andromeda.rutgers.edu/~hbf/obrien.html
www.nytimes.com/books/98/09/20/specials/obrien-lake.html
Tim O'Brien's website
www.illyria.com/tob/tobbio.html
Reading Group Guide:
On its surface, In the Lake of the Woods suggests the classic locked-room mystery turned on its head. Sometime between the night and late morning of September 19, 1986, a woman vanishes near Lake of the Woods in northern Minnesota, "where the water was everything, vast and very cold, and where there were secret channels and portages and bays and tangled forests and islands without names." While the traditional locked-room mystery presents investigators - and readers - with the seemingly impossible, the disappearance of Kathy Wade poses too many possibilities, a wilderness of hypotheses. There are too many places she could have gone, too many things that could have happened to her.
As Tim O'Brien gradually reveals in this haunting, morally vertiginous novel, there were too many reasons for Kathy to vanish. All of them are connected to her husband, John, an attractive if morally confused 40-year-old politician whose career has lately ended in a defeat so humiliating that it has driven the Wades to an isolated cabin in the Minnesota woods.
A long-buried secret has resurfaced to bury John alive; perhaps it has buried Kathy along with him. John's disgrace originated in "a place with secret trapdoors and tunnels and underground chambers populated by various spooks and goblins, a place where magic was everyone's hobby...a place where the air itself was both reality and illusion, where anything might instantly become anything else."
Its geographic epicenter is the village of Thuan Yen in Vietnam. It was there, eighteen years before, that John Wade was transformed from a boy with a gift for performing magic tricks (his platoon-mates knew him as "Sorcerer") into an entranced killer.
What happened at Thuan Yen was not fiction. The events that took place there were widely reported and documented in official U.S. Army hearings and are known today as the My Lai massacre. At the heart ofIn the Lake of the Woods is its brutal re-creation of this wound in John Wade's history and his country's. Because Wade was one of many killers, Tim O'Brien intersperses his narrative with the testimony of real figures like Lieutenant Rusty Calley and U.S. Army Investigator William V. Wilson--not to mention Presidents Richard Nixon and Woodrow Wilson. Just as John's and Kathy's associates--his mother and campaign manager, her sister and co-worker--try to decipher the events at Lake of the Woods, those historical witnesses posit partial explanations for America's mysteriously aligned obsessions with politics and violence.
Clausewitz observed that war is the continuation of politics by other means. Tim O'Brien suggests that politics, at least in its American variety, is a continuation of needs more basic and more terrible even than the need for power. The craving for love, he reminds us, can drive the human soul toward acts of desperation, deceit, and even violence.
For O'Brien, as for the unnamed investigator who is his narrator, all explanations are hypotheses rather than proofs. Beyond the mystery of Kathy's disappearance and John's role in it, and even beyond the mystery of My Lai, are other riddles: What predisposed John to become a murderer? What sort of magic enabled him to make his past vanish for twenty years, and what disappeared along with it? How could he love Kathy with such self-annihilating ferocity while keeping an essential part of himself hidden from her? Was Kathy a victim of John's deceptions or a participant in them? Is John an autonomous moral agent or another victim-of a bad childhood or a bad war or the murderous pastel sunlight of Vietnam? With In the Lake of the Woods, O'Brien has reinvented the novel as a magician's trick box equipped with an infinite number of false bottoms. Kathy's disappearance remains a "magnificent giving over to pure and absolute Mystery." John believes that "to know is to be disappointed. To understand is to be betrayed." This brave and troubling novel neither betrays nor disappoints, but brings the reader into a direct confrontation with the insoluble enigmas of history, character, and evil.
1. Almost from this novel's first page we know that Kathy Wade will vanish, and it is not long before we discover that her disappearance will remain unsolved. What, then, gives In the Lake of the Woodsits undeniable suspense? What does it offer in place of the revelations of traditional mysteries?
2. Instead of a linear narrative, in which action unfolds chronologically, Tim O'Brien has constructed a narrative that simultaneously moves forward and backward in time: forward from John and Kathy's arrival at the cabin; backward into John's childhood, and beyond that to Little Big Horn and the War of Independence. It also moves laterally, into the "virtual" time that is represented by different hypotheses about Kathy's fate. What does the author accomplish with this narrative scheme? In what ways are his different narrative strands connected?
