of grass in front of him.
Rated: 8 8.5
Rated: 8.75 8.75
Carolyn - thinks even though it says fiction, most of the events must have happened. O'Brien wrote: “I want you to feel what I felt. I want you to know why story-truth is truer sometimes than happening-truth.” Carolyn thinks we believe the story-truth because it captures how we feel and react. She noted that the things they carried also had mental weight. She wondered what was wrong with them to act so horribly, but then realized this was their way of dealing with the war. How they could stay sane through such experiences? She felt for him as he sat in the boat at the Tip Top Lodge and said to himself, "I was a coward, so I went to war." It's all so sad, they were kids and they didn't even know it. Didn't think she would like it, but did and couldn't put it down.
Rated: 6 6
Michelle - Thought she might have rated it higher if she hadn't read The Yellow Birds first. OMG how many times is he going to write, "he had to carry"? Short stories bug her. Her favorite chapter was also the Tip Top Lodge. Michelle shared how she had two uncles who served in Vietnam and ever since she was nine years old, when family conversations revolve around the war she has said that she would go to Canada if it were to ever come to that. One uncle will say nothing about the war, but her father-in-law loves to talk about the brotherhood he experienced in WWII. She has heard many Vietnam stories, so she felt a familiarity while reading, but it drove her crazy with how it was written and she didn't want to read about the bad stuff. Anyone that goes to war has to carry something from it for the rest of their lives.
Rated: 4.5 5.5
Miles figured about 95% of the book was non-fiction but the author was faced with the challenge of recounting true stories with real people experiencing death, remembered dialogue, surreal violence and he had to figure out a way to write about these things while protecting others and himself, so fiction was the only option. War stories are often a combination of worst/best ever experiences, and to have to deal with such things at such an impressionable age has to be incredibly difficult. He gave the example of reading books at age 20 that were great, but were he to read them now, they would probably rate a five or six, so imagine what sort of impression a real life experience like war would make. The writing was fantastic. Gave the punchline at the beginning, and then fleshed out the story. Overall the stories were good, though a bit redundant and they didn't really sum up anything about Vietnam for him.
Rated: 6 6.5
Lola also thought of The Yellow Birds and remembered what a wrecked human that character was at the end, but this was an easier read because the short stories made the subject more palatable. She liked his line that there would be, "Certain blood for uncertain reasons." It was so different from WWII with no clear enemy, all shadowy figures in the mist, but the Draft didn't let you choose which war to fight. There was lots of gallows humor, and she liked the line about a true war story never has a moral. She thought he often brought up how much he felt glad to be alive, even if just to look at the blades of grass in front of him.
Rated: 8 8.5
Comments