Immortilization

Tim O'Brian composes TTTC mainly to immortalize both himself and his friends. He shows this in his last chapter, " The Lives of the Dead." " We kept the dead alive with stories ... It was a way of brining body and soul back together" (O'Brian 226) He had recorded these stories to "cope" with his experience in war, and to share the stories of the soldiers he had been with. In "The Lives of the Dead" he talks mainly about his first love, Linda. Linda "explains" to him in a dream is " 'like being in a book that nobody's reading... but the book hasn't been checked out in for a long, long time. All you can do is wait. Just hope somebody'll pick it up and start reading'" (232) O'Brian is telling the reader that these lives would be forgotten if he had not put them in this book, but now that he is written about them, their "books" are being checked out and he is making people remember of the fallen soldier and Linda.