The Ambiguity of Truth

O'Brien's work is particularly thought-provoking in the way it makes the reader question the absolutes of reality and truth. He makes a distinction between factual truth and real truth, suggesting that made up stories can be more true than an perfect recounting of events that happened. Something is really true, he argues, if it conjures up the precise set of emotions; a simple retelling of a story, no embellishment, may not be powerful enough to enable the audience to feel the emotions of the situation described, but a fictitious, exaggerated tale could evoke in them a level of emotion similar to that of the actual situation. According to O'Brien, this makes the latter more true that the accurate telling of events.
This idea could be continued to indicate that there is only meaning in our interpretations, that it is the audience who gives any story its meaning by what they take out of it. Things can be true to one person, but completely meaningless to another, for example: O'Brien at a book event tells his stories to a captive but undiscerning audience, members of which later express their lack of understanding to him. His stories are exactly true, accurate in both sequence of events and emotion that he feels. But, to his audience they hold no meaning because they don't convey the emotion he felt. O'Brien refers to this kind of truth and lack of truth in stories and retelling of events. To me, this incites confusion whenever O'Brien claims he is sharing the "truth" because, unlike ever before, I am unsure exactly how to understand that.