“I can see Kiowa, too, and Ted Lavender and Curt Lemon, and sometimes I can even see Timmy skating with Linda under the yellow floodlights. I’m young and happy. I’ll never die. I’m skimming across the surface of my own history, moving fast, riding the melt beneath the blades, doing loops and spins, and when I take a high leap into the dark and come down thirty years later, I realize it is as Tim trying to save Timmy’s life with a story.”
Tim O’Brien, “The Things They Carried”
I finally understand why I like telling stories, my desire to write them down, my desire to re-visit even the dark moments of my life. I’m just trying to breathe life into the ghosts, to save them, to bring them back to life.
When writing is good enough to help you grapple with your own heart, it’s very good.
Tim O’Brien
I just finished up “The Things They Carried”, by Tim O’Brien a Minnesota writer.
The book was really good. It was a series of short stories ostensibly about Vietnam. The stories were haunting; each chapter had both its own unique beauty and horror.
The last story, which ties together some threads in the book and isn’t so much about Vietnam, was one of the most amazing pieces of writing I have seen in a long time.
