{"id":4294,"date":"2018-09-26T20:29:54","date_gmt":"2018-09-26T20:29:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/?p=4294"},"modified":"2023-05-24T17:56:14","modified_gmt":"2023-05-24T17:56:14","slug":"tobey-herzog-getting-to-the-truth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/2018\/09\/26\/tobey-herzog-getting-to-the-truth\/","title":{"rendered":"Tobey Herzog: Getting to the Truth"},"content":{"rendered":"

In his new book, Tobey Herzog dives into an award-winning author\u2019s feints and contradictions and surfaces with a revelation for the literary world.<\/em><\/p>\n

The day after he retired, Professor of English Emeritus Tobey Herzog H\u201911 began writing a series of essays about Tim O\u2019Brien, the award-winning author and fellow Vietnam veteran he has studied for nearly 30 years. That book\u2014 Tim O\u2019Brien: The Things He Carries and the Stories He Tells\u2014was published last spring.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

WM sat down in July with the venerable Wabash teacher and scholar to talk about the book, his interactions with O\u2019Brien, the writer\u2019s life, and what\u2019s next.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

WM:<\/strong> So you\u2019re on campus for a talk about this book and you encounter a Wabash alumnus who says, \u201cWho the hell is Tim O\u2019Brien?\u201d What do you tell him?<\/p>\n

Herzog:<\/strong> Tim O\u2019Brien, a Vietnam combat veteran, is probably the most important soldier\/author to come out of the Vietnam War. His book, The Things They Carried, is one of the most widely taught books in high schools and colleges in the United States and abroad.<\/p>\n

Even though most of his books deal with Vietnam battlefields and Vietnam veterans, his books are accessible to a much wider audience because he deals with what he calls the war of the living, which is everything from divorce to breakups of love relationships to dealing with alcoholic fathers to making difficult moral choices that define the rest of your life.<\/p>\n

What was the first Tim O\u2019Brien book you read?<\/em><\/p>\n

Going After Cacciato.<\/em> It won the National Book Award in 1978. I remember reading it and thinking, \u201cThis book was more than just war stories.\u201d<\/p>\n

I was fascinated by the narrative structure, how at times it\u2019s puzzling, because as a reader you\u2019re trying to figure out what\u2019s real and what\u2019s imaginary.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s also a book about how you write fiction and the interplay of imagination and memory.<\/p>\n

I realized, Not only is this a great book to introduce students to the Vietnam War, it\u2019s also a great book to introduce students to the art of fiction and how you structure a narrative.<\/p>\n

I still think it\u2019s his best book.<\/p>\n

What drew you into making O\u2019Brien\u2019s work the focus of your scholarship?\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Sometimes when you read a piece of literature, you say, \u201cI understand what his narrative strategy is,\u201d or \u201cI understand how he\u2019s shaping his theme.\u201d In O\u2019Brien\u2019s case it was, \u201cI understand how this is coming from his own life experiences and how important it is in his life.\u201d<\/p>\n

I’ve always felt that connection when I read his literature. I know what he\u2019s doing. I get him.<\/p>\n

You\u2019ve written this book as a series of essays and included your personal interactions with the author, even your personal experience as a Vietnam veteran. Why that approach?\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

I\u2019m the type of person who has to write in chunks. I\u2019m not a linear writer\u2014I start here, finish 20 pages and then I think, \u201cThere’s another idea,\u201d and I start there and go 20 pages in a different direction.<\/p>\n

This book is the first attempt I know of to do a much more in-depth look at O\u2019Brien\u2019s personal life. In terms of biography and literary criticism, it probably comes down more on the side of biography. My premise is that to understand what Tim O\u2019Brien writes about, you have to understand Tim O’Brien.<\/p>\n

You said that the narrative structure in Going After Cacciato leaves readers trying to figure out what\u2019s real and what\u2019s imaginary. That\u2019s a theme not only for O\u2019Brien, but also your books about him.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

That\u2019s both the joy and frustration in writing about Tim O\u2019Brien. I’ve interviewed him three times\u20141995, 2005, and 2014\u2014and talked with him when he was here on campus and a few times at some public readings he\u2019s done.<\/p>\n

But with O’Brien, you\u2019re never quite sure when he\u2019s telling you something if it actually happened, or if it’s part of his imaginative re-creation of his life, as he\u2019s doing in his books.<\/p>\n

Even he\u2019s not sure. There\u2019s this quote from him in the book: \u201cEverything I\u2019ve done in my life is part of my fiction, and separating what\u2019s true and\u00a0what\u2019s not true is even difficult for me as an author.\u201d<\/p>\n

One of my chapters in this book asks, \u201cWhy does Tim O\u2019Brien lie?\u201d I set up a series of hypotheses. But I don\u2019t solve the mysteries; I weigh out possibilities for people to think about and come to their own conclusions.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve noticed that in your lectures about O\u2019Brien over the years\u2014you tend not to make those final conclusions.<\/em><\/p>\n

Absolutely. O\u2019Brien says once the mystery is gone, once the mystery is solved, there\u2019s no interest.<\/p>\n

Still, that\u2019s got to be a tough challenge for you as a biographer: Trying to separate fact from fiction from your primary source.<\/em><\/p>\n

