Someone Somewhere

I believe we could all sense that O'Brien would bring the story about Linda to us, because of the Rainy River chapter, just like we could tell that he would eventually tell us about Kiowa. Out of all the characters in this book Linda is the one I'm least likely to believe really existed, her and Azar. I don't know why, but I felt these two character help bring the other characters together. Azar being a soldier which Nam seems to bring the out the worst in. Azar says things that the others wouldn't. Things they might be thinking but would never say and he bring out the irritation and irreverence of the moment, he brings out conflict and then guides it along. I think Azar was a useful tool in O'Brien's storytelling. Linda helps wrap things up. She is the reason for why he keeps the others so close; why he writes, creates, and breaths life into these other characters. Like all the other events in the book you wonder if Linda is the real thing. In my opinion it doesn't matter, when reading the story Linda is real. Because that's what we are living at the time, we are living this book and these are the people we are interacting with in that moment. I also think that this book is so real because of the fact that even if it didn't happen to O'Brien it happened to someone, somewhere, sometime. He brings the realities of war up in your face.

The quote I like out of the interview with O'Brien is probably the one where he states " I really couldn't care less that the book was nonfiction. Its is presented in this way, but any person with an I.Q. over 84 knows that any narrative has to be--at least in part--invented."

I like this first because it shows his attitude towards it, he is protective as if all these things he wrote really did happen. Second because he is telling the realities of writing.