It was a chapter full of dark humor, though. I don't know if that falls under tone or mood.... The tone, I guess, is darkly humorous, and the mood is... uh, darkly humorous. I thought I had a good thought going there, for a second =\. I kind of loved the part where Strunk says, "Jesus, man, don't kill me," (p. 63) after they have that very official contract, and how Jensen seems relieved that he didn't make it, in the end.
Also, I forgot to mention that the narrator's name is indeed Tim. More specifically, he's Tim O'Brien, and that is the author of the book, which makes me think it's autobiographical, but the title page says it's fiction. My dad reads these books by Clive Cussler, and I think he said something about them possibly having a character named after the author.....
Ahem. Clive Cussler does oftentimes include a character named Clive Cussler in his novels. Usually he's a crazy old guy living out in the desert who gets a nice 15 page cameo appearance, and then the real protagonist leaves and Clive is never heard from again. However, that doesn't really look like what's at work here. The main character IS in fact the same as the author; however, it's still a work of fiction because eventually you will discover that not everything you read in this book is actually true. Most of it didn't actually happen, and the rest didn't happen exactly how he says it did. Eventually, you just accept that there are only two things absolutely true: Tim O'Brien fought in the Vietnam War, and Tim O'Brien didn't die. Everything else has at least a slight amount of fudge mixed in. Thus, fiction.
ReplyDeleteThaaaaaaattt makes me kind of mad. I still liked it, sort of, though. I liked it, though, sort of. (<--Choose your preference.) Oh, perhaps I still sort of liked it. I choose that one.
ReplyDeleteMaybe he made it like that to preserve the privacy of his friends, or something, but if so, he should have probably just changed their names and been done with it. That wouldn't have been as original, though. I guess it also made it more real. Booooooooooooo, I don't know what he was thinking. I can't get in his head. ...Let's ask him.
I think that Tim O'Brien names a character, the main character in his novel, after himself for 2 reasons. 1) although the novel is fiction, sometimes it is easier to tell a story from first person. and 2) All stories hold more than an inkling of truth., as I am sure you know, being such an amazing authoress yourself. anywho... Maybe its based off of a friend or one's own life, but in the end, nearly every story ever written, in my belief, grew from some truth. In this case, O'Brien was in Nam, so maybe he didn't experience all of this, but he wanted to share what he heard and knew, and saw to the best of his ability.
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