Oh the anecdotes.

This novel is more or less a compilation of over sized anecdotes. My favorite, and the one I'm going to focus on is the one about the death of O'Brien's childhood friend. After seeing a dead man in Vietnam, O'Brien tells a friend that the man reminds him of someone. "There's this girl I used to know. I took her to the movies once. My first date," he said on page 216. The girl's name was Linda. O'Brien tells us about the date and how he finds out about her having a brain tumor. He tells us how she died and he went to her funeral. He tells us that though he was only 9, he truly loved this girl.
Though a pretty lengthy anecdote, it is one that puts the turmoil cause by the war into perspective. This anecdote shows us how even the death of someone you didn't know could bring back terrible memories. The memories of the war were very similar to this one. They were vivid and usually not positive. O'Brien uses this anecdote to show the true effects of the war.