Story Truth

"Sometimes story truth is truer than happening truth." Tim O'Brien, The Things They Carried.

Have you ever told a story or related an event to another person and discovered yourself bending the facts just a little? Have you stretched the truth to make the story end in a more interesting way? Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried raises these questions in such a compelling way that it makes the reader question the veracity of his/her own storytelling practices.


Ostensibly a book about the Vietnam War, TTC is also about the art of storytelling. In O'Brien's opinion, there are rules to telling good stories, one of the most important being to make the story interesting. In fact, he suggests, the story itself is often more important than the facts of the event at the heart of the story. This leads one to question O'Brien's storytelling tactics.


In interviews about the book, O'Brien has insisted the work is fictitious, yet he dedicates it to the men of Alpha Company, and names each one in the introduction. He does another thing to make the reader question his truthfulness. He openly admits to lying in several chapters. He states each event as factual then, contradicts himself in subsequent stories. How can a reader believe an author who admits to using a lie as a narrative technique--this is a rhetorical question, of course.

Personally, I think there's more truth here than he would like us to believe. He'd prefer readers to take the the book at face value and he'll probably never reveal just how much of it has been fabricated, but it's impossible to miss his literary sleight of hand. (Read the now-famous O'Brien interview (about the book) at:
http://www.wooster.edu/artfuldodge/interviews/obrien.htm )

Besides, O'Brien's theory is, readers are story lovers, and we'll accept most anything if the story is told well. Right? My theory is, we live such interesting lives, storied lives that seem to follow plots that aren't always clear to us, that we don't have to fabricate. It's the old notion that truth is stranger than fiction. We are a storied culture--we make sense out of life by casting events into fables, parables, short stories, poems and other literary forms. Most of us create stories out of the very events that comprise our everyday lives.

So, my guess (and I stand pretty much alone with this idea) is, O'Brien's story is grounded in more truth than he'd ever admit. The stories he tells in TTC are so powerful, they don't require fictionalization.

If you've read this book, I'd like to know what you think about it.


Tim O'Brien's website is at http://www.illyria.com/tobhp.html
Read

NY Times Book Review of O'Brien's book. http://www.nytimes.com/books/98/09/20/specials/obrien-carried.html?_r=1