Zack Olander - "Story Truth"

I remember in one of my high school English classes I was assigned to read the novel The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien. It is set during the Vietnam War and the narrative follows a squad of American soldiers. After a while into the book, the reader tends to get the impression that the narrator of the story is not entirely reliable, or maybe is embellishing the stories about each of the men (if I remember correctly, the novel is somewhat biographical), but then the main theme of the story is explicitly stated: there is such a thing as "story truth," which is different from objective truth, but still has a place especially when the story is trying to prove a point.
The narrator will often add details that seem fantastical, but it's to further drive home the point that it was horrible to fight in Vietnam. It's a great novel, and one that I suggest people who are interested in the theme of story truth, or truth in myth, should read.
This was the first time in my life when I thought about the idea that maybe objective truth is not always the best way of understanding the world, and looking back it was a primer for my interest in studying mythology. By the time I came into this class on the works of the Inklings and C.S. Lewis, it was an idea that I was already familiar with.

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