From the very first pages of the novel the plot seems to revolve around
Linda would come into the novel, in the beginning, at various times, without any explanation as to her significance. It wasn't until O' Brien recounted Rat Kiley and the other men shaking hands with the corpse that Linda's story unraveled. Seeing death as something real, yet at the same time very distant spurred memories if Linda. She possibly came up because her death was also acknowledged by Tim at a young age. However, it never fully registered because he never allowed Linda's spirit to die. He says clearly that "...as a writer now, I want to save Linda's life. Not her body - her life" (O'Brien 236). This is how the stories all come together, his need to preserve Linda's life parallels his feeling about the men he lost in
In essence, Linda, to O' Brien, is just like Tim Lavender or Kiowa. She is a person, whose memory and story live on through Tim's “memories”, fact or fiction. Each person has a story, whether it be "story truth" or “happening truth”, they all made and equal impact on his memory to be worthy of his writing. At night he dreams of himself with Linda, but they are not alone; they are accompanied by Kiowa, Ted Lavender, and Curt Lemon. They are all there in his mind, equally important to keep alive in his eyes, and all a story to be told. This is Tim's way of preserving his life and the lives of those lost. Through the stories he tells, he allows the dead to live on.
I personally was one of the many who, at first, didn't quite get the flow of the story when Linda was thrown into the mix. Then, after a few class discussions and looking back at the book, I started to put the pieces together, at least in my mind. I could be totally off and people may easily disagree with me. I saw the quote O’Brien inserts about Linda’s life and thought is was crucial in understanding the purpose of her story in the novel. Its purpose is to save her life, to keep her alive in memory through the gift of storytelling (which we all know O'Brien has a true knack for because none of this could be true, but it's pretty convincing!) I know I could be completely inaccurate in my assessment of the purpose of Linda, but to me it makes sense and any other way I look at the situation it doesn't seem to fit. O' Brien has the liberty to write about what he wants, especially when it is a book of fiction, and the lives he chose to remember are those important to him and ones he feels deserve eternal life. Stories are how the memories of times and lives long forgotten can once again be brought to the spotlight and live on forever.
3 comments:
I am glad you touched upon Linda's importance in the novel. I was very drawn to his story of Linda. It was Tim's introduction to death when Linda passed. He loved Linda and that event lived on within him and truly does parallel all the lives he saw lost in Vietnam. He saw people die he cared about or could care less about, but the fact is that he came face to face with death and it changed him. Our author searches for a place where he can acknowledge that change and make it worthwhile and he does that on paper. One of the last lines he says and I do not have the book so don't quote me is that in making this book "Tim is trying to save Timmy's life with a story." You realize that through the various tales he tells, O'Brien is just trying to get key people's lives out to his audience. Often we don't acknowledge the people that altered history but when we read we are forced to.
O'Brien, also through story-telling, shows the audience that writing is an outlet for sharing life as you see it. Through you writing you can make events better or worse than they were but writing is important so that we can remember somebody and their story.
I definitely agree that O'Brian's incorporation of Linda paralleled his attempting to preserve the memory of his fellow soldiers. I also think it coincides with the idea of loss of innocence. Loss of innocence is addressed copiously throughout the novel, and I think for O'Brian, these deaths represent his own personal loss of innocence. He writes these stories in order to essentially bring these individuals back to life/keep their memories alive, while at the same time revisiting this innocence.
How wonderful his line that being dead is "like being inside a book that nobody's reading" (245). When you need those memories, that emotional fix, climb up the shelves and pull down that book of memories. There's something comforting in that image.
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