The Things They Carried

Rating:
Summary: Five stars just isn't enough
Review: For an assignment in an english class, we had to read the introduction to The Things They Carried. I was impressed, but not overly. The next day, our teacher brought in a video of Tim O'Brien, during a book tour in which he was supporting the book. In the video, he narrated the chapter, Lives of the Dead. I was moved, to say the least. Needless to say, I picked up the book, and was not able to put it down until I finished it. I am also a huge fan of works about Vietnam. I enjoyed Dispatches, Platoon was amazing, Full Metal Jacket hit me hard, but this book is a stratosphere above all the previously mentioned works. Writers with the skill and emotion that O'Brien displayed do not come around often enough.

Rating:
Summary: So Sad, Yet So Real
Review: In this novel, Tim O'Brien caught my interest almost immediately. The details given in the book were so vivd. O'Brien really gave me a sense of a taste of war eventhough I have never been through it before. I think I speak for the majority of people who have read the book when I say that one of the most horrifying scenes in the book was the Vietnamese soldier. Just to think if it was you; staring at someone of your age, a peer no less, and watch him die. In this review I am supposed to write strengths and weaknesses about the book, but in my opinion there were no weaknesses. Only O'Brien could put such an experience down on paper and make the reader really feel it. The emotion in it was so intense. I felt myself sort of tighten up when I read through the pages because it was such a horrible thing to go through and as a reader who has never gone to war, I felt as if I was really there. It's a shame that our soldiers had to experience that tragic event, but it is reality. I can't even really put into words my feelings on this book and I don't think many readers who have read the book can, but O'Brien did it for us.

Rating:
Summary: Amazing
Review: Deciding that neither a novel nor a short stories collection would be fully apt to speak of the oddities, moral netherworlds and mental erosion he witnessed during Vietnam, Tim O'Brien decided upon this, an innovative, non-linear collage of closely linked short fiction to reflect on he and his characters' experiences during, before and years after service in Vietnam. O'Brien is like a composer, using reflection exposition, pain and black humor as his notes and melodies. The Things They Carried vividly takes reader along the physical trudges of its characters, their ever-changing attitudes, their surreal unconsciouses and their fears, doubts and breaking points. Unlike many novels themed around war, The Things They Carried does not try to endlessly break readers' spirits, speaking in a continuously grave tone about death, gore, brutality and the human condition. Although often lucidly realistic, The Things They Carried also speaks calmly to readers' hearts and even makes them laugh. It is a truly exceptional, pioneering work that is worth every kind word it received.

Rating:
Summary: The Things They Carried
Review: This book is a book about the Vietnam War. The many stories in this book could have been from personal experience. Even if this book was a fiction book it felt like it was a little bit of both. I could feel what the soldiers felt in that book and this book showed me how a real battle field felt. I understood this book from the very descriptive ways the author put in his master piece.

Rating:
Summary: Wonderful
Review: An absolutely wonderful book. Many times it made me close the book and look up towards God with a half smile on my face and tears slowly running out of my eyes. Tim O'Brien rocked my world.

Rating:
Summary: deeply felt
Review: It is hard to express the immense emotional impact Obrien's "Things They Carried" really had on me. I am 32 have never fought in a war, have never really known too many who have fought in a war. I only have my notions of war, my imagination as to what it might have been like. Apart from what i've been fed from television or movies, war is some unreal distant notion to me.

At some point in the middle of Obrien's book i found myself sobbing uncontrollably. His story of what war is or isn't completely pulled me into some sense of something very real, something very horrible yet seemingly beautiful at the same time. I can't imagine the impact this had on one who was actually there.? It might be one of the most poetic pieces of story telling i have ever come across. You become a living breathing witness, almost a character in the simple magnificent web of his true-fiction. It hits the deepest of emotional truth, goes to a core that is unexplainable, a core that only the heart knows. Thank you Mr. Obrien.

Rating:
Summary: Writing at it's finest
Review: Tim O'Brien's, The Things They Carried, is a highly vivid description of the Vietnam War. This work of fiction gives the people who were not in Vietnam, a taste of what the war was really like. O'Brien masterfully describes the events that take place and many of the mental images have been branded into my brain forever. The string of tongues and the dead Vietnamese soldier are just two of these grotesque images. O'Brien also shows us how any war can change a human being forever. They way they think, act, and react after being in war for only a short amount of time is greatly affected. If you like war novels, then I know that you will like this one. Even if you don't, you will surly appreciate the style of writing and the way it makes you think. Amongst the death and destruction, there are moments that make you laugh out loud. The men play a very interesting game with a smoke grenade. Overall this is a great novel in many different aspects. I'm sure that you will not be able to put this one down.

Rating:
Summary: Not really a war novel, Still best book I've ever read
Review: This is The Best Book I have ever read. Not much more to say, other than don't let the fact that it's a war novel turn you away. I hated war novels before this book.

Rating:
Summary: Good but not the Greatest
Review: The novel The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien is a powerful and descriptive book about what men had to go through during Vietnam. Tim O'Brien discusses very descriptively through the whole book; he even uses all of chapter one to talk about what they carried. This helps to emphasize how much weight was on the soldiers during the war; however, he may have over done it when he used a whole chapter to describe what they were caring.
Throughout the book he tells many stories about what happened to different members of his group. He discusses how "he" killed someone, how many men died during the war, and how some were even driven insane, but after all the sadness and tears he tells you that none of it every happened. That he over emphasized the whole thing, and none of it was real. Like when he killed a man. He never really killed the man, but he just wanted to show what people went through when they did. This disappointed me because after all this he just says, "O and by the way it really didn't happen," (Not his exact words). The Things They Carried is less mostly just a collection of short stories put together, most of which he just made up.
Although the novel isn't real and never truly took place, it is true in the sense that many men had to go through the fact that they killed someone. Although O'Brien himself did not kill that man, many people killed many men. They all had to live with it. My own grandfather had to kill when he fought in the war, and to this day he still won't talk about it to me. He won't even mention it. Men all over the world suffered and died for a "conflict" that had no purpose, and now they live with what they had to go through. The Things They Carried is a book I would recommend to anyone who wants to learn about what really went on within the soldiers during Vietnam.

Rating:
Summary: The Things They Carried = Excellent Book
Review: Tim O'Brien's "The Things They Carried" was the best war fiction I have ever read. It combined the thoughts of some who were fighting and loving with suspensful stories. The stories were my favorite part, always keeping me on my feet. I liked the the way he would lead you on wanting to know what would happen next. Tim O'Brien was very creative with the way he told the stories though. I didn't like the way he would tell a story, stop and talk about what was going on, and then continue with the story. That was my only problem and if he changed it and told the whole story at once i would have read the book again. The ending was a very emotional writing for the author. I thought it was very sad that he went back on peoples lives like Rat and the girl that he claimed to be his first love. The way he told of the people made me feel like i knew them and i felt like i could have been in his place. Overall this was a very good book and i recommend everyone to at least try and read it.