Linda

The final chapter really stood apart from the whole book in my opinion. The whole time I was reading this book I felt as if I was getting whiplash the way the story went back and forth from one time period to another and from one story to the other. This last chapter was exactly the same- except the author took his audience back even further- to his childhood. I really loved the innocence in the character Linda. I guess the way O'Brien tied Linda in with the rest of the story was through the fact that she was dead. My favorite line in this final chapter is one where Linda describes what it is like to be dead by stating it is like being inside a book. "...You're safe and everything, but the book hasn't been checked out for a long, long time. All you can do is wait. Just hope somebody'll pick it up and start reading" (pg 232). I think O'Brien relates this and the story of Linda to all the soldiers he knew who passed. Although they are gone, the memories of them live on through stories like this one.