"Is it real?" "Did it really happen?" People invariably ask some form of this question when I tell them about the book, or after they've read it. The truth is, no one - not even Ishmael Beah himself - knows the full answer to that question. People who have read it say that some things don't add up - like how can a baby stop a bullet or a person not die after having lost so much blood? The basic counterargument given is this: It was a traumatic time in young Beah's life, and obviously he's not going to remember things exactly as they happened. People who haven't read it are too horrified to think it can be true. The counterargument to this, and one that I wholeheartedly agree with, is: Read it.
In thinking about this question, I am reminded of Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried, a personal account of O'Brien's time as a foot soldier in the Vietnam War (If you haven't read it, you absolutely must. It's amazing). While the backdrop of O'Brien's novel may be Vietnam, the real purpose of the book is to examine stories and the power they have over us.
Among other things, O'Brien states that "story truth is sometimes truer than happening truth", story truth being how an event is personified and described, happening truth being just blunt fact. Story truths are designed to make you feel something, understand better whatever it is that the happening truth has stated. O'Brien also states, "In any war story, but especially a true one, it's difficult to separate what happened from what seemed to happen. What seems to happen becomes its own happening and has to be told that way... there is always that surreal seemingness, which makes a story seem untrue, but which in fact represents the hard and exact truth as it seemed".
The similarity between this and the events in Sierra Leone and in Beah's life are almost eerie. Just because Beah is perhaps not recording the exact and definite truth, does not mean that what he is recording is not exact and definite to him. He's attempting to get the world to understand what he went through, which he does beautifully. Ask yourself this question: After reading, do you have a better understanding of what it was like to be a child soldier in Sierra Leone? If you have any semblance of humanity in you, the answer will be yes. Beah's stories have done their job. It doesn't matter if they weren't true down to the tiniest detail. They were still true.
Another of O'Brien's reasonings is this: "you can tell a true war story by the questions you ask. Somebody tells a story, let's say, and afterward you ask, "Is it true?" and if the answer matters, you've got your answer". Does Beah's story matter? Is it important that it is true, and how would you feel if it wasn't? Is it true?
Think on it.
Now you've got your answer.
"It comes down to gut instinct. A true war story, if truly told, makes the stomach believe." - Tim O'Brien, The Things They Carried
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