O\u2019Brien dealt with his father’s alcoholism by becoming a magician at a very young age in junior high. He learned magic. He would perform at birthday parties and school assemblies.<\/p>\n

Being a magician, then moving into becoming a novelist, he\u2019s still doing the same magic, the magic with his characters, the magic with his stories. Being in control, setting up illusions, and seeing if the audience can figure out what\u2019s going on.<\/p>\n

There are times he lies to himself to protect himself.<\/p>\n

This is a guy you care about. Would you describe him as a friend?<\/em><\/p>\n

We\u2019ve had a continuous relationship since 1994, when he was first on the Wabash campus. We might go two or three years without any communication, but then when I ask him, \u201cCould I interview you?\u201d or send him an email or questions, he’s very willing to do it. When I saw him in Chicago in 2015, we started talking about our kids.<\/p>\n

Sounds like you are someone he can trust.<\/em><\/p>\n

I think he does trust me. I\u2019ve always been really prepared when I go in for these interviews. He knows I\u2019ve done my research, that I’m going to ask thoughtful questions that he enjoys responding to.<\/p>\n

I also think he trusts me not to probe too far into the person, that I\u2019m not going to make all these revelations and speculations.<\/p>\n

He has done so many interviews, but I think he\u2019s shared with me some things that he has not shared with other people.<\/p>\n

In your new book, he seems to have paid that trust back with an exclusive.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

The last essay deals with the question critics have been asking for some time: \u201cIs Tim O\u2019Brien writing another novel?\u201d His last novel came out in 2002. I\u2019ve got quotes from about a 13-year period from him about this. In one interview he says yes, and it\u2019s kind of about a father, and son, and a father who\u2019s now concerned about his son\u2019s welfare.<\/p>\n

Then in 2014 he tells me, \u201cI gave up writing 12 years ago. My main focus now is being a father and I devote all my time to that.\u201d<\/p>\n

But two weeks after I\u2019d sent in the final proof for this book, I wrote to him and said, \u201cI\u2019m done.\u201d He wrote back and said: \u201cSlaving away on my own new book. Sometimes elated, sometimes depressed as always. I\u2019m 410 pages into it with maybe another 150 pages still to go.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s what he said on February 22, 2018, and that\u2019s the last sentence in my book.<\/p>\n

Many of our readers will know O\u2019Brien\u2019s work from your freshman tutorial and your course on modern war literature. I\u2019ve talked with alumni who call those classes among their most formative.<\/em><\/p>\n

I see alumni and so many of the comments are about the freshman tutorial and the Vietnam books we read. The fact that several of them are still reading in that genre is rewarding to hear.<\/p>\n

When you retired, you went almost straight into this project.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

I watched a lot of people suddenly thrust into no routine, no place to go, trying to find themselves, feeling irrelevant. I decided I\u2019ve got to have a focus because I know what my mental makeup is.<\/p>\n

I started planning in 2012. I knew that on June 30, 2014, when I retired out of my office in Center Hall, I was going to have a carrel in the library and write this book.<\/p>\n

How does this life of a writer compare to you as a teacher?\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

I am an introvert. There was something about a classroom, however, that allowed me to move from an introvert to an extrovert, willing to take chances, tell stories, and do things. I felt comfortable. The classroom was absolutely one of the best environments I could be in. It was the thing that I knew I would miss the most when I retired. The relationships with the students, I really miss that.<\/p>\n

But I\u2019m also a solitary person. I\u2019m an only child. Even when I was a grad student, I had a little carrel on the fourth floor of the Purdue Library. When I was an undergraduate in a fraternity house, I had a little study area in the boiler room that I’d go off by myself.<\/p>\n

I remember asking you how you were enjoying retirement about a year in, and you said that the best thing is you get to have conversations and you don’t have to worry about rushing back to class.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

While I was teaching one of the most important devices I had was my watch. I\u2019m very time-oriented because I\u2019d always have a lot of things going on. I need to get this done.<\/p>\n

Retirement freed me from that.<\/p>\n

So, what\u2019s next?\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

I\u2019m going back and looking at pieces that I\u2019ve done for Wabash Magazine, my life in the NBA, and some of my chapel speeches. So much of it is connected by sports. That’s the underlying thread in my life. Vignettes from my life with the jumping off point of sports, but getting into bigger issues about fathers and sons.<\/p>\n

What have you learned from Tim O\u2019Brien as you enter into this phase of writing about your own life?\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

What I\u2019ve learned is writers are good liars.<\/p>\n

Yes.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

And to recognize the importance of mystery, and that part of it is not coming to conclusions about your life. Leaving it open ended, that it’s something still in progress.<\/p>\n

But that\u2019s exactly the reason why a lot of people do write something like your next project\u2014they don’t understand it, so they want to come to some closure.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

I know if I write this book, I’m not going to come to closure. I will have laid it out in a way that I can consider it from different angles.<\/p>\n

Which is exactly the same thing you’ve done with…\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Tim O\u2019Brien. And it\u2019s exactly what he does in his writing.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe angle creates reality,\u201d is a quote from one of his books. He takes basic events from his own life, basic moral decisions, basic emotions, and he explores it from different angles.<\/p>\n

Each angle transforms that thing into a different situation, a different mystery, different issues to consider. It\u2019s what it\u2019s all about.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Excerpted and edited\u2014read the complete interview here.\u00a0<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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