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Summary: searing, profound and devastating stories of Vietnam War
Review: In what must be considered an autobiographical anthem of his generation, Tim O'Brien's masterful anthology of short stories and thoughtful essays about the war in Vietnam and that war's devastating impact on the sensibilities and consciences of the soldiers who fought is profound, distrubing and extraordinarily illuminating. "The Things They Carried" drives to the core of that horrifying, frustrating war. The work also stands as a vehicle by which the author describes how and why he writes stories about the war, what those stories can do -- both for the reader and the writer, and how stores can shed light on darkness and open imagination to topics the mind would rather not consider. As O'Brien states, "I want you to feel what I felt. I want you to know why story-truth is truer sometimes than hnappening-truth."Each story, deftly anthologized, reveals a distressing, startling or repugnant aspect of the Vietnam War. O'Brien recounts the spiritual degradation and moral abyss soldiers encountered. The perceived pointlessness of the war stands counterbalanced by the exquisitely-detailed descriptions of the Vietnamese landscape. The theatre of war is a literal quagmire, swallowing not only literal life, but symbolic life as well. Honorable men meet invisible enemies, and the resulting doubt, confusion and terror liberate the most dismal aspects of their personalities. Death surrounds the soldiers, and their perversion of language enables them to survive. Absent a clear moral imperative for fighting and an obvious enemy to conquer and political goals to realize, O'Brien and his platoon members are left to struggle for the only goal which is important: survival. Yet the costs of survival are enormous. "By slighting death, by acting, we pretended it was not the terrible thing it was. By our language, which was both hard and wistful, we transformed bodies into piles of waste." Thus, an innocent nurse became a "crispy critter;" a baby was a "roasted peanut." This coarsening of soldiers is one of the necessary concomitants of permitting civil human beings to engage in horrific actions. But the Vietnam War did not provide American soldiers which the desperately needed moral imperatives, the certainties of purpose and nobility of sacrifice, which could allow the soldier to shed that coarsening upon return to society. O'Brien's heartbreaking description of the death and recovery of his admired friend Kiowa drives directly to the issue of futility and despair. Mortally wounded, Kiowa literally sinks into an excrement-filled field and the platoon becomes encrusted with the stink as they extricate him from the morass. Suffused with guilt, O'Brien successfully brings the reader into this eerily-stretched world. As soldiers watched their comrades die or lapse into insanity or narcotize themselves on a daily basis or brutalize innocent civilians or maim themselves to escape further exposure, they watched their own lives crumble away. "The Things They Carried" will stand as a conscience-stricken author's tribute to his comrades, an indictment of the spiritual bankruptcy of that war and a hallmark of how short stories can educate and inspire.
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Summary: Not Just Another non-Fictional Novel
Review: The Things They Carried, is no ordinary non-fictional novel. This book classifies the true meaning of war. O' Brien uses excellent imagery, making the reader feel like their really there. The reader will be overwhelmed by this book just how I was. In this novel you experience a war story that has never been created through the author's as well as the reader's eyes. Tim O' Brien was also in the war, he uses a lot of his close relations and experiences in the novel through symbolic people, events,etc. This is an over all thrill and historical novel. I highly suggest it to all those readers who like a little but of everything(love, war, death, suspense, insanity, etc.). I think I have explained myself well enough to make it known that I enjoyed this book and have become interested in the novel's made by Tim O' Brien.
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Summary: A superb book
Review: I recently re-read 'The Things They Carried' to see if it would have the same impact on me as it did the first time, and if anything my feelings about this book have grown stronger. Before I read this book I knew nothing about Vietnam or the circumstances surrounding it. Now, after a lot of reading about the war it is clear to me that Tim O Brien perfectly captured both the majesty and horror of the war and its profound effect on those who were caught up in it. What I particularily like about this book is how honest it is. The reader is with O Brien in the paddies and jungles and firefights. You are with him when he's sad or happy or scared. You ride on his emotions, and it's as though you're reading the memoirs of an old friend. Tim O Brien writes superbly and evokes an amazing sense that although war is hell the evisceral beauty of a naive generation caught in its web will always shine through. To everyone in the United States, I would like to wish you all a prosperous new year and hope that the strength of your great country will continue to be a fine example to the rest of the world
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Summary: Gotta Give Props
Review: Many weeks ago, my class had to read this book for school. At first, I didnt think much of it because I thought it would like all war stories just telling boring facts about the war with barely any detail. But not this book. If this book has plenty of anything it has to be detail. Description. The events are torn to the bone in this book. For example,I dont have the book right now but there is a section in the book titled "The Man I Killed" in which contains descriptions of the man. For example " He had a star-shaped hole for an eye",or something like that. Also it adds the man who killed him, Kiowa, being silent. Not speaking a word. He had thrown a grenade at him. Blew him up, ended up with a "star-shaped hole" for an eye. And thats not even the begining of the incredible establishment of description published in the book by this man. Truly, Tim O' Brien is an awesome writer. At first, I couldve sworn this book was non-fiction because it seemed so real. But when I found out it was labeled Fiction, I had to admit I wasnt as inspired as I was before I found out.
