Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried (Bloom's Guides)

Rating:
Summary: A Difficult Read, but worth the effort
Review: Tim O'Brien has an interesting approach in this book--I am not sure whether to call it a collection of short stories or a novel--to remembering his time as grunt in Vietnam. It is difficult to tell where memory ends and imagination begins. We travel through that mixture of boredom and terror that is the staple of just about all wars with the men of Alpha Company. As we do this, we see a deeply human side of the war. There is little valor, less cowardice, and what see of the war is not the drama of battle in all its frightfulness--but simply death and fear and abiding sadnesses and traumas that are only dulled through the passage of time, or not at all.

O'Brien's experience as a grunt would be interesting enough on its own if he simply told stories of his experiences in the field. What makes this book outstanding though is how O'Brien weaves back and forth from his own experiences as a young man to the time of the writing of this book. Doing this allows him to expostulate as a critic on the veracity of war stories and how to tell a real one story from a phony, or how he broached the subject of the war with his daughter when she was old enough to ask him if he had killed anyone in the war, and also to entice the reader into constantly trying to guess where memory ends and fiction begins while asserting that it really does not matter.

Finally, the book is as much about the war as how O'Brien figured out how to cope with all the horror that he had seen. It is all about the things that carried home from the war and will never be able to drop because they are a part of his experience



Rating:
Summary: A Laugh-Out-Loud Novel that is Also Quite Serious.
Review: Tim O'Brient, the award winning writer presents a war novel in the setting of Vietnam. In its explict discription of every event true or false, O'Brient manupilates words to deliver them straight to the readers thoughts. Besides the struggle of remembering the characters in the beginning of the book, the reader will sure to enjoy his story of himself, his comerades, and the things they carried physically and mentally. It is filled with griefs, love, terror, commedy, and disgusting truth one will never forget.

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Rating:
Summary: Masterpiece of Human feelings and actions
Review: Tim Obrien's "the thinbgs they carried" has little or nothing to do with war. The book instaed speaks of the human enedavour and the effect that war has on the soul. The book it self made me feel as if I was bleeding to death while i read. It hurt. Plain and simple O'brien hurts in this Novel. It truly doesnt matter what is true and what is not because either way the book makes us all feel. Maybe not for all this is still the best book i have read in ages.