A Conversation with Tim O'Brien on Writing & War
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 2 ส.ค. 2024
- (January 24, 2011) Tim O'Brien discusses the ethical issues raised by war with author Tobias Wolff. The two authors delve deeply into the less discussed issues of war and how it is portrayed in writing. They draw on personal experiences and knowledge that they have gathered through the years as scholars.
Stanford University:
www.stanford.edu/
Stanford Humanities Center:
shc.stanford.edu/
Tim O'Brien:
www.illyria.com/tobhp.html
Tobias Wolff:
english.stanford.edu/bio.php?n...
Stanford University Channel on TH-cam:
/ stanford
It's amazing to see two writers,who are Vietnam War veterans, talk about it!
It's just so great how material like this is out there for people via TH-cam. The channel has really revolutionized the transfer of information in the modern era. I can watch insightful interviews, obscure musical performances, personalized creative expressions... Now the only problem is mustering the self-control to turn it off!
My counselor Mrs. Rivera was right about using TH-cam as a search engine. I found the interviews I needed for my research project. Thanks to StanfordUniversity channel and Arlington county channel for providing these interviews with Tim O'Briens, they are so helpful.
One of the greatest human beings I've had the pleasure of knowing through his work. I've Read The Things They Carried, TomCat in Love, and Going After Cacciato. I've just started If I Die In A Combat Zone, and I can say with confidence, that Tim O'Brien is one of the best writers of the past, not quarter, but entire century.
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@Oscar Kody Instablaster :)
@Avi Skylar thanks for your reply. I found the site on google and I'm in the hacking process now.
Looks like it's gonna take a while so I will reply here later when my account password hopefully is recovered.
@Avi Skylar It did the trick and I now got access to my account again. I am so happy:D
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what a wonderful interview
"just the word war is abstract"
55:03
We just read The Things They Carried not 2 weeks ago in English class.
Very intellectual man.
a doi doi
*Why is the writer dude wearing a ball cap? 1: He is on his way to a base ball game. 2: It’s freezing cold in the studio. 3: He is bald, or going bald (suffering from Alopecia Areata?) 4: He is just a good ol’ American wearing part of the ubiquitous US Male Uniform: Baseball Cap and Sneakers! BTW his well written Vietnam novel “The Things They Carried” is on TH-cam audiobooks. Bangkok-Johnny CarSanook Media THAILAND*
O'Brien has always worn a baseball cap. He did when he read at my university more than thirty years ago.
Amazing. Tim can speak so eloquently one minute about the anger he feels about the U.S. war machine, and the next when a questioner asks about advice for a boy about to sign up he says, "I have no advice" and makes a joke about waking up at 4 am. This is a discussion on ethics and war? How about, "Don't put yourself in an inherently unethical situation by signing up."? Fighting Nazis in WWII is one thing. What's going on today is another. It's just too comfortable up there, fellas.
I like his book, but I feel like the anti-war shtick has been over played. War sucks, but Vietnam didn't suck to any special degree. At least not compared to any other war. The entire "problem" in Vietnam was moral based. The men didn't want to fight, didn't know why they had to fight, and the generals didn't know how to end the fight.
That being said, NOTHING in that war was particularly gruesome of unique. I've heard the same stories from Marines who fought in WWII. None of them seem to have anything to say about it. Perhaps they are just more men than we are. I can't speak of manliness at my age, I'm 21, and even if I joined the service, I'd never encounter what Tim and his comrades did in a war as pathetic as the Middle Eastern Crisis. ISIS is the IRA of the Muslim world. We could reduce them to a smudge in less than a week without breaking a sweat. Its just a matter of, why bother?
I once saw an interview with a 101st Airborne vet, one of the famous "Easy Company" It was after a particularly gruesome story in which several of his friends were gunned down by a German counter attack. The presenter asked before signing off, if he was given the chance to do over, would he have joined the Airborne? The Vet said, "I would do it all over again."
The Veteran didn't say he didn't have regrets or that he wouldn't have done things differently, but he didn't regret joining. The Airborne was a voluntary assignment, not like the regular infantry. That difference is mentality, that heroic determination was what was missing in Vietnam. And it made ALL the difference. It is both the reason we lost, the reason so many people remember it in such a negative light, why it is used as an example of the horrors of war to this day despite not being the most horrible war.
I am rather disappointed at the mentality the boys/ men in Tims story had. I can understand they didn't want to be there, and that moral is hard to keep up in such a situation. But their immature behavior and self centered ideology was only broken when they experienced Combat and were forced by necessity to aid one another. They formed a war bond, like the men of Easy Company. And yet, they never quite grew up. They learned the rules of war, but they never came to terms with it. Tim himself couldn't stop thinking about his girl, he admits he knew he had a problem. I'm sorry, but he is right, That is a problem, you can't possible have your priorities straight if your thinking about a FKING GIRL!
I find it neglectful on their part that they didn't even bother to think about the war till they were in "the shit". Seriously, I'm 21, and have never served, and I have through war stories and history books have a greater appreciation and understanding of a Soldier's burden than these "boys". They have the mentality of weekend warriors. Like this war is nothing more than a giant inconvenience. He shows apprehension, and genuine fear of the unknown, but fails to act on it. He responds more to the fear of being called a coward than he does the call of duty. Its not about Patriotism, its not about morality, its about your comrades, your friends, your people need you. You are in a life or death struggle, and those people directly around you command your undivided attention. For him to even think about his girl at a time like that shows just how disconnected from reality he is.
And being that this is a work of fiction, and that he doesn't actually know what others are thinking, it begs the question: where they all as immature as he depicts them? or is that his own immature rational bleeding through and reflecting himself onto the other characters?
Ultimately, this is fiction. Its very good piece of fiction though, cuz it shows his mentality. It may not accurately represent everything else in the war, but it very nicely tells the story of him, and even his thoughts. Something we don't get much of.
But these are HIS thoughts. Not every ones'. His interpretations of others' thought based off their words to him. There are other ways to approach this story. My perspective is from that of war stories. Stories of human sacrifice and bloody battles. unfathomable statistics and long drawn out campaigns. Tim didn't know or appreciate any of those things. So him and I have different perspectives of the situation.
Despite my rather aggravated assault on his person, It is still a very good book, and I have to step back and give him his credit. He served. I didn't. He was there, and I was not. So, ultimately, this battle of ideology ends with the ball in his court.
Damn it's crazy they didn't want to be in a completely fucking unjust war that was instigated by first, backing a literal undemocratic (from the bastion of democracy, defending democracy) regime that would have lost an election to Ho Chi Minh, then lying about being attacked by the inferior North Vietnamese Navy in the Gulf of Tonkin, THEN being sent over to die by people who aren't putting their own necks on the line. You seem to come at this from the angle that by virtue of being put into combat by the United States, (that would never be nefarious) he had an obligation to commit all his efforts to the war.