5 - The Power of Storytelling
Summary
Tim O'Brien's writing is characterized by structural complexity and literary and linguistic self-awareness. Yet formal reflections and experimentations may also be regarded as one of the recurrent thematic concerns of his work, particularly when we consider that his attention to questions of style and structure is connected with the investigation into the power of storytelling as a viable epistemological tool, an effective means of communication and, even, as a source and a conduit for compassion and catharsis. The most obvious structural feature common to O'Brien's books is the rejection of a linear narrative development, often accompanied by an explicit foregrounding – through chapter and section titles, or through metafictional notations – of the alternative organizing principles of the text in question. Whether only a few pages long or spanning an entire book, his stories frequently unfold through multiple, interweaving narrative strands, each covering a different temporal dimension or exploring the relationship between facts, memory and imagination, or even providing various perspectives on the same theme and separate accounts of the same events. At other times, O'Brien relies on the juxtaposition of self-contained, and occasionally overlapping, vignettes, whose deep connection readers are invited to work out by themselves. Whatever the narrative strategy, at the heart of O'Brien's emphasis on the artistry of storytelling lie questions about the nature of truth and the possibility of its apprehension and representation.
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- Vietnam and BeyondTim O'Brien and the Power of Storytelling, pp. 185 - 234Publisher: Liverpool University PressPrint publication year: 2012