The Things They Carried

Rating:
Summary: All That They Carried
Review: Tim Obrien uses a unique mixture of fiction and non-fiction to create a captivating collection of short stories suitable for all audiences. Rather than writing a novel solely about the gruesome, violent, aspects of combat during the Vietnam War, O'Brien also reveals the emotional baggage carried by each of his characters. His fast-paced, easy-to-read style turns pages quickly; it's a hard book to put down. As O'Brien writes, "A true war story is never moral. It does not instruct, nor encourage virtue, nor suggest models of proper human behaviour, nor restrain men from doing the things men have always done." Through reading this book, one will learn the the importance of telling stories, the reasons for people's actions, and overall, something about themselves. This book teaches that life is not always what we expect it to be, that the choices we make reflect who we are, and that we must take responsibility for our actions. O'Brien opens the novel with an award-winning short story that grabs the reader's attention immediately. Unlike many other war stories, The Things They Carried presents a thought-provoking, richly humanistic novel through which all readers can identify.

Rating:
Summary: The Things They Carried
Review: The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien was a well written book about soliders in the Vietnam war. It dealt with the struggles, hardships and pain felt by the soliders in the devastating war of the time. O'Brien focused on the emotions of the soliders before, during and after the war.

Personally, i enjoyed reading The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien. The book focused on the lost emotions of our soliders from the war in Vietnam. As a sixteen year old boy, my eyes were opened to a world where danger is present and everyday could be the last. Although O'Brien jumped around from chapter to chapter talking about unrelevant ideas at times, his use of descritive detail allowed me to be captured by what he was saying on each page. The book as a whole seemed quite cluttered, but the individual chapters brought insight into war that dealt with the challenging of every human emotion. i agreed with most of the passages throughout the book, and could relate to most of the feelings of the main character as a pre-war civilian. O'Brien not only talks about the war; he also deals with the emotions felt before and after the war. i enjoyed reading The Things They Carried By Tim O'Brien, and recommend it to anyone who would like to learn more about the heros of the Vietnam War.

Rating:
Summary: The Things They Carried...Heavier Then We Might Have Guessed
Review: From the very begining Tim O'Briens' book kept me guessing at what would be around the next turn that he and his fellow platoon members would encounter.
The itemizing of each article, that went into their fields packs the weight of the bullets and the they carried every day incuding their emotions made me think at times I was right along side them keeping my own mental journal. Very good reading material.

Rating:
Summary: Assigned Reading Most Students Enjoy
Review: I read The Things They Carried only because it was assigned in an English class. I usually enjoy most assigned reading, but I was surprised to see that this time, nearly all of my classmates did, as well. This novel follows the dramatic (and traumatic) experience of ten US soldiers of the Alpha Company fighting in Vietnam. The great thing about this book is that it has countless stories within the main story. Some take O'Brien whole chapters to tell, while others require only a few lines. But each of these, brief or detailed, gives the reader a glimpse into the men's lives, personally and as "grunts." The stories are each fascinating, disturbing, depressing, and amusing, and although they have different topics, they all are intertwined throughout the novel. O'Brien can masterfully weave his tales in and out of each other, using repetition to capture our attention and stress his points. He shares with us his idea of what true storytelling is as he immerges in some chapters as a fictional 43-year-old writer and in one chapter as himself, present-day. Keep in mind that, while this novel seems so real and even contains a character with the author's name, this is a work of fiction. O'Brien makes it clear that although his stories are "true," they are not his experiences in Vietnam.

Rating:
Summary: A Beautifully Written Collection of Stories
Review: "The Things They Carried" is a collection of short stories that skillfully blend truth and fiction, based on the experiences had by soldiers during the Vietnam War.

In vivid tales of bravery, loss, and cowardice, O'Brien is able to bring memories of Vietnam to the reader. Though it is a work of fiction, many of the stories are written with the author's intensely personal experiences in mind.

One thing that really struck me about "The Things They Carried," was the fact that the stories really weren't about war. On the contrary, the stories were about the men who fought a war that had little public support. These well-written vignettes are clearly a labor of love.

"The Things They Carried" intertwines the horrors of war with humor and a tenderness rarely seen in the genre. While this book could be interpreted as frightening or depressing, I read it as a testament to the human spirit, and the way it can live on through something as simple as a story.

I loved this book! I felt deeply connected with each and every character. And with a new war, the Iraq War, in the headlines each and every day (very much as Vietnam was a focal point for writers and readers in its day), this book is especially timely.

Everyone with an appreciation for life should read O'Brien's "The Things They Carried."

Rating:
Summary: GREAT BOOK: HARD TO PUT DOWN!!!
Review: This is a book for anyone that wants to read. It will satisfy all kinds of emotion from happy, to sad, to even anger. I feel that this book was well written. It is not all true, but Tim O'Brien makes it feel real. He uses great detail in his discriptions that makes you believe you are actually in Nam with the rest of the Platoon. I recomend this book for anyone that understand a good piece of work, and that will apriciate all the emotion in Tim's writing.

Rating:
Summary: Hard working writer makes for good book written creatively!
Review: The Things They Carried by TIM O'BRIEN Who is an excellent
Writer with many interesting vehicles to get his point no
feeling across to the reader. His messages are some times gory
and a bit crass though this is entertaining for me. There are
many flash back and forward points that may be hard to keep up
with if you can't afford to pay the attention the author
demands however the High School vocab makes for an easy ride
through the many partially connected stories throughout the
book.I wish I had the time to blab all day about the book my
recommendation is that you read it for your self.
-Dustin A. Torson

Rating:
Summary: Its all about the writting!
Review: The story of the book is great, but the way that its written is amazing! Never have I been so intrigued to see what the next chapter would hold. I was never bored, or rereading a page that I just read.
I was unfamiliar with the Vietnam war and the story made easy retain lots of information. This book really is about the things people carried, before during and after the was. How if effected them for the rest of there lives!
Fiction or not, I believe that some version of most of the events written about actually did happen. Tim's book is a wonderful example of a writting method that is wild and deep. A work of art.
Sincerlly,
Cat

Rating:
Summary: Required reading before the next war
Review: Once in a great while a book comes along and travels across this nation, across generations and cohorts, across political agendas and social divides, across fiction and truth. The result is a literary masterpiece, and this book is indeed such a journey. Tim O'Brien captures war in all its muddle and heartache. He takes the reader into the human soul with a strikingly lean and thought-provoking prose. He carries the reader into the density of hostility, its ambiguities and recklessness, its senselessness and heroism. Above all, he makes us wonder why we can be divine and tragic as a species. He makes us understand the fragility of our lives ... the fragility of our humanity. Alpha Company is our American neighborhood, just regular folks confronting insanity in its most logical form ... war, what's it for? ... absolutely nothing. Thank you Tim O'Brien. Your book should be required reading at the Pentagon and for all future leaders who would dare to take this country into preemptive war again.

Rating:
Summary: I now understand about the things they carried
Review: Tim O'Brien's book allowed me to truly understand that the moral truth is in the eyes of the storyteller when reciting a war tale, or war experience. The soldier can endure many of things, but to be timid on the battlefield is the biggest embarrassment, shame to a soldier, and that's what each soldier carried. So, always be aware of what is fact, fiction, or even enhanced when listening to the next war story that is told, which he phrased in his book. This was my first time reading his book. I can truly say that "The Things They Carried' is a excellent, detailed, and wonderful collection of short stories I've read today.

Great Job, Mr. O'Brien.

You have made me a fan of your writing.

Ted Johnson (DVC's English Student)