tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-934096967055481899.post3643899379943934611..comments2024-03-04T11:22:53.502-05:00Comments on Fifty Books Project 2023: The Things They Carried by Tim O'BrienFifty Books Projecthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08640286429668778869noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-934096967055481899.post-55525446682255493562014-08-23T21:09:27.483-04:002014-08-23T21:09:27.483-04:00My favorite passage from this book:
You can tell ...My favorite passage from this book:<br /><br />You can tell a true war story by the questions you ask. Somebody tells a story, let's say, and afterward you ask, "Is it true? and if the answer matters, you've got your answer.<br /><br />For example, we've all heard this one. Four guys go down a trail. A grenade sails out. One guy jumps on it and takes the blast and saves his three buddies.<br /><br />Is it true?<br /><br />The answer matters.<br /><br />You'd feel cheated if it never happened. Without the grounding reality, it's just a trite but of puffery, pure Hollywood, untrue in the way all such stories are untrue. Yet even if it did happen--and maybe it did, anything's possible even then you know it can't be true, because a true war story does not depend upon that kind of truth. Absolute occurrence is irrelevant. A thing may happen and be a total lie; another thing may not happen and be truer than the truth. For example: Four guys go down a trail. A grenade sails out. One guy jumps on it and takes the blast, but it's a killer grenade and everybody dies anyway. Before they die, though, one of the dead guys says, "The fuck you do <i>that</i> for?" and the jumper says, "Story of my life, man," and the other guy starts to smile but he's dead.<br /><br />That's a true story that never happened.Randyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14977189004050200033noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-934096967055481899.post-55604999952147352742014-08-22T13:26:09.592-04:002014-08-22T13:26:09.592-04:00I love this book. It's like a case study for t...I love this book. It's like a case study for the power of fiction to heal and create empathy, for me. I can't imagine it working without the anti-realist elements.Brent Waggonerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05121696882391723790noreply@blogger.com