Response to How to Tell a True War Story

Summary v Analysis : On The Rainy River

The short story, “On the Rainy River,” is about Tim O’Brien’s experience when he got drafted. He starts off letting us know that he has never told this story to anyone, ever. He tells of himself as a young man pre-drafted and his feelings toward the war. He then starts to write and tell about when he got the letter and the emotional strife it caused him. He writes about his internal struggles with dealing with fighting and possibly dying as well as deserting and being exiled.

One day, while he was working at the local slaughter house, he feels something inside of him break. “…I felt something break open in my chest. I don’t know what it was. I’ll never know. But it was real, I know that much, it was a physical rupture…”(O’Brien, 46). He then leaves and starts to drive north but does not make it all the way to Canada. He stops at the rainy river and asks for a room at the Tip Top Lodge. After 6 days of being there, the man who gave him a room takes him fishing just by the border and O’Brien has his chance to escape. He does not take because if he did it would consider himself a coward. He then decides he must go to war.

Tim talks about himself as being a coward and that’s why he goes to war, not because he feels some sort of patriotism. He says it was the embarrassment of having to face his family and friends after running away that made him go. “I would go to war—I would kill and maybe die—because I was embarrassed not too” (O’Brien 59). I say it he was a coward anyway. He did not go to war to fight for freedom; he went because he had too. He says himself that he opposed the war. “In any case those were my convictions, and back in college I had taken a modest stand against the war” (O’Brien 41). To me it would be cowardice to stand back and let your values become compromised. Albeit, I do know it was the government of the United States’ hand that was compelling him to do it. However, post war, the deserters were pardoned by the President on their return so he would have been okay.

Responding to a Peom

After reading these poems, the two that stood out the most to me were “Letter Composed During a Lull in the Fighting” by Kevin Powers and “Rites of Passage” by Sharon Olds. These poems are very different but both of them affected me. To me the poem entitled “Letter Composed During a Lull in the Fighting” was about a war veteran writing home to his wife or his girlfriend. He is telling her how important she is to him and how much he loves her. I do not know what it is like to be in war and separated from your significant other so I will not pretend to know. However, I do know what it is like to be apart for a long period of time from loved one. Last summer, my mother had a stroke and had also developed a brain aneurysm so my family flew out to Minnesota to go to the Mayo Clinic and we were there for about four months. I know you are gone much longer when you are in the service but those four months were torture for me. I was going through a very tough time emotional with the potential of losing my mother, which I didn’t by the way, and I didn’t have the one girl that I loved there to comfort me. This is the reason why I connected to this one very strongly.

In Sharon Olds poem “Rites of Passage,” she writes about a much forgotten rite of passage, the common birthday. Her young son is the one who is having the birth day and all the other boys, along with him, are discussing their physical abilities against the younger, less advanced men. I grew up with three other brothers, two of them older. Although it was not exactly like this poem, my brothers often thought that because they are older, they could do what they wanted to me because they were, in fact, older. However, when I was getting to that stage in my life, I grew into that state of mind. I picked on my little brother who is four years younger than I am. I regret this now because he is now a couple inches taller than me and only fifteen years old.

After reading what Nabokov wrote, I think that he is very clear on what he thinks makes a good reader. He even goes as far as to list exactly what he thinks these characteristics are. According to Nabokov, a reader must have four things at his or her disposal “…the good reader is the one who has imagination, memory, a dictionary, and some artistic sense…” (Nabokov). However, he goes on to point out another facet that must be acquired to attain a great reading ability; rereading. Nabokov says that a book is like a painting that reveals itself over time. The viewer can take in a painting as the whole, understanding it in a matter of moments. Whereas, with a book, reading for the first time is exhausting. You are trying to attain all the monotonous details but by your third read, you understand the true nature of the book.

I agree with what Nabokov says about good readers. Anyone can read a book; however, not everyone can learn to appreciate a great masterpiece. I think that the author is spot on with traits that a good reader has. My little brother has no appreciation for books or reading, yet he loves sports and anything to do with sports. My father introduced us to C.S. Lewis at a fairly young age and I fell in love with his Chronicles of Narnia, yet my brother could not stand them, because they didn’t make sense with his physical world. I do believe that I am a good reader. I enjoy reading books and love rereading books to try to learn more. My personal favorite series is the Inheritance Cycle by Christopher Paolini.The website for his books and info about him is http://www.alagaesia.com/index.php#/home. There are currently three books out with a total of about 3,500 hundred pages written. Every time that I reread one or all of those books, I pick up on something that I missed before and it shifts my understanding and brings in a whole new perspective to my reading.

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