Also
If you know me well, you know. I don’t have role models (other than my brother). Now, I often mean what I say in this blog. But then, I don’t lie when I make up some of the details. Mr. Tim O’Brien put it best, and yet, he had things to say and I don’t. He had a war to talk about; after all, it’s easier to write if you have a war to talk about. And much harder, for sure. Mostly, it has nothing to do with what I am doing here.“It’s time to be blunt.
I’m forty-three years old, true, and I’m a writer now, and a long time ago I walked through Quang Ngai Province as a foot soldier.
Almost everything else is invented.
But it’s not a game. It’s a form. Right here, right now, as I invent myself, I’m thinking of all I want to tell you about why this book is written as it is. For instance, I want to tell you this: twenty years ago I watched a man die on a trail near the village of My Khe. I did not kill him. But I was present, you see, and my presence was guilt enough. I remember his face, which was not a pretty face, because his jaw was in his throat, and I remember feeling the burden of responsibility and grief. I blamed myself. And rightly so, because I was present.
But listen. Even that story is made up.
I want you to feel what I felt. I want you to know why story-truth is truer sometimes than happening-truth.
[…]
“Daddy, tell me the truth,” Kathleen can say, “did you ever kill anybody?” And I can say, honestly, “Of course not.”
Or I can say, honestly, “Yes.”’
For the most part, this says everything there is to say about writing.
Also, I’m a little drunk. Good night.
posted by Dora @ 12:54 AM
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