Tim O'Brien crafts an artfully unique story in The Things They Carried, from the scraps of an experience of war that is not particularly more extraordinary or different than others who served in Vietnam through innovative application of style. Style is how an author tells a story, and O'Brien demonstrates his style twice in the novel: He presents a certain style as the author Tim O'Brien, and he presents another as his fictional characterization, also named "Tim O'Brien." This decisive and ingenious creation brings about an interesting tension between what is true and what is not quite true and produces both a meditative tone and a sense of distrust in the author that runs throughout the novel like a hairline crack in a foundation.
This, too, gives rise to the meta-textuality of the novel. O'Brien's style is one marked by examining an event from a distance, either spatially or temporally, and the creation of "O'Brien" allows for this distance. O'Brien comments on the usefulness of telling stories by creating a character who shares his name and vocation; he demonstrates in fiction what he does in real life, writing stories about the past to better understand it.