3. What does O'Brien accomplish in the sections titled "Evidence"? What information do these passages impart that is absent from the straightforward narrative? How do they alter or deepen our understanding of John as a magician, a politician, a husband, and a soldier who committed atrocities in wartime? What connections do they forge between his private tragedy and the pathologies of our public life and history? Does the testimony of (or about) such "real" people as Richard Nixon, William Calley, or George Custer lend greater verisimilitude to John's story or remind us that it--and John himself--are artifices?
4. Who is the narrator who addresses us in the "Evidence" sections? Are we meant to see him as a surrogate for the author, who also served in Vietnam and revisited Thuan Yen many years after the massacre? (See Tim O'Brien, "The Vietnam in Me," in The New York Times Magazine, October 3, 1994, pp. 48-57.) In what ways does O'Brien's use of this narrator further explode the conventions of the traditional novel?
5. One of the few things that we know for certain about John is that he loves Kathy. But what does John mean by love? How do John's feelings for his wife resemble his hopeless yearning for his father, who had a similar habit of vanishing? In what circumstances does John say "I love you"? What vision of love is suggested by his metaphor of two snakes devouring each other? Why might Kathy have fallen in love with John?
6. Although it is easy to see Kathy as the victim of John's deceptions, the author at times suggests that she may be more conscious (and therefore more complex) than she first appears. We learn, for example, that Kathy has always known about John's spying and even referred to him as "Inspector Clouseau," an ironic counterpoint to John's vision of himself as "Sorcerer." At a critical moment she rebuffs her husband's attempt at a confession. And in the final section of "Evidence," we get hints that Kathy may have planned her own disappearance. Are we meant to see Kathy as John's victim or as his accomplice, like a beautiful assistant vanishing inside a magician's cabinet?
7. Why might John have entered politics? Is he merely a cynical operator with no interest in anything but winning? Or, as Tony Carbo suggests, might John be trying to atone for his actions in Vietnam? Why might the author have chosen to leave John's political convictions a blank?
8. John's response to the horrors of Thuan Yen is to deny them: "This could not have happened. Therefore it did not." Where else in the novel does he perform this trick? How does John's way of coping with the massacre compare to the psychic strategies adopted by William Calley or Paul Meadlo? Do any of O'Brien's characters seems capable of acknowledging terrible truths directly? How does In the Lake of the Woods treat the matter of individual responsibility for evil?
9. Each of this novel's hypotheses about events at the cabin begins with speculation but gradually comes to resemble certainty. The narrator suggests that John and Kathy Wade are ultimately unknowable, as well; that any attempt to "penetrate...those leaden walls that encase the human spirit" can never be anything but provisional. Seen in this light, In the Lake of the Woods comes to resemble a magician's trick, in which every assertion turns out to be only another speculation. Given the information we receive, does any hypothesis about what happened at Lake of the Woods seem more plausible than the others? With what certainties, if any, does this novel leave us?
" A risky, ambitious, perceptive, engaging, and troubling novel...a major attempt to come to grips with the causes and consequences of the late 20th century's unquenchable appetite for violence, both domestic and foreign. "
—Chicago Tribune
"A relentless work full of white heat and dark possibility. "
—The Boston Globe
"At bottom, this is a tale about the moral effects of suppressing a true story, about the abuse of history, about what happens to you when you pretend there is no history. "
—The New York Times Book Review
"A memorable mystery story charged with haunting ambiguity...If any American novelist is creating more beautifully written, emotionally harrowing tales than Tim O'Brien, I don't know who it could be. "
—Entertainment Weekly
"An unrelenting exploration of the darkest recesses of the human heart and psyche. O'Brien's approach is bold, ambitious, and intriguing. "
—Houston Chronicle
"This remarkable book is about the slipperiness of truth, the weight of forgetting, and the way two people disappear into themselves, and, ultimately, into the Lake of the Woods. "
—The New Yorker
"O'Brien's clean, incantatory prose always hovers on the edge of dream.... No one writes better about the fear and homesickness of a boy adrift amid what he cannot understand, be it combat or love. "
—Time
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteAngela Rollins
ReplyDelete1.
