CRITICAL PERSPECTIVE In an essay about war memoirs, Clayton W. Lewis questions O'Brien's decision to present “the nightmare [he] faced in a Vietnam rice paddy” as fiction. Lewis believes that some of O'Brien's stories “dissolve into clever artifice” and, therefore, are not as effective as actual memoirs of the Vietnam experience would be. He concludes that “for all its brilliance and emotional grounding, [ the stories do not] satisfy one's appetite to hear what happened rendered as it was experienced and remembered.
” Do you think Lewis has a point? Or do you think O'Brien's “artifice” communicates his emotions and experiences more effectively than a straightforward memoir could? Explain your position.
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