Spoiler
alert: The following post contains moderate-level spoilers for Tim
O'Brien's "In The Lake Of The Woods," my favorite book. If you haven't
read the book, do. It is fascinating.
In high school, I once won a debate I got into with a teacher during class about the book In The Lake Of The Woods by Tim O'Brien. We were discussing the themes of memory, reality, greyness, and uncertainty. The book revolves around a woman's disappearance and the mystery of what happened to her. I found the book incredibly frustrating because, though different possibilities are presented and explored, the book never definitively states what actually happened, leaving it up to the reader -- which I could have accepted, except I felt the author didn't know what happened either. I successfully argued in class that day that it was a cheap out that ultimately left nothing but emptiness in its wake, because there WAS no real outcome. As I saw it, it was pointless for the reader to wonder, "did A happen or did B happen or did C happen" because the author himself never picked one. According to my argument that day, he got lazy, didn't choose a reality, and without a reality in place to the author -- whether or not the reader knows what it is -- a book (I said that day) is pointless. I wanted there to exist a black and a white, even if we as readers never knew which one was reality. Reality being grey was simply not acceptable to me.
And yet, I just finished the book for a fourth time, and now, more than a decade since I first read it, my perspective has changed yet again. While it is no longer just the disappearance mystery of my first read-through, neither is it simply about ambiguity and the ever-illusive, shifting nature of truth. Glaringly prominent to me in this last read was the role of the narrator in a story and the power the narrator has to influence the reader's perspective. Rarely does a reader consider the trustworthiness of an omniscient narrator in a third-person story (or even that of a first-person narrator -- though on close inspection, F. Scott Fitzgerald's Nick Carraway can hardly be considered an objective or reliable teller of Gatsby's story in The Great Gatsby, and how much can Huck Finn be trusted as a narrator? Even the third-person narrator of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer is revealed to have a perspective).... Yet the narrator, on whom the reader relies for all information, filters the events, or "evidence," and not only chooses what we see but also shapes how we see it. Through the unique structure of In The Lake Of The Woods, we hear the story not only told by the narrator (who only after thirty pages and two “Evidence” sections openly acknowledges his presence in a footnote at the end of Chapter 6... and then gradually reveals himself through ever-more footnotes to be something quite a bit more than the average shapeless-and-soulless storytelling voice) but also through interviews with the characters, who sometimes offer a very different perspective on a moment we read in narration. A visit to a mini-mart before a boat excursion seems innocuous enough when supposedly objectively told by the narrator; yet a character's reference to it in an interview later presented to us in a chapter labeled "Evidence" colors the event with a tinge of menace the narrator chose not to acknowledge in his own telling of it. In fact, after revealing himself, the narrator's footnote warns us that what might appear to be “fact” in this work must be viewed only as an “imaginative reconstruction of events,” and, despite the many chapters labeled “Evidence” in the novel, the narrator cautions the reader to remember that “evidence is not truth.” If the reader cannot accept “evidence” as truth, then what can be considered truth? When filtered through a narrator, the answer seems to be nothing.
In high school, I once won a debate I got into with a teacher during class about the book In The Lake Of The Woods by Tim O'Brien. We were discussing the themes of memory, reality, greyness, and uncertainty. The book revolves around a woman's disappearance and the mystery of what happened to her. I found the book incredibly frustrating because, though different possibilities are presented and explored, the book never definitively states what actually happened, leaving it up to the reader -- which I could have accepted, except I felt the author didn't know what happened either. I successfully argued in class that day that it was a cheap out that ultimately left nothing but emptiness in its wake, because there WAS no real outcome. As I saw it, it was pointless for the reader to wonder, "did A happen or did B happen or did C happen" because the author himself never picked one. According to my argument that day, he got lazy, didn't choose a reality, and without a reality in place to the author -- whether or not the reader knows what it is -- a book (I said that day) is pointless. I wanted there to exist a black and a white, even if we as readers never knew which one was reality. Reality being grey was simply not acceptable to me.
I
have no idea how I won over the class that day, but I remember that I
did. And I was completely and utterly wrong. I've since read the book
several times, and it has morphed from a source of frustration to me to a
reflection of the growing complexities of life.
