Ch. 5: Enemies

Please use this thread for discussing this chapter.

This tiny chapter is part of a set; it goes with Ch 6 Friends. Again, I think this set reads as if it is a stand alone short story. It is easy for me to image that O'Brien wrote this book in bits and piece and out of sequence. I can see his desk with all the separate parts spread around. I feel sure that when he finally got it all together there were a few spare parts left over.

I had the opposite thought, that he very carefully decided how he was going to order it and fit the pieces all together, not like a jigsaw puzzle where each piece is nothing on its own but something together, but individual pieces that are something alone but something so much bigger when put together.
Each piece is different in mood, style, length, time, and space, but together they are somthing different.

Interestingly, O'Brien did write some of the pieces of this book as short stories. The book has a great flow and sounds like someone telling their tale; a bit disjointed and with "Oh, and I forgot...". I think this aspect of the book is very intentional and adds to the success of the narrative.

That doesn't surprise me - that it was originally a bunch of short stories.