Relation

The last chapter that tells the story of Timmy and Linda reaffirm the book in its emotional truth. The whole book has motifs of life and death, of war and peace, and of love and hate; some very innate ideas that most can relate to. The childhood flash back rewinds the reader to those first experiences and is a reminder why these motifs mean anything at all to the reader.

The story did a good illustration of the first footsteps in understanding specifically love, war, and death and the emotional weight these ideas carry. Timmy’s first true love was Linda. Tim didn’t just say, “Oh I love her, she’s swell,” but addressed the mystery and enticement of his love. Why was she always smiling? Nick Veenof was the war, or more specifically, the enemy. A brutal animal that wasn’t always mean, but wasn’t always nice either. And finally Linda’s death and the hole it left, even if just a memory. Timmy was the one who learned these lessons first, and essentially taught Tim O’Brien the lessons down the line.

Then Tim O’Brien brings the story to the present and to its final step of relevance. He dreams of her in an even more abstract way. She is no longer Linda, but merely someone to preserve Timmy. With that said, it is possible this childhood memory outlines the metaphor of this book; the whole book is an attempt to save the Timmy and all that Timmy embodies.

In the interview, Tim O’Brien speaks about making sure that the “legend is still going on somewhere”, and the story of Timmy and Linda at the end of the book makes everything happen all over again. Yes, the war is over, but the things he felt are still alive because of Timmy and Linda. That’s what relevance does.