Pgs: 149-154

I'm beginning to think I'm missing the point of this book. I just read the chapter about Norman Baker and how he couldn't muster up the courage to save his friend. Then I read the next chapter and it says that part was all made up? I don't understand the point of reading a story that isn't true but pretends to be. I can make up a story that has a valuable lesson and shows courage or the lack there of, but I feel like the moral or point of the story is completely discounted if the story is made up. I just don't get why O'Brien is making stuff up, it sounds like he's just one of those people who catches a blue gill and over time and tellings of the story it becomes a great white shark. He's a liar, in a way. It's not that the story's are bad or even entirely that they are made up, I could deal with that too. I just don't like that he plays them off as real at first and then decides to reveal that he just made it up.