Vietnam war fiction: The narrative quest

Because the Vietnam war was like no other, it is not so surprising that the fiction and other literature written about this war experience is also different from that which has followed America\u27s involvement in other conflicts. While there are clear affinities with previous war novels, the best fiction of Vietnam uses literary forms and strategies for meaning-making which are as different from those of the earlier periods as are the sophisticated high-technology weapons from the muzzle-loaders of America\u27s Civil War. Stephen Wright, Tim O\u27Brien, Philip Caputo, James Webb, Ron Kovic, and other Vietnam writers have been on a narrative quest, searching for a way to examine the truth of Vietnam. The quest has changed the traditional effort to portray the war novel in a generically pure idiom. Efforts to recall a life through autobiography find difficulty in keeping Vietnam in perspective, reflecting profoundly changed men\u27s difficulty in coming home unshattered