This article that Jim Neilson wrote about The Things They Carried gives a whole new understanding on how to read this book. Neilson proves that O’Brien’s approach to telling made up war stories is a great way to explain the conditions and trials that the soldiers go through during the war. I realize how effective this method of writing is now that I understand why he is writing this way. Neilson says that even with O’Brien writing this way, he “has been faithful both to Vietnam and to the stories told about it”.
Neilson gives great insight on what The Things They Carried is trying to convey. I believe that the most useful insight I got out of this was about O’Brien’s style of writing while he wrote this book. Neilson says that “with the facts of Vietnam in such a flux, perhaps some small measure of comfort can be taken in the certainty that eventually everyone will be wrong. The facts, in Vietnam, make liars of us all” (59). “It is within this framework—the belief that the war escapes understanding and representation and even makes us liars—that O’Brien attempts to tell a true war story”. This basically explains that since everything is all messed up anyways, all people are liars. Since O’Brien’s audiences were not part of the war, they will usually believe anything that they hear because they were not there to witness it for themselves. This makes O’Brien’s approach very effective, because no one really knows if it is true or not. Neilson says that “those who have had any such experience as the author will see its fruitfulness at once, and to all the other readers it is commended as a statement of actual things by who experienced them to the fullest. This essentially means that people have to experience for themselves and make their own opinions on things.
Jim Neilson believes that O’Brien’s novel is not believable and he criticizes him for it. I agree with Neilson because I do not think O’Brien’s book is realistic. Maybe, since I have not seen for myself the events of war, I cannot fully understand this book; which clouds my opinion on this subject. Because of this I agree with the criticism that Neilson has towards O’Brien’s writing.