The novel is centered around possibilities and theories, and that is why it is suspenseful. In the beginning we are given only the bare necessities of the situation: Kathy and John love each other. They are on a secluded vacation. There was an election, and it was lost. Then slow, O’Brien fills in details. We get most of John’s life through his mother’s testimony, and slowly a picture gets painted of the entirety of the situation. However, as you read you realize even the gaps being filled are mostly speculation. Everything is guess work, and there are no real answers. But you still want to read and eat up all of the couple’s background and all of the events leading up to and following the disappearance of Kathy. The withholding of facts and the slow crumbs given to the reader is what keeps the pages turning. Also, the facts are not given chronologically. The book first opens to the vacation, then begins to jump around to after and long before. In this way the reader keeps getting different pieces of the story that takes awhile to put together, which is a challenge that makes the novel interesting.
2.
The novel does not move chronologically, which is one of the elements that make the novel interesting. The different events come from totally different time periods. There is a jump from their vacation to their life in college, to life in Vietnam, etc. These jumps help create a very interesting complexity for the storyline. If the novel went chronologically, much of the suspense would have been lost and the story fairly boring. In the way it was given it kept the reader eager for more tidbits of information.
Excellent response! As a reader, do you like this "postmodern" style of writing or is it irrtating?
DeleteThis is Carolynnnn
ReplyDelete1. The novel is paralleled between many theories and circumstances of probabilities. In the first start readers are notified of mere descriptions of the circumstance. The author lets in that there is a vacation a couple takes after a failed election, and etc. Other than that us readers have to infer and speculate what occurs doing the sequence of events. This enables the reader to continue and learn more throughout the course of the novel.
2. The novel is not in a quite uniformed sequenced order. Although this helps keeps the readers attention throughout the novel. The different occasions stem from different time eras. There is leap from college life to Vietnam and so on.
I like the fact that you look at the "probabilities" or fictional pathways that a writer can take. Good work!
Delete1. Almost from this novel's first page we know that Kathy Wade will vanish, and it is not long before we discover that her disappearance will remain unsolved. What, then, gives In the Lake of the Woodsits undeniable suspense? What does it offer in place of the revelations of traditional mysteries?
ReplyDeleteIn the Lake of the Woods is not a traditional mystery--it begins to unfold as a psychological thriller. In the place of traditional revelations regarding murders--clues, suspects, and accusations--O'Brien offers clues to Wade's character, unfolding a character who has long concealed parts of himself, in true "Sorcerer" fashion. The entire book unfolds as a magic trick, rather than a mystery: the disappearing act is known, the trick behind it, never revealed. Though we don't know how Karen went missing, the mere speculation of how it might've occurred keeps the reader invested.
2. Instead of a linear narrative, in which action unfolds chronologically, Tim O'Brien has constructed a narrative that simultaneously moves forward and backward in time: forward from John and Kathy's arrival at the cabin; backward into John's childhood, and beyond that to Little Big Horn and the War of Independence. It also moves laterally, into the "virtual" time that is represented by different hypotheses about Kathy's fate. What does the author accomplish with this narrative scheme? In what ways are his different narrative strands connected?
The story follows a woman's disappearance, but at its core, it is the story of the man who might've, or might've not, been responsible for the disappearance. This focus on John Wade requires an investigation into his background, most of which is unknown to the people around him. John's character and motivations is revealed by his actions, early on--O'Brien never lets us directly into John Wade's head. Therefore, O'Brien delves into Wade's past, even in the first chapters--his detailing of how Wade stalked Karen before they began dating, the way Wade reacted to his father's death, are all essential pieces to the puzzle that eventually makes us suspect John Wade as capable of killing his wife.
Yes, Maddy. Writers are "magicians" who perform "magic tricks,"
Deletemanipulating their readers through indirection and imaginative "illusion" as they reader is led page by page into the fictional world that has been created.
Keeping the reader "active" and "invested" (as you put it) is vital to good storytelling.
GOOD POINT---Why did O'Brien choose to tell the story from through the POV of the narrator's investigation and speculations, along with the acquired evidence. Would it have been possible to get "inside" John Wade's head--or is that the mystery. the inscrutability of another person's soul?
1. The element that gives In the Lake of the Woods its suspense is the fact that although the reader is aware that Kathy Wade is missing within the first page – or at least the first few pages – it is not clear why. The suspense is built with the use of other characters’ opinions of what the cause of Kathy’s disappearance. The reader is unsure of whether or not she is dead, and if she is, if it was by John’s hand. This differs from traditional mysteries because the conflict is established almost immediately and instead of a ‘how’ being the focus, it is a ‘why.’
