My thoughts on Neilson's take on TTTC

first off, i would like to say that it was really hard to find motivation to begin AND finish reading the article....you know senioritis is really kicking in folks....

okay. so we all obviously know that TTTC is a collection of stories about the vietnam war, and they are told by a Vietnam veteran who was there firsthand to experience it. after reading neilson's extremely long article, you also obviously know that neilsen is arguing that  the vietnam war is rather postmodern.

but why is vietnam so postmodern? well, 'nam did not fit the cookie cutter definition of war did it? no, not really...well at least according to what's-his-face (i have my own opinions on war that i will not mention because it would rather pointless to type it all out...if you care to know what my views on war are, then you will ask me in person because you must obviously care). "The war itself cannot be represented adequately through traditional literary modes; only a postmodern aesthetic can convey something of the war's surreal, sense-shattering, media inflected nature." and he goes on stating that "the war, according to these critics, was defined by uncertainty-in motivation, history, strategy, official rhetoric, media representations, identification of friend and foe." and basically, well at least it seemed, the rest of the article stated the same thing but with different words....
okay it feels needed. mini history lesson for ya'll that do not remember much about the US involvement in 'nam. the background info helps create a hardcore arguement....well at least in my opinion.
'nam was NOT at all an american war (duh). it was more the US was dragged into the war. as if it fell into a hole way too deep that it could not climb out of. the majority of the american people did not understand it, support it, and so forth. ("hey, hey LBJ how many kids you kill today?" does that ring a bell? if not, google it folks.) even today most people do not understand 'nam, but most people do not care. so basically the war is postmodern because it defies the glorified, romaticized view of war.
i must say though, these words caught my attention: "The weakness of The Things They Carried is that O'Brien's imagination is virtually the only reality. O'Brien does not contextualize his experiences, does not provide us with any deeper meaning of the causes and consequences of the war, and does not see beyond his individual experience to document the vastly greater suffering of the Vietnamese." remember folks, the Vietnamese were the ones whose homes, families, and country was being destroyed. They didn't ask for the war to happen (okay, neither did the US soliders who were thrusted into war).

alrightly. i think that about wraps it up. i have nothing more to say...i think. mmm. i'm going to go finish the book now. hope you had fun reading that extrememly long article then writing a blog about it! wasn't it a marvelous way to end a three-day weekend? ;]