In
college, with my second reading of it for a class, I came
to love the book for its ambiguity. I saw that the point of the book
is not simply what happened to the woman; to the contrary, the theme of
the amorphous nature of truth, how memory affects truth, and what
"truth" even really means would be lessened with a black and white "this
is what happened" explanation. Every outcome did happen, just as much
as the next -- because they all could have happened. The ambiguity and
freedom to choose was beautiful to me.
After
that second time reading it, free from the constraints of a classroom
approach to it, I read other books by the author, Tim O'Brien, and
became more familiar with his approach to the exploration of reality and
memory, gaining a better understanding of where he was coming from in
his own life when he wrote it and adding more depth to my third time
through it. Perhaps adding to my love of the book as I grow older is
my growing love of ambiguity and greyness, both in characters and in
life. Though there are times we all want the clear definitions of black
and white, far more often now than when I was in school I love the
messiness of grey -- in life, in people, in relationships, in the
choices we face.... Grey and muddy and undefined is so much more
interesting and has so many more layers to explore than the black and
white I craved that first time I read it....
And yet, I just finished the book for a fourth time, and now, more than a decade since I first read it, my perspective has changed yet again. While it is no longer just the disappearance mystery of my first read-through, neither is it simply about ambiguity and the ever-illusive, shifting nature of truth. Glaringly prominent to me in this last read was the role of the narrator in a story and the power the narrator has to influence the reader's perspective. Rarely does a reader consider the trustworthiness of an omniscient narrator in a third-person story (or even that of a first-person narrator -- though on close inspection, F. Scott Fitzgerald's Nick Carraway can hardly be considered an objective or reliable teller of Gatsby's story in The Great Gatsby, and how much can Huck Finn be trusted as a narrator? Even the third-person narrator of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer is revealed to have a perspective).... Yet the narrator, on whom the reader relies for all information, filters the events, or "evidence," and not only chooses what we see but also shapes how we see it. Through the unique structure of In The Lake Of The Woods, we hear the story not only told by the narrator (who only after thirty pages and two “Evidence” sections openly acknowledges his presence in a footnote at the end of Chapter 6... and then gradually reveals himself through ever-more footnotes to be something quite a bit more than the average shapeless-and-soulless storytelling voice) but also through interviews with the characters, who sometimes offer a very different perspective on a moment we read in narration. A visit to a mini-mart before a boat excursion seems innocuous enough when supposedly objectively told by the narrator; yet a character's reference to it in an interview later presented to us in a chapter labeled "Evidence" colors the event with a tinge of menace the narrator chose not to acknowledge in his own telling of it. In fact, after revealing himself, the narrator's footnote warns us that what might appear to be “fact” in this work must be viewed only as an “imaginative reconstruction of events,” and, despite the many chapters labeled “Evidence” in the novel, the narrator cautions the reader to remember that “evidence is not truth.” If the reader cannot accept “evidence” as truth, then what can be considered truth? When filtered through a narrator, the answer seems to be nothing.
By
the end of the book, the narrator has inserted himself into the
emotional core of the book and is far more a character than an invisible
voice. In fact, eventually we are faced with the realization that the
narrator is telling this story for a reason and with a personal
objective, which necessarily influences how he tells the story and how
he wants us to feel about the events and the characters. And isn't that
true of all storytellers? No story gets told without a reason, a purpose. No
storyteller, whether of a novel, an article, or a news story, is completely
emotionally uninvolved and distant. There is always a filter, always a
manipulation to make the reader or viewer feel a certain way and choose
their version of the truth -- something I am all too aware of nowadays as I watch and read the news
myself and hear other people talk about what they read and see in their own
filtered version of the news. Evidence is not truth, and no evidence is complete.
Every time I've read In The Lake Of The Woods, I have had a different interpretation and the book has elicited different emotions. Five years from now, I wonder if I'll think the book is about something completely different. I can think of no greater accomplishment of literature than when the reader's life experiences enrich and complement the book just as the book enriches and complements the reader's life, creating a dynamic relationship between the book's meaning and the reader. A book that is never static and continues to evolve throughout a reader's life, though the words on the page remain the same, is art at its best.
Every time I've read In The Lake Of The Woods, I have had a different interpretation and the book has elicited different emotions. Five years from now, I wonder if I'll think the book is about something completely different. I can think of no greater accomplishment of literature than when the reader's life experiences enrich and complement the book just as the book enriches and complements the reader's life, creating a dynamic relationship between the book's meaning and the reader. A book that is never static and continues to evolve throughout a reader's life, though the words on the page remain the same, is art at its best.
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