Anyways, this book amazed not only me but as far as I know, over 3/4 of all people who read this book. In all my years of readin books, this has to be the best and by a long shot.
Props go to Tim O'Brien
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Summary: The way James feels
Review: I loved this book. It is the second time reading it for me. I really enjoyed how realistic TIm O Brien mande this story seem for me. It is most likely one of the only books that have cought my intrest enough for me to read the entire book cover to cover with out skiping any chapters. I would like to find more books by Tim O Brien and about Vietnam and I also think that The men in the story and in Vietnam were all truly heroic for the simple fact of going. If I am ever drafted for a war I going to go live in canada.
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Summary: A Junior Class assigment
Review: When I was first instructed I had to read "Things they Carried" for an Junior enligh class, I was not happy with it, The book seemed dull and unatractive. After reading the first chapter I was bored by details, but after going deeper into the book I throughly enjoyed it. The book itself was very enjoyable, easy to read and kept my attention. I would recommend it for any person wanting to read any information about the war and the people involved with it.
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Summary: The Things They Carried
Review: This book was pretty good. I normally do not enjoy reading many books but I could not put this one down. It was unlike any other book I have read and I liked it mostly because of the way it is set up. It is more like a log of what happened in the Vietnam War. All the stories, and sometimes lies they talked about. I would recommend this book to anyone looking for a wartime story
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Summary: A stunning representation of Viet Nam
Review: As a person too young to have been shipped off to Vietnam, this book gave me something that other war books, i have read, did not. It gave me the ability to peer into the hell that the author went through, even though the stories are fiction. The stories were however based on what really happened. O'Brien gives us something to take back with us after reading the book.
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Summary: Awesome book.
Review: Movies can only do so much. It takes a book to grab people by the neck and slam them into an unfamiliar and unforgiving world where the imagination can run freely. This is the case with the Vietnam War and with the book The Things They Carried, by Tim O'Brien. The Things They Carried is divided into several anecdotes about various facets of the war. These smaller stories are sometimes erratic, sometimes fictional, but always fascinating and poignant. Not only did The Things They Carried brilliantly depict graphic physical accounts of the war, such as scenery, weapons, and battle, the book also detailed the psychological aspects of the war. For instance, "On the Rainy River" described a confused young man's mindset towards the draft, ranging from fear of battle to coping with responsibility. "In the Field" explained the terrible guilt that overwhelmed a soldier, because he felt that he let a fellow soldier die. "Speaking of Courage" portrayed the desolation and hopelessness of a soldier who has returned from the war. Without a doubt, I was intrigued and stunned. Each of these intensely personal stories allowed readers like me, who weren't even alive during the Vietnam War, to explore the true feelings of soldiers and actually understand the experiences surrounding the war. From studying the war alone, one can only learn about the cold, hard facts. However, with The Things They Carried, I could begin to appreciate the soldiers' heroic deeds and comprehend the physical and mental pain that they carried for the rest of their lives.
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Summary: ". . . stories can save us"
Review: Tim O'Brien's "The Things They Carried" is a book that transcends the genre of war fiction. Actually, it transcends the genre of fiction in general. Although labeled "a work of fiction" on the title page, the book really combines aspects of memoir, novel, and short story collection. I think you could use Audre Lorde's term "biomythography" to describe this book. The first-person narrator of this book (named, like the author, Tim O'Brien) is a writer and combat veteran of the Vietnam War. The book actually deals with events before and after the war, in addition to depicting the war itself; the time span covers more than 30 years in the lives of O'Brien and his fellow soldiers. "The Things They Carried" is an intensely "writerly" text. By that I mean that O'Brien and his characters often reflect directly on the activities of storytelling and writing. As a reader, I got the sense that I was being invited into the very process by which the book was created. This is an extraordinary technique, and O'Brien pulls it off brilliantly. This being a war story, there are some truly disturbing, graphic, and violent scenes. But there are also scenes that are haunting, funny, surreal, or ironic. O'Brien depicts a memorable group of soldiers: the guilt-wracked Lieut. Cross; Kiowa, a Native American and devout, Bible-carrying Baptist; the sadistic but playful Azar; and more. While this book is a complete and cohesive work of art, many of its component stories could stand alone as independent pieces of literature (in fact, I first encountered the title story in an anthology). But however you classify it, I consider "The Things They Carried" to be a profoundly moving masterpiece.
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