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This novel, I believe, is a buildungsroman in a backwards kind of way. I believe this novel "starts" (in a linear sense) with the characters in a lost, almost wandering kind of mindset. There was no direction other than the straight lines to no where that were walked day by day by each solider in Vietnam. However, by the end of this novel, I believe the soldiers have digressed into a seeing of reality- of their harsh reality. Like being in a hell with fog, and then suddenly the fog lifts itself away and everything terrible and horrible is seen clearly. However, the characters aren't scared or in pain, they are simply knowledgable. And it is that knowledge that brings about their coming of age, their ah-ha moment within the novel. See life for what it is, and not simply living in a ditch of wandering despair sounds terrible, but in this novel is a way in which the men can come to psychological and physical terms with the horror before them. They are able to now cope with problems, however harsh their coping mechanisms are, when before they were only able to see as far as the barrel of their guns could take them.

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Dr O'Brien's class was enlightening, uplifting, and most importantly, captured my interest into this novel even more so than it had previously. Having read this book with my cousin, Charlie, a Vietnam vet and a post-war junkie, I saw the rough, hard-edged, nothing good in life side of Vietnam though these books. I saw the desperation and the utter sense of lost that permeated every father and son's mind. However, through Dr O'Brien, I was able to see something else through the stories he told, hes testimony though the war, and now what he has done with his life. His story was inspiring in a bright way, seeing God through the terror and the lost. Using and relying on God through the fear and the pain. Having heard both stories of the war first hand has given me not only a sense of the war and the novel itself, but also of life and the inner workings of human beings themselves.

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Tim O'Brien is one of my favorite authors. And to my surprise, I was not disappointed with the only novel of his I have not read. I do wonder, however, just how much of these novels is able to transcend pages? My cousin was in Vietnam and he has torn through all of O'Briens novels with the speed of lightening because he calls them "books that bring back bad memories in a good way". Because of the poignancy behind his statement, and the strength of the emotions behind the statement, I just wonder- can I possibly, in any small way, truly understand anything about this novel? Is there a heart behind a man that transcends situation, space, and time? Or did Vietnam really change the insides of man, change their being so much, that the heart is unrecognizable through all of the pain?