War, Not-War, and Peace: 'The Things They Carried' by Tim O’Brien
Too often, ‘peace’ is simply the absence of active war. Ours is a country – and culture – forged in a crucible of war and conquest. What defines much of our national character is aggression, both its light and dark sides. The five Pulitzer Prize recognized books selected for this series are:
The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien, 1991 Fiction finalist
Empire of the Summer Moon by S. C. Gwynne, 2011 General Nonfiction finalist
Maus by Art Spiegelman, 1992 Special Citation winner
Neon Vernacular by Yusef Komunyakaa, 1994 Poetry winner
All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr, 2015 Fiction winner
These choices reflect not only the requisite scholarship, but a deep commitment to presenting Pulitzer winners detailing both the active elements of war – seen clearly in Neon Vernacular, Maus, and Things – as well as the long-lived legacies of war, in those periods optimistically called ‘peace.’ The fragmented peace/non-war axis is evident in all five of the texts, which span a history beginning with the Indian Wars (Empire), move to WWII (Maus and All the Light) and the Vietnam War (Things and Neon Vernacular), and culminate in contemporary time. Given the parameters of the Pulitzer grant, perspectives are as broad as possible: characters are black, white, mixed race, Indian. Male and female, blind and sighted. German, Jewish, French, American, Comanche. Even genres have been examined to undercut the idea of the Pulitzers as awards for only certain kinds of texts: fiction, non-fiction, history, biography, poetry. The result is a prism through which war and peace are refracted in multiple colors, a vivid palette of war, not-war, and peace.
On August 30, Ken Hada, Ph.D. will present on The Things They Carried. These readings begin with the immediate impact of war, where the ‘thesis’ of the project is stated clearly: "…story-truth is truer sometimes than happening-truth.” (Things 172). Tim O’Brien warns us, early on, that: “True war stories….do not generalize. They do not indulge in abstraction or analysis.” Beauty – by its very nature – is an abstraction. And therefore not, O’Brien warns us, to be trusted: For example: “War is hell. As a moral declaration the old truism seems perfectly true, and yet because it abstracts, it generalizes, I can’t believe it with my stomach… A true war story, if truly told, makes the stomach believe.” (Things 73)
Here, although we see the least disguised, least ornamented of narratives – war at its traditional ‘purest,’ combat, death, grief – we also have the explicit declaration that “a true war story is never about war. It’s about sunlight… It’s about love and memory. It’s about worry.” (Things 80) And we have O’Brien conflating deaths with childhood stories and war, setting the stage for what follows.
What remains is O’Brien’s famous assertion: that what is most important when we write (or read?) about war is to remember – we dream stories as we tell them, “hoping that others might then dream along with [us], and in this way memory and imagination and language combine…” (Things 234) Because in stories – in books of poetry, pictures, prose – “miracles can happen.” (Things 223)
More in this series:
Aug. 30, 6:30 p.m.
The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien
Presenter: Ken Hada, Ph.D.
Sept. 20, 6:30 p.m.
Empire of the Summer Moon by S. C. Gwynne
Presenter: Rex Morrell, Ph.D.
Oct. 18, 6:30 p.m.
Maus by Art Spiegelman
Presenter: Robert Greenstreet, Ph.D.
Nov. 8, 6:30 p.m.
Neon Vernacular by Yusef Komunyakka
Presenter: Bill Hagen, Ph.D.
Dec. 6, 6:30 p.m.
All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr
Presenter: Glenn Melancon, Ph.D.