I don't know who the narrator is yet, but I know he is going to write a book similar to this novel. The narrator represents O'Brien. He tells his readers why he wrote this book and many others through this mysterious character. They share the same motivation. Like Hemingway wrote a novel based on stories from his life in Spain, O'Brien remembers stories from his life at war.
"You take your material where you find it, which is in your life, at the intersection of past and present. The memory-traffic feeds into a rotary up on your head, where it goes in circles for a while, then pretty soon imagination flows in and the traffic merges and shoots off down a thousand different streets. As a writer, all you can do is pick a street and go for the ride, putting things down as they come to you" (page 33).
Well, I guess I just summed up some of his motivation in a quote, which isn't how we are supposed to do it. But I wanted to also point out the imagery O'Brien uses. When I read that passage I see it all happening. I don't know if it helps me better understand his reasonings, but it makes it a lot more interesting. He goes on to also tell us that "stories are for joining the past to the future" (page 36).
In The Sun Also Rises I had to use outside knowledge to come up with a motivation factor, but O'Brien comes straight out with it. I think this is because not everyone (especially in our class) can really relate to these characters who have been in war. So O'Brien assures us that he knows what he is talking about. These are all stories from his memory that he has made into a work of .. historical fiction? By stating his motivation, he has egos.
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