ReplyDelete2. Tim O’Brien uses this structure for his novel because the lack of consistent chronological events aids the suspense. It also accomplishes giving the reader the backstory of John’s character more successfully than it would’ve been if O’Brien had used a linear narrative. The hypotheses help move the story forward because it provides different opinions for the reader to consider concerning Kathy’s fate while avoiding giving away the ending too soon.
Yes, it is the "why" that is often more important than the "how". If John killed Kathy, does it really matter that we know "how" or is it more important that we understand "why" in the context of the Vietnam War?
Delete1 & 2) Although we learn that Kathy will vanish within the first few pages of the novel, the reader is only left with wondering what actually happened to her. As the story unfolds, Kathy and John’s relationship is revealed. There is an obvious distance between them and it makes us wonder whether or not John killed her or she left on her own. The evidence in the story can support either of these conclusions. Tim O’Brien’s construction of the novel and the flip between past and present constantly reveals something about John’s childhood that may have affected his relationship with Kathy. He presents us with the main problem, then information from the past that has led to the problem, then back to the present where they begin the search for Kathy. His father’s death and the Vietnam War play into the story very well when it comes to explaining why John acts so distant from everyone. A flashback to when Kathy and John met in college also shows their absurd and awkward relationship. You would think that he would never hurt her because of his obsession for her, but maybe the obsession went too far and eventually died out. The interviews give us an idea of how John interacts with his friends and family, since the majority of the story is only about him and Kathy. O’Brien develops a well-written mystery that keeps up the suspense without it being in chronological order.
ReplyDeleteGabriela, you're on to the psychological disorder that John has.
DeleteHow can someone be so "obsessed" with someone else and yet not be able , even in marriage, to create "intimacy"? What has scarred John so much that his personality becomes so "disordered"?
1. What, then, gives In the Lake of the Woods its undeniable suspense? What does it offer in place of the revelations of traditional mysteries?
ReplyDeleteI think what gives In The Lake of The Woods its suspense is its intricate beginning. The novel starts out making one think, “Ok what the hell is this about?” Once you read the first few pages if not chapters you can see that whatever is going to happen will be something big because the story starts of so slow and uninteresting. It has hidden messages, which definitely fits into the traditional mystery book. The main characters don’t keep you on edge or make you wonder much about them as much as how they got where they are. Usually these kinds of characters are the ones we like to keep an eye on.
2. Instead of a linear narrative, in which action unfolds chronologically, Tim O'Brien has constructed a narrative that simultaneously moves forward and backward in time: forward from John and Kathy's arrival at the cabin; backward into John's childhood, and beyond that to Little Big Horn and the War of Independence. It also moves laterally, into the "virtual" time that is represented by different hypotheses about Kathy's fate. What does the author accomplish with this narrative scheme? In what ways are his different narrative strands connected?
He accomplishes the utter confusion of the reader. No seriously he shows what the actual impact of events are and what is going on behind everything as it happens. Instead of allowing a reader to ask why, how, when etc. throughout the novel, the answers are revealed in various ways like in the testimonies. By jumping around a lot you can think to yourself what an earlier statement made meant or what event symbolizes something later in the story.
Redman, who are you? Be sure to put your name on your post.
DeleteDo you think O'Brien is messing with the reader's head or just trying to get into the reader's head? Why does O'Brien like to continually write about the fact that the "truth" is so very hard to know?
1. Before even cracking open the book, a huge part already has been revealed—
ReplyDeleteJohn’s wife Kathy is missing. However, O’Brien makes use of this and is able to build even more suspense. Now that the reader knows that Kathy is missing, questions begin to formulate and create a sudden desire to know what really happened. There is the burning itch to find out how the investigation unfolds. The reader begins to learn more about John and Kathy and forms hypotheses of their own. In place of revelations, which traditional mysteries have, we are given an unidentified investigator who chips in his hypotheses as to his ideas of what happened influence the reader’s perspective and also introduce things that should be considered. “Evidence” is also given to the reader; chapters full of testimonies that also help the reader shape their theories and give fresh new perspectives.
