Pivotal Moments of Experience

By Christina Weir Thorpe

Pivotal moments define Billy Lynn’s existential crisis in Ben Fountain’s novel, Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk.  These moments outline the soldier’s internal struggle to understand his soul-encompassing fears, the experience of war, and, ultimately, life’s bigger meaning.  During a press conference, reporters question Billy regarding his inspiration to valiantly act in the face of danger.  However,

Billy’s not ready for this, plus he’s having a hard time with inspired…He’s anxious to answer properly, to correctly or even approximately describe the experience of the battle, which was, in short, everything.  The world happened that day, and he’s beginning to understand he will spend the rest of his life trying to figure it out (136).

For Billy, at this moment, only the truth of the “experience” matters.  And that truth could only be rendered to its occupants, those inhabitants of the “experience of battle” that are forever locked in it, changed by it.  This pivotal moment becomes their “everything.”  The world looks for the “inspired” answer, but war rarely contains inspiration.  War contains the experience of fear, of pain, of loss.  The soldier, redefined by this experience, must grapple with its influence on his identity, forever trying to comprehend and articulate its meaning.  But how does one sum the whole of life and death in mere words?  There is no short answer.  Therefore, when the world calls on the soldier to describe the sensations, the motivations, or the glory that is war, the answer lies in silence: “silence being truer to the experience than the star-spangle spasm, the bittersweet sob, the redeeming hug” (137).