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351 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1978
Soldier Tim O'Brien
that was one of the jokes. There was a joke about Oscar. There were many jokes about Billy Boy Watkins, the way he’d collapsed of fright on the field of battle. Another joke was about the lieutenant’s dysentery, and another was about Paul Berlin’s purple biles. There were jokes about the postcard pictures of Christ that Jim Pederson used to carry, and Stink’s ringworm, and the way Buff’s helmet filled with life after death. Some of the jokes were about Cacciato. Dumb as a bullet, Stink said. Dumb as a month-old oyster fart, said Harold Murphy.
Brilliant, hallucinatory and hypnotic, the narrative jumps around, jumbling continuity, reality, fear, duty and dreams as it deftly and completely messes with your head.
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O’Brien brilliantly portrays Berlin’s story of Vietnam through fragments and an array of possibilities that cleverly leaves the reader’s mind open to many avenues of understanding and interpretation.
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Cacciato -- "dumb as milk" but always ahead, always out of reach -- leads them through a surreal landscape of rabbithole logic as if they were newly dead spirits trying to find their way in the fog of an unfamiliar netherworld.
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The blond-headed lieutenant watched him climb. Though he did not know the soldier’s name, this did not matter much, for the soldiers whose names he did not know he simply called Soldier or Trooper, whichever came to him first, and there was nothing impersonal or degrading about either word. He watched the boy’s strange mechanical walk, the lazy obscurity of each step, the ploddingness, and he felt both sadness and pride. He saw the boy as a soldier. Maybe not yet a good soldier, but still a soldier. He saw him as part of a whole, as one of many soldiers pressed together by the force of mission. The lieutenant was not stupid. He knew these beliefs were unpopular. He knew in his society, and many of the men under his own command, did not share them. But he did not ask his men to share his views, only to comport themselves like soldiers. So watching Paul Berlin’s dogged climb, its steadiness and persistence, the lieutenant felt great admiration for the boy, admiration and love combined. He secretly urged him on. For the sake of mission, yes, and for the welfare of the platoon. But also for the boy’s own well-being, so that he might feel the imperative to join the battle and to win it.
After the war, perhaps, he might return to Quang Ngai. Years and years afterward. Return to track down the girl with gold hoops through her ears. Bring along an interpreter. And then, with the war ended, history decided, he would explain to her why he had let himself go to war. Not because of strong convictions, but because he didn’t know. He didn’t know who was right, or what was right; he didn’t know if it was a war of self-determination or self-destruction, outright aggression or national liberation; he didn’t know which speeches to believe, which books, which politicians; he didn’t know if nations would topple like dominoes or stand separate like trees; he didn’t know who really started the war, or why, or when, or with what motives; he didn’t know if it mattered, he saw sense in both sides of the debate, but he did not know where truth lay; he didn’t know if Communist tyranny would prove worse in the long run than the tyrannies of Ky or Thieu or Khanh – he simply didn’t know. And who did? Who really did? He couldn’t make up his mind. Oh, he had read the newspapers and magazines. He wasn’t stupid. He wasn’t uninformed. He just didn’t know if the war was right or wrong. And who did? Who really knew? So he went to the war for reasons beyond knowledge. Because he believed in law, and law told him to go. Because it was a democracy, after all, and because LBJ and the others had rightful claim to their offices. He went to the war because it was expected. Because not to go was to risk censure, and to bring embarrassment on his father and his town. Because, not knowing, he saw no reason not to trust those with more experience. Because he loved his country and, more than that, because he trusted it. Yes, he did. Oh, he would have rather fought with his father in France, knowing certain things certainly, but he couldn’t choose his war, nobody could. Was this so banal? Was this so unprofound and stupid? He would look the little girl with the gold earrings straight in the eye. He would tell her these things. He would ask her to see the matter his way. What would she have done? What would anyone have done, not knowing? And then he would ask the girl questions. What did she want? How did she see the war? What were her aims – peace, any peace, peace with dignity? Did she refuse to run for the same reasons he refused – obligation, family, the land, friends, home? And now? Now, war ended, what did she want? Peace and quiet? Peace and pride? Peace with mashed potatoes and Swiss steak and vegetables, a full-tabled peace, indoor plumbing, a peace with Oldsmobiles and Hondas and skyscrapers climbing from the fields, a peace of order and harmony and murals on public buildings? Were her dreams the dreams of ordinary men and women? Quality-of-life dreams? Material dreams? Did she want a long life? Did she want medicine when she was sick, food on the table and reserves in the pantry? Religious dreams? What? What did she aim for? If a wish were to be granted by the war’s winning army – any wish – what would she choose?