2. O’Brien writes the novel playing around with different forms and experimenting with the chapters. In one, the reader would be following alongside John as he stalks Kathy and also delve into his childhood and fascination with magic. Then in the next, there would be a series of quotes or definitions. However, it’s used in a way that doesn’t necessarily jerk around the readers. In order to make up for the fact that a big event has already been revealed early in the novel, he must build more suspense. As previously stated before, the scattering of the chapters, leaving the reader stuck between the past, the present, the evidence, and also the hypotheses leaves some blind spots. It leaves readers unknown to certain events, leaving a hanging feeling of suspense. For many of the chapters, the titles are about the “nature” of things or how events were done. The reader is often reading about the present and then brought to the past, explaining something, clearing up things previously left to be wondered about. Then the evidence chapters are scattered, along with the hypotheses. They are like supplements to the actual story, not the entire thing. O’Brien does not over-do it and connects these together in such a way that creates a whole new experience for the reader.
Most writers create a linear path in which the reader only knows
Deletewhat the writer reveals through the characters in traditional ways--what they do and say, what the writer says about them, what others say about them. Here O'Brien is attempting to enlarge the picture through the collection of "evidence"
along with "hypotheses" and this increasingly blurs the whole picture instead of elucidating it. This is a most frustrating
technique and yet, it opens up so many questions about the
"willing suspension of disbelief" that readers and audiences
acquiesce to.
1. In the Lake of the Woods is different from most mystery books, and in a genre almost of it’s own kind, mixing elements of classic mystery and suspense fiction with elements of postmodernism and meta-fiction that O’Brien is known for. This unique collaboration creates a precarious atmosphere of uncertainty and suspense that holds even until after the novel is finished.
ReplyDelete2. The narrative scheme that O’Brien constructs his novel in creates a feeling of uncertainty and confusion, while also telling the story of his wife’s disappearance. This narrative style is appropriate and almost necessary for this book. The protagonist telling most of the story, aside from the evidence sections, is confused and mislead, as a result of his troubled childhood and then from the effects of the Vietnam War. The jumpy and disconnected way O’Brien narrates the novel effectively reflects John Wade’s mind, which makes for a much more compelling tale. The different narrative strands all relate and by the end of the novel weave a patchy but comprehensible story. Originally we are exposed to a happy marriage, but as the novel unfolds, and Wade’s childhood and family background are exposed, along with his experiences in the Vietnam War, the reader is let into the confusing and uncertain world existing in his mind.
gracie elliott
1. Almost from this novel's first page we know that Kathy Wade will vanish, and it is not long before we discover that her disappearance will remain unsolved. What, then, gives In the Lake of the Woods its undeniable suspense? What does it offer in place of the revelations of traditional mysteries?
ReplyDeleteThis is not a typical mystery story. Instead of bringing up questions to the reader, the story line reveals things that were meant to be at the end of the story, so that creates a physiological mystery. Clues are given throughout the novel that add to the suspense of the story line.
2. Instead of a linear narrative, in which action unfolds chronologically, Tim O'Brien has constructed a narrative that simultaneously moves forward and backward in time: forward from John and Kathy's arrival at the cabin; backward into John's childhood, and beyond that to Little Big Horn and the War of Independence. It also moves laterally, into the "virtual" time that is represented by different hypotheses about Kathy's fate. What does the author accomplish with this narrative scheme? In what ways are his different narrative strands connected?
This is a more creative way of writing. The story is not written in chronological order which makes the story a bit more suspenseful. Revealing things that would usually be told later on in the story were revealed in the beginning and that brought up multiple questions. This can also be a little confusing because essentially the story is jumping back and forth. Even though it keeps the reader interested, it can be confusing.
Keep reading, Erin. I can't promise you that the confusion will disappear. In fact, it may increase.
DeleteMariah Gonzalez
ReplyDelete1.)The element that gives the novel, In the Lake of the Woods, its undeniable suspense is the slow pace at which the novel moves as well as the foreshadowing that occurs before John’s wife, Kathy, goes missing. While reading this novel, the vivid descriptions of John and Kathy planning their dreams and sharing their thoughts while they lay together, as well as the description of their actions of their relationship in the past slows down the pace of the book. As these flashbacks are intertwined throughout the novel, the suspense builds. The sudden disappearing’s of Kathy when they first meet gives readers insight into the characterization of the character, and therefore are more taken aback when they realize that she is no longer only missing for a short time like she has in the past. With the suspense of the novel building up to Kathy’s disappearance and the foreshadowing that provides readers clues as to what may have happened to her, the Lake of the Woods is ultimately a suspenseful and mysterious novel.
