O'Brien

[Wolfe, Skip]

>>While i agree with previous contributors that Tim O'Brien is an
>>excellent writer writing about Vietnam, i'm not sure he (or anyone
>>else) has yet to produce the "great vietnam war novel".  Cacciato,
>>The Things they Carried and In the Lake of the Woods all are about a
>>people who were in Vietnam, but his best writing is about characters
>>dealing with the aftermath of Vietnam--Stone's "Dog Soldiers" is much
>>the same way...There is however, imho, a great vietnam movie, which
>>is apocalypse now (i know some people don't like coppola's stuff, but
>>i think, intentionally or not, it is one of the few films about any
>>war that is successfully unsentimental...)

I agree with Aaron.  I think "Apocalypse Now" is the only film (that I've 
seen, at least) that captures the surreal atmosphere of Vietnam -- the sort 
of "Ballad of a Thin Man" feeling that something was happening, but nobody 
knew exactly what.  My favorite Vietnam story, for what it's worth, is 
O'Brien's "Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong" from _The Things They Carried_ 
wherein he takes an improbable (well, pretty much impossible) premise and 
makes a story out of it that in some oblique way says a lot about the 
vietnam experience.  By the way, O'Brien's _If I Die in a Combat Zone_ is 
good nonfiction about Nam, as is the aforementioned _Dispatches_ by Michael 
Herr.

     Skip Wolfe
     crw4 at nip1.em.cdc.gov