A World of Unknown Truths

Tim O’Brien is very complex, yet in a way that is not too difficult to understand. In the Lake of the Woods explained how Veterans’ psychological well-being can and dissolve during and after war. However, after finishing the book I do not believe O’Brien’s main focus was to inform those who may be concerned about how horrifying the Vietnam War was. Instead, I believe he wanted to explain how truth is not something that is ever completely revealed.
In the novel, John Wade could be considered a complete mystery. He was a husky adolescent, magician, soldier, politician, great husband, shitty husband, and a possible murderer. Many details were revealed as In the Lake of the Woods progressed, but where was the truth? The entire book is an attempt to truthfully solve unanswered questions. For example, John Wade claimed to love politics and his wife, Kathy Wade. Yet when Kathy is missing John acts like he does not believe Kathy’s sister, Patricia, when she tells him how much Kathy hated being a prominent politician’s wife. “You really didn’t know her,” Pat said. What is the truth? Maybe John did in fact plan on having a family and vacationing to Verona, but he never showed much initiative. However, it was obvious he was madly in love with her. John claimed that he wanted to take the political road in order for her to live a great lifestyle, but O’Brien explained to us that when Kathy learned she was pregnant years before they did not go through with having the child. Tim O’Brien leaves it up to the reader to decide whether or not John Wade was just a selfish politician trying to climb the political ladder, or a loving husband who truly cared about his wife.
Most importantly, O’Brien never unravels the truth about Kathy Wade’s whereabouts. There were ample reasons to consider John a top suspect, but nothing is ever confirmed. It is when O’Brien begins telling us about Kathy’s disappearance that we learn how harshly John’s experiences in the Vietnam War as well as his childhood affected him. John was known as Sorcerer to the members of his platoon. He had a magician since the early years of his life, something of which his alcoholic father his father often teased him for. It was this “Sorcerer” mentality that allowed John to live a life of erased secrets. When one of John’s secrets leaked shortly before his attempt to be elected to the US Senate, the tables turned and he lost the election in a landslide. This secret was that he participated in the My Lai massacre on March 16, 1968. John frequently flashed back to that horrific day; the smell, the flies, the innocent dead flesh all around him. He mentions the old man he shot and the fact that he only remembers his gardening hoe flying aimlessly into the sky after the bullet struck him. Also, John mentions how he shot and killed a fellow Platoon member, PFC Weatherby, “on instinct.” John is never truthful with himself. He tells himself that it was not his fault he killed Weatherby, it was simply a reflex. The fact that he remembers the old man’s gardening hoe more than anything is not an accident either. That’s what he wants to remember. He does not want to remind himself how he simply shot the man. John Wade does not tell anyone, even his wife, of the horrific events because he is trying his best not to remember them.
This is Tim O’Brien’s way of explaining how Vietnam can affect people. We normally learn about those who can’t really let it go and are usually willing to talk about the war, such as the former soldiers interviewed in Hearts and Minds, but O’Brien highlights those who do everything they can to let it go. I personally feel like Tim O’Brien is speaking from experience seeing as how he was a Vietnam soldier himself. In the Lake of the Woods is not labeled a nonfiction novel, but it sure as hell does seem like it. O’Brien admits that he has his own “secrets and trapdoors” late in the novel, and I feel like this book is his way of revealing them. Tim O’Brien ironically ends In the Lake of the Woods with the same problem he addressed for 300 pages. What happened to Kathy Wade? Did John possibly kill her, or did she simply run away? The novel shows that even people so close to one another might not actually know the truth about each other, and that’s what O’Brien leaves us with at the end. The only truth is, we’ll probably never know what happened to either of them.