2.)Mentioned in my previous response, by using this particular narrative scheme, the author accomplishes building suspense, as well as slowing down the novel by simultaneously moving forward and backward in time. By slowing down the novel, the author not only gives reader’s time to process the election, but also allows them to understand how it has affected John and Kathy’s relationship. By going back in time the technique enforces the characterization of the main character, how John and Kathy’s relationship was before John lost by a landslide, and how each character was individually before the devastation. All of these aspects that occur due to the technique also help readers slowly begin to figure out whether or not Kathy left on her own free will. One way the author’s different narrative strands are connected is through the flashbacks of John as a child and the flash-forward of the election being connected to the second narrative strand of the “virtual” time technique. By readers gaining insight into who John was as a child, they can connect his characterization back then to who he is now; making assumptions as to why he lost the election (His mother’s comments adding to readers own ideas), and if his strange/obsessive habits contribute to Kathy’s disappearance.
1. Almost from this novel's first page we know that Kathy Wade will vanish, and it is not long before we discover that her disappearance will remain unsolved. What, then, gives In the Lake of the Woodsits undeniable suspense? What does it offer in place of the revelations of traditional mysteries?
ReplyDeleteIn the Lake of the Woods is, in typical Tim O'Brien fashion, a novel that breaks its genre conventions and yet, somehow, remains surprisingly true to its genre. It's full of suspense from the beginning because of the atmosphere and mood O'Brien is able to create, coupled with the idea that the reader has that they don't know everything. As O'Brien reveals Wade's character slowly, the reader becomes more and more interested in what is going behind what we already know.
2. Instead of a linear narrative, in which action unfolds chronologically, Tim O'Brien has constructed a narrative that simultaneously moves forward and backward in time: forward from John and Kathy's arrival at the cabin; backward into John's childhood, and beyond that to Little Big Horn and the War of Independence. It also moves laterally, into the "virtual" time that is represented by different hypotheses about Kathy's fate. What does the author accomplish with this narrative scheme? In what ways are his different narrative strands connected?
In the Lake of the Woods is non-linear—that is, events aren't really ordered chronologically. However, they are often offered contextually as we leap through different time periods, learning about the characters' lives in different states and different ways. This creates an incredible amount of suspense as we begin to learn more about John Wade and his background. O'Brien is able to craft a web of information that strings itself together in the novel, bringing us along on a journey that is frightening, puzzling, and fascinating.
1. I think what gives this novel its suspense is the sole fact that the reader does not know what happened to Kathy. As you read the book, you cannot help but wonder what happened to her. Ideas and hypothesis are running through your head, and this adds the feeling of suspense and makes you want to keep reading. Though the fate of Kathy is left unknown, it is played out so well by O’Brien, that even after you finish the book, you still think and wonder about what happened.
ReplyDelete2. Skipping from the different time periods, when John was a little boy to when he is in the Lake Of The Woods with Kathy, adds a deeper sense of understanding to the novel. And not just to the plot of the novel, but it allows for O’Brien to really explore John’s character. It gives the reader a chance to truly understand John and why he is the way he is. It makes the character of John so much more real, and altogether easier to relate to
Ashley Lawson
ReplyDelete1. The facts, the details, the creative information, the reports and statements, the way O’Brien presents the disappearance’s investigation, along with the way he tells us the character’s stories is what gives In the Lake of the Woods its undeniable suspense. We are on the edge of our seats so to speak and slowly we are filled in on what is going on in the most creative way. It offers us the possibility of determining the truth on our own. It doesn’t tell us exactly the answer we’re looking for, but it sets it up with the information and allows us to make our own conclusions, unlike traditional mysteries that eventually have a definite answer and conclusion.
2. As I said above, it keeps us on the edge of our seats. It allows us to figure things out for our selves, put the pieces of the puzzle together through the distinct clues given in different ways and times.
