Don't get me wrong, I find this writing style to be very cool and it can certainly add to the meaning of the work as a whole, especially if they all tie together in some way. for example, if one story shows how and why a certain character acts towards specific events, and in another story that particular event happens and there is no explanation of why he/she acted the way that they did. I don't know. I expected these stories to go in a rotation like pattern (Story 1, Story 2, Story 3, Story 1 , Story 2, Story 3...), but of course it doesn't. But that just forces the reader to engage in the novel more. It began 1,2,3 but now it has gone 1,2,3,2,3,1,2,1,3,etc. No specific pattern.
...Road to Paris
The novel begins with this story, and in my previous post, I showed how O'Brien begins the novel in the middle of the action. Cacciato has gone AWOL and a squad is sent to retrieve him and it ends up being a long journey full of surprises. Recently, Paul Berlin, our main character, has crossed the border into Laos and has befriended a young girl between the ages of 12 and 22 and there seems to be foreshadowing of love. I hope to God there isn't because a soldier (18 or older) realizes she could be 12 years old and is trying to spark a relationship of some sort. But, that's what war will do to you, This girl is might also be playing him and using him for a trip to Paris to escape the war front.
My question is why are they still going after Cacciato? The Lt. is very sick and is barely able to keep up and it's one guy who is very dumb and will probably get himself killed before he walks to Paris. Murphy knows what's up and he went back to camp less than a week in.
The Observation Post
So far I'm not quite sure of the timing of this story however I do know it's after Cacciato because they are watching him. To Paul Berlin, this is the longest night of his life, minutes are more than 60 seconds apparently and he checks his watch repeatedly. The war has affected him and fear has overtaken him. The little good times he has had go by quickly and the stressful bad times drag on. Paul talks of his constant fear of war. No specifics yet, just war.
Death
This series of stories takes place at the beginning of it all. All the way back to when Paul Berlin gets drafted. Clearly, this is before Cacciato takes off because he is mentioned in the passages several times as he is there. In each passage, a member of their squad or battalion is either injured and is dying from infection or wounds or is straight up killed. I believe this will tie into Paul's fear that he thinks about at night during his watch at the Observation Post.
Good discussion of the structure of the novel. O'Brien does like to shift between stories, and usually they all do connect back together to argue a main point. Is the writing style the same in each of the sections? It would be nice to see some quotes from the sections to show how they are written.
ReplyDelete