Writing About Anguish Beyond Words | Tim O'Brien | Big Think

Writing About Anguish Beyond Words

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How to convey the horror of war to someone who’s never witnessed it? It’s language, not the pain of remembering, that makes the task so hard.

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Tim O'Brien:

Tim O'Brien is an American novelist. His books include the National Book Award-winning "Going After Cacciato" (1978), as well as his debut novel, "If I Die in a Combat Zone, Box Me Up and Ship Me Home" (1973); his most recent novel, "July, July" (2002); and the Pulitzer Prize finalist "The Things They Carried" (1990), a combination novel/short story collection/memoir based on his experiences in the Vietnam War. A special twentieth anniversary edition of "The Things They Carried" was released by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt in 2010.

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TRANSCRIPT:

Question: How do you resolve the tension rnbetween thernimpossibility of conveying war’s horrors and the need to try?

Tim O’Brien: Well, through story, rnessentially. The hope is that, when you do what Irndo, and you write novels, you are hoping for a sense of feeling to come rnthroughrnin the end. That throughrnnon-fiction, the brain is engaged and the head is engaged primarily. Not always just that, butrnprimarily. And with fiction,rntelling invented stories, the hope is that through the story, the readerrn lyingrnin bed at night, or reading the book on the subway, or the bus, will rnsort ofrnleave the bus or leave the bed and be transported to Madame Bovary’srnbedroom. And you’re kind of there,rnhalf a witness and half a participant in a story. Andrn my hope is that those who read "The Things TheyrnCarried," to my other books too. rnYou hope that they’re feel a certain identification thing that rnhappensrnin a story, where you’re rooting for people, you know, or hoping the rnvillain isrncaught, or your emotional take on—you’re in it, not just observing it rnthe wayrnyou observe CNN, or observe the Fox Channel with disgust.

Question: How do you resolve that same rntension in your ownrnlife?

Tim O’Brien: I don’t think I’ve ever tried rntornresolve it. It’s just one of thosernthings that just kind of resolves itself. rnWhen I speak about Vietnam, or when I write about it, I’m not—my rnownrnselfhood kind of evaporates. I’mrninterested in what’s occurring on the page and I’m interested in what’s rngoingrnto become to these characters and I’m interested in the moral struggles rnthey’rerngoing through. And I don’t—Myrnattention is on the making of an object, in a way. Inrn an artifact, the way a sculpture may look at a piece ofrnstone. And you may have a visionrnfor what you want that stone to become, but part of what you do is just,rn thernstone kind of leaves you to what it’s going to become. Arn vein of minerals may run through it,rnand ah, that’s there, that could become this. Andrn that’s a bit like writing fiction. A bit of rndialogue may pop out of arncharacter’s mouth that’s unplanned, and unintentional on my part. I have no volition over it, it seems tornappear. I know that it’s comingrnfrom somewhere inside my head and my history and my imagination, but it rndoesn’trnfeel as if I’m willing it and making it happen by volition; it’srnappearing.

Stories have a way of pulling you along, kind of rnchasing thernstory as you are writing it, and it doesn’t feel as if I’m playing that rnoldrnchildhood game of connecting dots, that they’ve all been planned and I’mrn justrngoing to write sentences to connect it all. It rnfeels more as if I’m on a riverboat and watching peoplernand scenery go by, and the novel, or story, as that feel of a voyage in rnwhichrnI’m partly a participant and partly a witness.

Question: Do you feel fresh anguish when rnwriting aboutrnanguishing experiences?

Tim O’Brien: I wish I could say yes, becausern it would soundrnso much "Big Think-y," but the act of writing for me is largely the act rnofrnfollowing sentences and making sentences. rnAnd for most people that probably is the time to click off and rnlook atrnsomething else, but unfortunately for me, stories grow out of a rnsentence. For example, the sentence, "This isrntrue," began one of my stories. Irnwrote the sentence and had no idea what was true, true in what sense I had no idea. Then I wrote rnanother sentence to followrnthat: "A buddy in Vietnam named Bob Kiley." Well,rn I’m partly discovering and I’m partly just curiousrnabout or fascinated about issues of what could be true and what is therncharacter going to say is true, and does this character really mean it?

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