“…Your problem is, you think everything has to mean something.”
That was one of my problems, I couldn’t deny it.
“Mortals”, Tobias Wolff
Tobias Wolff’s characters feel real. I have only recently started reading him and I find his writing so articulate, especially about people’s motivations and emotions.
I’ve just started reading his collection of short stories called The Night in Question and I was struck by this character named B.D. in “Casualty”. To be honest, stories about war bore me a bit, (or maybe it’s just that the trenches of World War I are not my ideal reading escape). I don’t really know how to identify with characters who are soldiers, how to get into their world — full of so much fear and violence but also so much routine and boredom. But I was captivated by B.D. He felt like a real person.
B.D. wasn't brave. He knew that, as he knew other things about himself that he would not have believed a year ago. He would not have believed that he could walk past begging children and feel nothing. He would not have believed that he could become a frequenter of prostitutes. He would not have believed that he could become a whiner or a shirker. He had been forced to surrender certain pictures of himself that had once given him pride and a serene sense of entitlement to his existence, but the one picture he had not given up, and which had become essential to him, was the picture of himself as a man who would do anything for a friend.
Anything meant anything. It could mean getting himself hurt or even killed. B.D. had some ideas as to how this might happen, acts of impulse like going after a wounded man, jumping on a grenade, other things he'd heard and read about, and in which he thought he recognized the possibilities of his own nature. But this was different.
In fact, B.D. could see a big difference. It was one thing to do something in the heat of the moment, another to think about it, accept it in advance.
Wolff breaks a well-known writing rule (show, don’t tell) by telling us that his character isn’t brave. But it works because he’s not just trying to show us that B.D. isn’t brave; he’s going beyond that to show how this soldier has had to accept some hard facts about himself. B.D. has not lived up to the version of the man he always thought he was. The things he has done are shameful. But he stubbornly refuses to cross a certain line, refuses to see himself as a man who lets down his friends. (Yet even in this, he sees his cowardice. He’s willing to die for a friend in one way, but not in another; it feels arbitrary.)
The syntax — the rhythm and flow of the sentences — in these paragraphs is gorgeous. Look at the variation; there are no dead spots, no awkward pauses. It all flows. Take paragraph one, for example:
1. Short sentence (B.D. wasn't brave.)
2. Short sentence followed by a long phrase -- we're building to something. (He knew that, as he knew other things about himself that he would not have believed a year ago.)
3-5. A series of three sentences all starting with the same eight words -- "He would not have believed that he could...". These are examples from sentence #2.
6. A very long sentence. A summary (He had been forced to surrender certain pictures of himself that had once given him pride and a serene sense of entitlement to his existence) that moves on to a new revelation about the character (but the one picture he had not given up, and which had become essential to him, was the picture of himself as a man who would do anything for a friend).
Wolff is doing one of my favorite things that good writing can do. The length and construction of his sentences is reflecting the meaning of the sentences themselves. “B.D. wasn’t brave” is a concise fact, so the sentence is concise. The last sentence is more complex, reflecting the complexity of B.D.’s character — he is both a disappointing man and one who aspires to be good.
As a side note, I find this sentence from the second paragraph so insightful: “B.D. had some ideas as to how this might happen, acts of impulse like going after a wounded man, jumping on a grenade, other things he’d heard and read about, and in which he thought he recognized the possibilities of his own nature.” How often do we do this same thing, evaluating ourselves by the possibilities for good that we see within? I struggle with this a lot. The default way that I see myself is solidly, morally good. I would not hesitate to say that I’m a good person. But eventually I will come across something in my own character — something buried just below the surface of my personality — that shocks me with its desperation, pride, or shame, and I realize that “good person” doesn’t even scratch the surface of who I am. How did Wolff capture all this in one sentence — in one phrase?
Here’s another masterfully written passage:
Years later he told all this to the woman he lived with and would later marry, offering it to her as something important to know about him -- how this great friend of his, Ryan, had gotten hit, and how he'd run to be with him and found him gone....
This story did not come easily to B.D. He hardly ever talked about the war except in generalities, and then in a grudging, edgy way. He didn't want to sound like other men when they got on the subject, pulling a long face or laughing it off, striking a pose. He did not want to imply that he'd done more than he had done, or to say, as he believed, that he hadn't done enough; that all he had done was stay alive. When he thought about those days, the life he'd led since -- working his way through school, starting a business, being a good friend to his friends, nursing his mother for three months while she died of cancer -- all this dropped away as if it were nothing, and he felt as he had felt then, weak, corrupt, and afraid.
So B.D. avoided the subject.
Still, he knew that his silence had become its own kind of pose, and that was why he told his girlfriend about Ryan. He wanted to be truthful with her. What a surprise, then, to have it all come out sounding like a lie. He couldn't get it right, couldn't put across what he had felt. He used the wrong words, words that somehow rang false, in sentimental cadences. The details sounded artful. His voice was halting and grave, self-aware, phony.
I’m fascinated by the choices Wolff makes here. Why include that B.D. tells his story to “the woman he lived with and would later marry”? Why not say “his wife”? My guess is that Wolff is creating a sense of distance between B.D. and the other people in his life, people who cannot understand the things he encountered in the war. Saying that he “offer[ed] it to her as something important to know about him” (rather than “he told her”) and describing B.D.’s rendition of his past as a “pose” emphasizes the isolation of his experiences. B.D. is alone. He can’t describe it adequately to anyone.
I also love how Wolff explains why B.D. avoids talking about the war. My own grandpa, who fought in the Korean War, was hesitant to tell war stories; it seems to be a common response for some veterans (and maybe for that generation as a whole. In my mom’s words, “You acted like it didn’t happen. Nobody talked about anything.”). B.D.’s failure to describe what it was like is an interpretation of that silence. Perhaps this failure to describe was Wolff’s experience, as well; he served in the US Army from 1964 to 1968, during the Vietnam War.
The two passages I selected are only a couple of pages apart. In such a short space, Wolff has revealed the soul of his character; B.D. practically breathes. He’s afraid, conflicted, self-aware, ashamed, striving for nobility, laboring to be unique among men, to be better and more real. But despite living a full life after he comes home, B.D. defines himself by who he was in the war. You, the reader, feel the tragedy and the truth of that; you see echoes of yourself in him. You recognize the possibilities of your own nature.
Lit-ology 