"All this happened more or less..."

The similarities between "How to Tell a True War Story" by Tim O'Brien and Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut are striking. Both men have a penchant for putting a mist over the events in their stories. Did any of these events actually happen? In a way, I think the answer to that question is both yes and no. With Vonnegut's Billy Pilgrim flying all over space and time, cutting in between story lines right as the action is intensifying, and O'Brien's, as well as Vonnegut's, constant retelling of his stories, the reader is almost being asked to doubt the authenticity of the stories. The doubt present in both stories makes the tale that much more compelling. We want to believe O'Brien and Vonnegut, but at the same time we feel the effects of being pulled back and forth in time just like Billy Pilgrim. The reader can never know what's fact and what's a false memory/dream conjured up by the effects of PTSD. Their experiences, real or not, are haunting them. They constantly relive them, and it shows in their writings.

Another way that O'Brien and Vonnegut's writings are similar is both authors' approach to death. In normal circumstances, most people would be appalled by death, turning away in fear at the sight of it. But both authors seem to have a nonchalant, almost humorous, approach to the death of ones they hold close. O'Brien notes at one point how it looks as if the sun is engulfing Curt Lemon in light then goes on to tell of the clean up after Lemon's unfortunate end, noting how the tree is now truly a "Lemon Tree". After every death Vonnegut experiences, he notes "So it goes." This saying, picked up from his time with the Tralfamadorians, gives us a hint into his inner psyche. Just like O'Brien, Vonnegut successfully copes with death by drawing inward. For O'Brien, the outlet from the horrors of death is comedy. For Vonnegut, along with black comedy found throughout Slaughterhouse-Five, hit outlet is a philosophy of almost eternal life. While the dead person may be in a sad state now, there are thousands of other timelines where that person is still alive. It is through these ways that both authors make sense of their world in a time of war, a time of death and not understanding why things happen as they do.