Blog 5 AB

The definition I found of "flash fiction", is a short, brief story usually consisting of 300-1000 words, but Richard Currey cleverly uses this idea of flash fiction to construct a novel, that tells a very compelling story. Currey breaks up his novel into flashes of his life starting when he was very little to his return from Vietnam. The book only consists of 167 pages, but I could be argued that there might only be 100 pages worth of text in this book, really emphasizing the idea of the flash fiction. Each section is broken down into little chapters that start half way down the page due to the fact the chapters don't need to start anywhere else, for most of the chapters don't even go onto a second page. Through this structure, Currey has the ability to grab ideas that would be in a longer novel and make them stand out. Basically excludes all the embellishment of the story and gets right to the point of the story or the scenes that he really wants to portray. In a way it seems that Currey uses this structure to show that Vietnam happened and there is no way around it and it can be told in these short stories for everyone has their own stories of war and there is no need for the excessive embellishment of war stories, as O'Brien would say, questions the truth of those stories. Also this short flash fiction idea gives the reader a good idea of how the war is remember by a veteran. A war veteran remember flashes of the war because they don't want to remember the whole thing and its bad enough they have to remember these flashes and usually those flashes were the most horrific parts of the war or the good times they spent with their fellow brethren in the down time of the war.
I really enjoyed this structure because Currey would give you a quick scene, and then a chapter break to give you time to think about what you just read, even if it was just a two sentence shot or a chapter that seemed to be like someone jotting down notes (as in chapter 14 of In-Country, this particularly caught my attention when the chapter started with one word and then a period and everything following that was little sentences, or note like ideas about that one word). This form really helped keep my attention and many appreciate the idea of authors who write books that get straight to the point, yet give enough room to allow you to think about the purpose of the story.