Angela Boyle
ReplyDelete1. The setting and the set up of the novel are very intriguing and they peak your interest. Also, the point of view in which its written, is very ominous, in my opinion, and it adds suspense.
It offers bits and pieces of information that seem somewhat unimportant if left alone, but once put together, they actually begin to piece together a story. It allows the reader to try to interpret the clues as they will, not necessarily the way thy are supposed to be.
2. He achieves the aspect of suspense, and unexpected twists and turns that appeal to the reader. It also forces the reader to pay attention, and actually put thought into what they are reading. Each strand is connected by other small strands of the story, and first, the reader has no idea why these little things matter, but as they get further into reading, it becomes clear, and overall its a very cool way to put a story together.
1. I found that the constant switches in time, specifically flash-forwards and flashbacks, really heightened the nervous feelings around her disappearance. Each mention of John's childhood becomes interpreted as a reason why Kathy might've disappeared, whether that means he killed her or gave her another reason to run. The suspense within the novel is so dependent on the characterization of John, and without the chapters of 'Evidence' or the descriptions of his almost unhealthy obsession with having Kathy and not losing her really bring a bad taste to the reader's mouth. It lacks the traditional clues and hints and linear story unfolding--there is no set outcome, so far. This is something radically different from any Sherlock Holmes or Nancy Drew type story. The novel has so far kept me on the edge of my seat and even though I anticipate an ending that explains nothing, I far from lose interest in the book.
ReplyDelete2. As I touched upon above, the non-linear story really keeps the readers in a constant state of unknowing and suspense. There is no apparent set story or ending, and it surrounds the reader with so much information and ideas that it soon becomes difficult to put down the book. The narrative strands are all connected by John, and John's childhood, as well as his relationship with Kathy. Kathy is almost like a string that ties John's emotions and well-being together, as well as the story itself--without Kathy, John unravels, from what it seems. All of these factors keep the reader in a state of suspense, and for me, I specifically find myself nervous and disturbed about her disappearance and John's frightening tendencies over her.
Shannon Kalia
ReplyDelete1.) Almost from this novel's first page we know that Kathy Wade will vanish, and it is not long before we discover that her disappearance will remain unsolved. What, then, gives In the Lake of the Woods its undeniable suspense? What does it offer in place of the revelations of traditional mysteries?
From the beginning of the novel In The Lake of the Woods, the reader figures out that Kathy Wade will eventually disappear. As you continue to read, it becomes exactly unclear about how she disappeared, and many different theories about how she vanished are mentioned, but it seems like nothing is certain. It’s obvious how obsessive John is over her, but at the same time, how he acts during war and how he was affected by his father when he was younger almost made me think that he had killed or had something to do with her disappearance. I think what also gives the book it’s undeniable suspense is how the story unfolds – it isn’t told in first person like many books are, where it’s easier to get inside the protagonist’s head, but rather from a narrator who gives out details about the character’s and John’s life slowly and gradually throughout the book. The book goes by slowly, and there is a lot of foreshadowing that makes the reader wonder what’s going to happen to both John and Kathy. As there are flashbacks, the relationships and pasts of both Kathy and John are revealed, slowly building suspense until the end of the book, and at the end almost leaves the reader hanging because no one ever actually tells how Kathy disappeared. The fact that how she disappears remains a mystery and how the story is told makes this book more suspenseful than other traditional mysteries.
2.) Instead of a linear narrative, in which action unfolds chronologically, Tim O'Brien has constructed a narrative that simultaneously moves forward and backward in time: forward from John and Kathy's arrival at the cabin; backward into John's childhood, and beyond that to Little Big Horn and the War of Independence. It also moves laterally, into the "virtual" time that is represented by different hypotheses about Kathy's fate. What does the author accomplish with this narrative scheme? In what ways are his different narrative strands connected?
I think Tim O’ Brien’s narrative scheme works to his benefit during this novel and makes it better than it would’ve been if it was a linear narrative. The author works backwards, so you find something out and then it’s slowly revealed how the characters got to that point, and you learn about their past and relationship with each other. It also makes the flashbacks better because you understand why the characters are the way they are, and what has happened in their life. It also shows John’s relationship with his father, and how despite his abuse and alcoholism, how much he looked up to him and how devastating his death was and how it might’ve had an affect on him. By not using a linear form, I think it makes the story more interesting, suspenseful and well developed.