Title: I appreciate what O'Brien was trying to do.
Product review: That being said, the book still disappointed me with its total lack of subtlety and redundancy. I found myself skipping through entire paragraphs because I had read them before in previous stories, and I was irritated by the constant, exhuasted refrain, "I'm forty-three years old, and a writer now..."O'Brien is very clear on the point that, with a true war story, morality and truth are not necessary. I appreciate this, and I give him credit for the fact that his book echoes his own definition of the Vietnam War itself - vague, ambivalent, undefined, and without clarity or consistency. This, I feel he does fairly effectively, but for the fact that he repeatedly reminds the reader that that is his purpose. However, the inconsistency of the book, and the seemingly haphazard arrangement of the stories, made it difficult to follow at times, and overall it felt very sloppily written and constructed.
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