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so_disarming_darling) wrote2011-02-24 11:28 pm
so_disarming_darling) wrote2011-02-24 11:28 pm
"He claimed the bugs were personally after his ass" or Influences: The Things They Carried
I'm doing another influences post, because otherwise I'm going to post a rant about things that are getting under my skin at the moment. They're unrelated to this afternoon, which was awesome and actually very productive (once Simone and I realized that we needed not to talk about art direction in video games).
Somewhere, down the road, this post will have a sister post, talking about Vietnam, Korea, WWII, homefront cultures, and propaganda and how, without them, my imagination would be a very different place than it is, and Poli Sci would not have the few tenuous ties with reality it does (and would also probably be a considerably less, er, unsettling story). So, in anticipation of that, I'm going to try to avoid harping on the Vietnam piece of TTTC, as it'll prove redundant.
My introduction to the book was in eleventh grade, when it was assigned reading. While I can thank Ms. Scanlon for an entire year of interesting, thoughtful assigned reading, this is the one that's really stuck with me as a writer.
O'Brien's wrestling with a laundry list of issues in the book including guilt, memory, forgiveness, and trauma, things that matter to anyone, regardless of what's going on. It's a book that definitely shifted my perspective on things in the larger scope of the world, but also forced me to confront issues I previously hadn't with Poli Sci. I'd scooted around some of said issues in a short story I'd written for On My Mind 2010 a few months prior, but it had never occurred to me the extent they were going to come into play for my Poli Sci kids, which is something I'm somewhat embarrassed to admit in retrospect, particularly in regards to trauma.
My main characters have all either served or been caught in a war (though none were combatants), but I stupidly never factored in the issue of trauma into characterizations. This is especially embarrassing as I'd been playing with and developing the characters for three years at that point and thought I had nailed everything down and was ready to go. Yeah, right. By "Speaking of Courage," I realized I had a lot of work to do.
What I love about TTTC is its treatment of the issues. Tim O'Brien constructed something beautiful, something that sticks. His characters are real, well-developed people, defiant and damaged. They're not heroes, but they are. It's a book of messy endings that doesn't feel messy and tragedies that aren't depressing. It's a celebration of stories, and of healing, without the sappiness.
His thoughts on storytelling, that it saves us, keeps us sane, keeps us from forgetting the people who aren't there anymore, are what eventually gave me the impetus for my narrator to tell the story. I'd kicked around some pretty stupid contrived ideas before that, for the sake of my dignity, I'm not going to mention here. TTTC gave me the reason: if character X doesn't talk about what's just happened, she's going to go nuts. She's going to have the Rat Kiley moment to end all Rat Kiley moments, and it will not involve an air lift and comic books. Problem solved.
Of course, bringing up Rat Kiley and comic books brings me to another point on O'Brien in TTTC: he's practically writing a masterclass in concise characterization through awesome little details. I mention Rat Kiley, because his introduction mentions that he carries (among all the serious medical supplies) M&Ms, brandy, and comic books. Little details matter.
The entire book caused me to re-evaluate my characters and work through some of their issues to, I hope, make them a little more believable. Beyond the scope of writing, it did much more.
Somewhere, down the road, this post will have a sister post, talking about Vietnam, Korea, WWII, homefront cultures, and propaganda and how, without them, my imagination would be a very different place than it is, and Poli Sci would not have the few tenuous ties with reality it does (and would also probably be a considerably less, er, unsettling story). So, in anticipation of that, I'm going to try to avoid harping on the Vietnam piece of TTTC, as it'll prove redundant.
My introduction to the book was in eleventh grade, when it was assigned reading. While I can thank Ms. Scanlon for an entire year of interesting, thoughtful assigned reading, this is the one that's really stuck with me as a writer.
O'Brien's wrestling with a laundry list of issues in the book including guilt, memory, forgiveness, and trauma, things that matter to anyone, regardless of what's going on. It's a book that definitely shifted my perspective on things in the larger scope of the world, but also forced me to confront issues I previously hadn't with Poli Sci. I'd scooted around some of said issues in a short story I'd written for On My Mind 2010 a few months prior, but it had never occurred to me the extent they were going to come into play for my Poli Sci kids, which is something I'm somewhat embarrassed to admit in retrospect, particularly in regards to trauma.
My main characters have all either served or been caught in a war (though none were combatants), but I stupidly never factored in the issue of trauma into characterizations. This is especially embarrassing as I'd been playing with and developing the characters for three years at that point and thought I had nailed everything down and was ready to go. Yeah, right. By "Speaking of Courage," I realized I had a lot of work to do.
What I love about TTTC is its treatment of the issues. Tim O'Brien constructed something beautiful, something that sticks. His characters are real, well-developed people, defiant and damaged. They're not heroes, but they are. It's a book of messy endings that doesn't feel messy and tragedies that aren't depressing. It's a celebration of stories, and of healing, without the sappiness.
His thoughts on storytelling, that it saves us, keeps us sane, keeps us from forgetting the people who aren't there anymore, are what eventually gave me the impetus for my narrator to tell the story. I'd kicked around some pretty stupid contrived ideas before that, for the sake of my dignity, I'm not going to mention here. TTTC gave me the reason: if character X doesn't talk about what's just happened, she's going to go nuts. She's going to have the Rat Kiley moment to end all Rat Kiley moments, and it will not involve an air lift and comic books. Problem solved.
Of course, bringing up Rat Kiley and comic books brings me to another point on O'Brien in TTTC: he's practically writing a masterclass in concise characterization through awesome little details. I mention Rat Kiley, because his introduction mentions that he carries (among all the serious medical supplies) M&Ms, brandy, and comic books. Little details matter.
The entire book caused me to re-evaluate my characters and work through some of their issues to, I hope, make them a little more believable. Beyond the scope of writing, it did much more.