The Things They Carried

Rating:
Summary: Not Bad, not bad at all.
Review: To tell you the truth, I am not a real big fan of reading books, but after reading Tim O'Brien's take on the Vietnam War I was hooked. First of all, this book was not an easy read. When I first looked at the book, I wasn't really interested, but once I started I could not stop. What I thought was interesting was how the author mixed fact with interesting details of real hardships of what had gone on during the war. A finalist for the 1990 Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award, The Things They Carried truly deserved it. When I read the chapter "Night Life", I found it very interesting to read how Kiley went into a nervous break down because of the effects of the War. This just shows how real war is and how detailed Tim O'Brien writes his books. Just reading this book gave me a peak into the lives and minds of what the soldiers of Alpha Company went through. Looking back, I would have to say that this was not one of the best books I have read, but I really did enjoy it and I am looking forward to reading another one of O'Brien's books sometime soon.

Rating:
Summary: It showed what war is like from the inside....
Review: O'Brien's book is a masterpiece in itself. Some may be confused as to whether it is a novel or a collection of short stories, but it is actually both. O'Brien shows you the more harsh side of war, but at the same time shows you the softer side. Many of his stories are about him when he was in Vietnam and how his group of buddies all cope with the war. He describes with great detail what each man carries and the relevance of this particular "thing". The great thing about this book though is not only the detail that O'Brien goes through to describe these things, but the reality of everything that happens in this book. Each story that he describes may not have happened to him, but they easily could have happened to someone in any war. One of the things that i like most about this book is that it gave me a sense of what it is like to be in a war, with your buddies being the only people that you can count on. They are the ones who you sleep with at night, who protect you during a battle, and who help time pass by entertaining you. It shows the true brotherhood that is formed from fighting a war together. This is something that few, aside from those who have fought in a war, can understand. O'Brien captured that and was able to put it into words so that us civilians can imagine what it must be like for those who serve our country. That is the true masterpiece of the book, and O'Brien desevres praise after praise for this accomplishment.

Rating:
Summary: Plain and simple: a good book
Review: Tim O'Brien's "The Things They Carried" accentuates the horrors of the Vietnam War by expressing the memories, either fact or fiction, of the people involved. Built of short stories, O'Brien blurs the line between fake and real give the reader the same sureal experiance the soldiers did. The constantly fluctuating narrative also give the book an appeal most war stories don't have.

Rating:
Summary: A Better Person
Review: "For the most part they carried themselves with poise, a kind of dignity. Now and then, however there were times of panic, when they squealed or wanted to squeal but couldn't."
This quote captures the directness of O'Brien's writing about the Vietnam War. Excerpts of men's lives I will never forget. After reading the novel several times I am still amazed at how thought provoking O'Brien's words are. The reader becomes so easily attached to the men of Alpha Company and their lives before, during, and after the war that the book envelopes them. Occasionally there is a laugh, which is merely a pause between tears. I wasn't alive at the time of the Vietnam War, however I feel as though I am a better person having shared the lives of these men through Tim O'Brien's words.

Rating:
Summary: Historic Vietman Fiction
Review: I don't believe it is a risky prediction to make: decades from now this will be a book used to help understand Vietnam. More than the thick, exhaustively researched non-fiction on the War, this book captures what happened to the human spirit. There are images and impressions in this novel that will stay with me for a life time. And this review comes five years after I read "The Things They Carried".

Rating:
Summary: The best book I have ever read.
Review: Usually, I don't like books I have to read for school, and usually I don't even read them. When I had to read this book, I couldn't put it down.
I have always been somewhat curious about Vietnam, and when I read this book everything seemed to hit home. O'Brien creates characters (you have to ask yourself if they are created or if they were real people he knew) and you can see the effect the war has on them in a series of interrelated stories. There are stories of horror, such as "The Sweetheart of the Song Trabong" and stories of inner courage such as "On the Rainy River."
The book displays such sadness. It is really a sad book. O'Brien is a madter storyteller. It's a fascinating book becuase it repeats itself in several of the stories, showing that the narrator has spent a lot of time thinking over what he did during the war.
It is a great book. It makes you think about a lot of things and I would reccomend it to anyone. It isn't a war story, it is a story about humanity and how it functions in the most dire of circumstances. You shouldn't miss this read.

Rating:
Summary: Beautiful
Review: He is a poet. His work will stay with me forever.

Rating:
Summary: Painfully Good
Review: Somehow O'brien found the words to capture an unspeakable tragedy.

Rating:
Summary: Don't be fooled
Review: With the Vietnam war a generation behind us, the horror and turmoil is confined to history classes and haunted faces on the streets--though it's legacy lives on. O'Brien's book reveals, in a series of vignettes, a detailed and enthralling account of life in the Vietnam war. It exposes a younger generation of readers to the terror of a war fought unlike any other, where maddness struck as often as bullets. But don't be fooled. While O'Brien fought in the war, he has woven fiction into fact, and for those who read it as autobiography, it is as deceitful as learning S. Morgenstern didn't write the Princess Bride. This is not an easy read, but for those willing to look the devestation of wartime in the face, it is a powerful story.

Rating:
Summary: "Faction"
Review: I didn't like GOING AFTER CACCIATO, the book for which O'Brien won the National Book Award. Thought it was a rip-off of CATCH-22. The next thing of his I read was an excerpt from THE THINGS THEY CARRIED. It has to be some of the best writing I've ever read. Martin Brady of BOOKLIST refers to O'Brien's style as "faction." O'Brien served as a foot soldier in Vietnam from 1969 to 1970.
O'Brien literally describes the things the grunt soldiers carry: can openers, pocket knives, candy, cigarettes, a toothbrush, extra underwear, comic books. Henry Dobbins, a big man, carries canned peaches. Dave Jensen carries dental floss and bars of soap. Kiowa, a devout Baptist, carries a Bible.
But you know the "things" in the title are about more than just things. O'Brien says, "They carried the soldier's greatest fear, which was the fear of blushing. Men killed, and died, because they were embarrassed not to."
Because the nights are cold, they also carry ponchos. Ted Lavender is afraid, the burden of fear adding to the twenty pounds of ammunition, his flak jacket, helmet, rations, water, toilet paper and tranquilizers he carries. When he's shot, they use his poncho to carry his dead body to the evacuation chopper.
Lieutenant Jimmy Cross carries letters from a coed named Martha. She's an English major; she writes about Chaucer and Virginia Woolf. They're not love letters; Cross dreams about making her love him when he gets back stateside.
O'Brien hooked me immediately when he wrote of Jimmy Cross and Martha. I remember USNTC Boot Camp, waiting for a letter from my girl. I could've been Jimmy Cross. I went in during the Cuban missile crisis and I was a teletype operator serving at Polaris Missile Facility in Charleston, South Carolina, when President Johnson decided to escalate the war. When I got the message asking for volunteers, I immediately ran out and volunteered. Thankfully, BUPERS saved me from my own stupidity.