Flash Fiction is a form of fiction writing that is brief and usually has a maximum word count of 1000. This type of writing is often difficult because authors must skip the details and get to the main point of their story.
Richard Currey’s Fatal Light begins much like The Things They Carried with the narrator acting as the author even though it is a fictional book. It is evident that Currey utilized flash fiction in order to get the most important aspects of Richard’s, the narrator, life across. There are six sections in the entire book, but each section is broken down into chapters that range from a paragraph to three pages long. This allows Richard to tell the story of his summers at his grandfather’s house, his girl back home Mary, and the time he spent in Vietnam. Although the chapters do not ramble on, the details picked give the reader more than a glimpse into his life. In section 14 of "In Country" he writes, "We bagged the captain and the legless lance corporal and called Motor T to get the bodies to Graves (55)." There was no significant detail on how they died, and there was a lack of emotion surrounding these deaths. The matter of it all was that they were dead, and there is nothing anyone could do now but remove the bodies. Richard leaves out the emotions that surround death and war because in war their is no time for that.
Although this book does not take the form of a traditional book, it leaves the reader hanging on with each word because there are so few words that the ones picked had to be perfect. Currey writes that, “[He] wanted to tell an old story from what [he] hoped might be a different approach, a stripped-down journey through a soldier’s life and mind where the nature of war is recalibrated in its purest form (xiii).” Flash fiction is one of the purest forms of fiction writing, and he uses this to connect to the overall ideals of his subject matter. By writing this way, Richard is able to alternate between his past and his present. Each chapter is like a picture, the closer the reader looks at the words the more detail and history they see.
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Flash Fiction is a form of fiction writing that is brief and usually contains 300-1000 words. This type of writing is often difficult because authors must skip the details and get to the main point of their story.
ReplyDeleteRichard Currey’s Fatal Light begins much like The Things They Carried with the narrator acting as the author even though it is a fictional book. It is evident that Currey utilized flash fiction in order to get the most important aspects of Richard’s, the narrator, life across. There are six sections in the entire book, but each section is broken down into chapters that range from a paragraph to three pages long. Although the chapters do not ramble on, the details picked give the reader more than a glimpse into his life.
Currey touches on three of the most reoccurring elements in war novels-the question of going to war, the man he kills, and the after effects of the war. In the section “Malaria” Richard tells a woman that he is going to war and she asks, “Why are you doing this? I was drafted. You could have gone to Canada. You can still go to Canada. No. I cannot go to Canada. That was never an option” (89). Here Currey brings up the predicament that many young men were faced with. Should he flee the country and save his life or go to Vietnam and fight in a war he may not return from? Although it was not easy many men went to war not because they wanted to, but because they had to and it was the right thing to do. The second element pertains to the man Richard killed. In the section “In Country” Richard retells the events that led up to the death of the man he killed. He writes, “He was blown off his feet by the blast and his body was in the distinctive scarecrow disarray that instant death brings” (62). Currey does not give extreme graphics, but provides enough information to show the reader that this event had an impact on Richard that he will never forget. The last theme brought up in this novel is the after effects of the war that contributed to various forms of alcoholism and PTSD. In the section “Home” he writes, “I looked forward to the beer’s chance to ease me” (145). Here Richard uses beer to forget about all of his troubles and to escape into a stupor where everything is okay. The Vietnam War led many soldiers to a life of alcohol and drugs long after the fighting was over.
Although this book does not take the form of a traditional book, it leaves the reader hanging on with each word. Since it is flash fiction there are few words used, so the words must be used sparingly and precisely. Currey writes that, “[He] wanted to tell an old story from what [he] hoped might be a different approach, a stripped-down journey through a soldier’s life and mind where the nature of war is recalibrated in its purest form (xiii).” Flash fiction is one of the purest forms of fiction writing, and he uses this to connect to the overall ideals of his subject matter. By writing this way, Richard is able to alternate between his past and his present. Each chapter is like a picture, the closer the reader looks at the words the more detail and history they see.