Writing Vietnam-Tim O'Brien Lecture at Brown

In Tim O'Brien's powerful, honest, and entertaining lecture at Brown he explains some key elements behind the ingenious novel he has constructed. He begins speaking of how simple an individual he is, that he is no genius, historian, or philospher, just the fact that he is a great fictional story teller. O'Brien mentions how monotonous and painful writing might be, yet the pleasure and satisfaction he recieves from it.
Throughout the course of the lecture he goes into facts about his most famous novel The Things They Carried, discussing some of the key moments and themes of the book. Here he supplies some clarity to aspects of the novel and explains some of the more confusing areas of The Things They Carried. A common issue of the novel was reasoning behind the war, why blood was being shed, and what position many individuals held towards support or opposition to the war. O'Brien in the book as well as in the lecture specifically shows he is in opposition to the draft and Vietnam. O'Brien continues to tell his story of how he fled the country, relating to our past issue, commenting about how he felt like a coward for going to war. "What I was crying about, you see, was - was not self-pity. I was crying with the knowledge that I'd be going to Vietnam, that I was essentially a coward, that I couldn't do the right thing, I couldn't go to Canada. Given what I believed, anyway, the right thing would have been to follow your conscience, and I couldn't do it."
Through this explaination of his story he eventually comes to tell us that everything he just said is false. Clarifying that not all war stories are specifically about war."War stories, like any good story, is finally about the human heart. About the choices we make, or fail to make. The forfeitures in our lives. Stories are to console and to inspire and to help us heal." Speaking about the invented story prior to the war, O'Brien makes a great point stating that honestly that is what fiction is for, to spice up aspects of the novel. He could have told the literal truth, however how exciting would it have been."It's for getting at the truth when the truth isn't sufficient for the truth."
Tim O'Brien's lecture at Brown was not only entertaining and held my attention, yet he really help clarify some aspects which contributed to the uniqueness of The Things They Carried.