Tim O'Brien won the National Book Award in 1979 for his novel \In the Lake of the Woods,"" but is perhaps best known for the much-lauded ""The Things They Carried."" O'Brien is often labeled as a Vietnam writer, and he uses his newest work ""July, July"" to continue exploring the effects of the war on those who stayed home.
""July, July"" does not take place on the battlefield but at a small college's 30-year class reunion'a place where draft dodgers are forced to mingle with war veterans and ex-sorority girls are faced with former hippies. In a book that is ultimately about hope but drags the reader through a number of unhappy pasts before it gets there, O'Brien reminds his readers that no one from his generation truly escaped Vietnam. The Daily Cardinal recently spoke with O'Brien.
Where did you draw the inspiration for the characters in ""July, July?""
The inspiration came from all kind of sources'things that happened to me, my mom, dad and people I know, and then it's all processed through a fiction writer's imagination so in the end the characters, for me, become nothing. They're not really related to the real world; they're their own selves.
In some ways Dorothy seems to be the archetypical '60's American. Is her role in the novel intended as such? How did you conceive of her role in ""July, July?""
There are two things I can say. One is that when you do a book about the people of that generation it's easy to forget there were a lot of conservatives running around. If you think back on it, you think of it as all hippies and anti-war, but there were people like Dorothy too. It felt important to have at least one character in the book who represented these sort of values'ones that aren't often written about.
I think, of all the characters, she went through the greatest change in the book. When she goes out into the driveway and takes her shirt off and says, ""Touch me,"" to her husband, that's a pretty brave thing for a middle-class housewife to do. For me, though she started out as a standard-type Republican character, I think she transformed throughout the book.
Do you yearn to return to the Midwest?
That's pretty well said. I actually used the line about ""yearning for return"" in one of my other books. I use that definition; nostalgia does mean a yearning to return home. How do I say this? All my books, without exception, have a root in the Midwest'the upper Midwest, Minnesota to be precise.
That area, upper Minnesota'even though I don't live there anymore, is who I am. It's my backyard. It's where my values come from, my diction and my way of thought. I'm a quiet, forthright kind of person and I always have been. That's sort of a Midwest virtue. Your hometown is not where you are now, it's where your heart is and your spirit is and your past'and for better or worse, for me that is Minnesota.
How do you feel about there being Tim O'Brien Cliffs notes and study guides? Have you ever peeked at one to get ""insight"" into your own work?
No. It just seems that people should think for themselves, not let somebody else think for them. I think that for everyone of those that gets sold it's like one fewer copy of one of my books is sold. [Laughs.] The second thing is that those books are so analytical and abstract. A novel is more visceral'it's not just an analysis of character or plot and theme and all that. It's the sound to the book and the sound to the language. So I'm not too hot about them, but they do it whether you like it or not.
How do you feel about various scholars writing Tim O'Brien biographies in 50 years?
They already have and I haven't read those either. There have been four or five done and they're on my bookshelf. They look pretty up there, but I've never opened one. One's called ""Understanding Tim O'Brien"" and I don't even understand myself, so how this guy can is wholly beyond me. It's embarrassing and I'm not that old yet and it makes you feel dead.
You have remarked that you had been an intellectual and then your experiences in Vietnam changed all that. How does the academic you would have been differ from the writer you became?
It's a hard thing to describe. When you write a novel, it appeals to more than your intellect. It appeals to your tear ducts and your heart and your stomach and the nape of your neck. It appeals to the whole human being and not just your head. Intellect is part of writing a novel'you want it to be about something important. In the end, a novel, like a movie or any work of art, has to somehow hit the whole human being and not just your head. It has to somehow worm its way into your heart and into your stomach'otherwise it won't work.
You mentioned before that the writing process is a solitary process. But it seems one of the ideas behind an MFA degree is that you immerse yourself in a writing community. Do you feel this helps the writing process?
I do. It's not for everybody. But this way you're actually writing, you're not partying and being with all these people. You're still in the room writing and then once a week you go to a workshop and you have help. You have people responding to what you've done'it's the way that once you start publishing you'll have an editor respond. They'll say work on this or change that or whatever, so it's a way that early on, before you're established and before you have an editor, where you can have the next closest thing which is a teacher and students'their encouragement and reaction to your work.
What are the differences between the two Tim O'Briens in ""If I Die in a Combat Zone"" and ""The Things They Carried?""
The first one, ""If I Die,"" is the real human being'that's what happened to me. Then the second one is the fictional Tim O'Brien and not really me. What I wanted to do in ""The Things They Carried"" was to write a book about what didn't happen but almost did or could have happened or should have happened. In an autobiography you're just trapped by fact. So much of what happens in your life isn't just fact; it has to do with the things you imagine when you're on guard at night.
Is there a line between the creation of art and exploitation?
I don't know. The way I look at it is that anything is fair game. I mean, if you're an artist you can't not write about a subject for fear of exploiting it. There's a danger, I suppose, of exploitation, but you've got to take the risk and say I'm going to write a book that means something to me and might mean something to other people.
How long will it be before there is a Hollywood blockbuster'a big-budget love-story that uses Sept. 11 as a backdrop? Do you think that's inevitable?
Yeah, it would be a crime if it didn't happen. I mean it's the world we live in. It would be like having Tolstoy not write about the Napoleonic Wars. You have to address the evils and joys of the world. That's among the evil, to not address it.
In ""The Lake of The Woods"" you wrote, ""What drives me on, I realize, is the desire to force entry into another heart. It's human nature; we're fascinated, all of us, by the implacable otherness of others. And we seek to penetrate ... those leaden walls that encase the human spirit ... our lovers, our parents, our wives, our children, our Gods, they are all beyond us."" Is this passage something you no longer agree with? Or are you simply choosing not to dwell there any longer?
My answer, like all my answers, will sound a little wishy-washy, but I've got to tell you the truth: I can't come down one way or another, otherwise I'd be lying to you. I still believe those lines from ""In the Lake of the Woods."" They're not bad, though; it doesn't mean it's a bad view of mankind. It just means all of us are separated from everybody else. We have to be because we can't be in everybody's mind. You can't literally think of other people's thoughts, thoughts of a boyfriend or a husband or a father. All you can do is guess. If somebody says, ""I love you,"" well, you've got to go on the evidence and make your best guess. But sometimes they lie and sometimes they change their minds. You can't really know other people. We're all separated, finally, by these heads of ours and you can't literally read others' minds so you have to do your best to trust and move on.
I don't know to say this, but I tried to have a more hopeful ending to it all. All books have trouble in them. Even in comedy there's trouble. At the end of ""July, July"" there's a feeling that tomorrow might be better for all the characters.
