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Summary: Vietnam as more than body counts and propaganda
Review: O'Brian's writing brings Vietnam into your living room with this book, and the feel of war's more mental wounds will be slow to leave when you finish.Less concern is given to physical pain in this book. There is death, sickness, lice, and fungus, true; but they are merely the physical setting of a mentality either to be escaped piece by piece for years to come, or to swallow you up, suck you in, and bury you in the slop field next to the Song Tra Bong. This is the story of a few men's lives during the Vietnam war and how they lived with it when they came home. In the shady, quick way that one memory moves to another, O'Brain moves through Vietnam, from being drafted to life in the jungle to reconciling himself with a country he watched desecrated and nearly destroyed. Through this book, we feel what he felt, and Vietnam becomes something we can comprehend instead of vast body counts and faceless enemies. O'Brian asks if the absolute truth of one man remains absolute forever, and he says no. The Things They Carried is a beutiful tapestry of O'Brian's experience and imagination so well woven that only he himself could find the seams.
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Summary: Achingly Beautful
Review: I was a child who grew up watching the Viet Nam war on television. I was too young to protest, or even begin to understand. Because of the bad press the unpopular war got, I shyed away from ever digging too deeply. When this book was presented to me in a book discussion group, my first inclination was not to read it. Why get involved now? I wept over this book for many reasons, and ultimately, unexpectedly was uplifted by it. The characters are so beautifully realized. I love the way Mr. O'Brien puts words together. I found it funny, heartbreaking, horrifying and spiritual. I was completely transported to fields of awsome and terrible beauty as well as dark netheregions of young soldiers minds. This book was an enriching shattering experience, and although I will never know what it was completely like, thanks to this book I got a taste. I can honestly say that this book enriched me in ways I never would have guessed. It is a must-read for anyone who cares about literature and the human condition. It is eloquently written and a joy to read.
Rating: 
Summary: Questionable, but well-written (somewhat)
Review: To the point, I was greatly disappointed by this book. While I defend O'Brien's right to his use of language, etc. - this is directed ot all you teachers reading this review - I seriously question the merit of it as required reading for ANY grade level due to it's serious deficit of moral quality and common literary decency. And, yes, I realize that with a war story, that's how it will be, but requiring a person to expose their mind to such appalling works of literature (at least in it's decency) is socially criminal, at best. Putting my serious disagreements and disappointments aside though, I think that the book was well-written, considering. If it had only exposed the themes it ment to expose in a more suitable way, I may have liked it much more.
Rating:
Summary: A Vietnam Essential
Review: A friend of mine recently mentioned that "The Things They Carried" was her all-time favorite book. So, the next time I was in the bookstore I went looking for it. I must admit that I was a bit surprised when I realized that it was a book of stories about the Vietnam War. I bought the book, read it in two days, and thanked my friend for telling me about this woderful book. "The Things They Carried" is a collection of stories following the lives of a group of soliders in the Vietnam War. The same characters appear in many of the stories and you really get a sense of who these men are: Their strengths, their weaknesses, and they ways in which the War has changed them forever. This book really painted a picture for me of what the Vietnam War was like. I felt as if I was marching down the trails with these men. Tim O'Brien lets you into their hearts and into their minds. You feel their fears and understand their pain. The two most memorable stories/chapters for me were "Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong" in which a medic brings his girlfriend over to Vietnam only to have her become more engrossed in the war/Vietnam than he ever was, and "Speaking of Courage" where a man struggles to re-enter American society after returning from the War. This book is an essential read for anybody interested in the Vietnam War, as well as a recommended book for anybody looking for a well-written, engrossing work of art.
Rating:
Summary: Fear, Hate, Pain, Love
Review: O'Brien does an amazing job of pulling you into this book. I found myself angry, disgusted, and hateful at times. Much of those emotions can be directed towards O'Brien. By the end of the book I understood that was the idea. O'Brien will make you feel everything that he felt during Vietnam and you will never forget reading this book. Put this on your must read list!!
Rating:
Summary: Deep, emotional book
Review: Unlike most war novels, there are very few of the bang-bang scenes where all the characters either died heroically or did some amazing act of courage. These are "real" characters; they act as a real person would in their situations. These are stories written by a true Vietnam veteran, who had seen things many of us will (hopefully) never see. This book let us into some of these insights. It has an interesting way of keeping a reader's attention without action, just deep, emotional thoughts that will touch the reader.
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Summary: Postwar book for veterans and all the other people
Review: "The Things They Carried" was recommended to me from an American journalist who has experience working in postwar regions, and with whom recently I worked in Kosovo. And the book is amazing. It really describes the fellings of the people who participated in a war that should not happened. Being myself from a region that has just steped out from a war (Kosovo) it helps me to think strait about the whole things that follows the war. I can understad perfectly now my friends that were fighting in the frontline and their condicion in the peace time. To be short: A great book, a marvellous writer. The book that I will recommend to everyone from the postwar regions and all the people who love reading beautiful pieces of literature.
Rating:
Summary: Postwar book for veterans and all the other people
Review: "The Things Thay Carried" was recommended to me from an American journalist who has experience working in postwr regions, and with whom recently I worked in Kosovo. And the book is amazing. It really describes the fellings of the people who participated in a war that should not happened. Being myself from a region that has just steped out from a war (Kosovo) it helps me to think strait about the whole things that follows the war. I can understad perfectly now my friends that were fighting in the frontline and their condicion in the peace time. To be short: A great book, a marvellous writer. The book that I will recommend to everyone from the postwar regions and all the people who love reading beautiful pieces of literature.
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Summary: this book will give you goosebumps
Review: That's all I have to say. Thinking about this book rips my soul out and gives me chills.
Rating:
Summary: The is the Real Thing
Review: This book is priceless. I waited three years to find the time to properly read this book. The wait was worth it. I'm 24. I missed Vietnam. All my life I've had a strange fascination with the conflict in Vietnam. I look back on my parents' generation and struggle to figure out exactly what moved them so tremendously to oppose this conflict. What was going on over there? Why were we there? Who was there? What was it really that was so horrific? Why did so many soldiers come back emotionally crippled? Tim O'Brien has answered many of my questions. War, particularly the "war" in Vietnam, strips a man down to his basic instincts. In this collection of remembrences, O'Brien not only examines what became of men's ideals, beliefs, and reasons for action, but also makes sense of why. He doesn't explain this flat out, rather, he allows the reader to discover how boys become men of war. As the reader follows a soldiers story she can understand how his mindset came to be by the decisions he makes. O'Brien's style is to show, not tell. Through these anecdotes, the reader can see what happens to boys in a war in a jungle that turns them into animals. It is almost a real life "Lord of the Flies" or "Heart of Darkness". The most traumatic part of all this is that once they have become a new breed of human by surviving on their terms, they return and must be readmitted to society on its terms. The actual subject matter aside, O'Brien raises the level of this work by treating it also as an exercise in exquisite writing. Based on his storytelling abilities alone, this book could serve as a model in creative writing. While at first, there may seem to be a random relation of the stories in their order, but the emotion of each story, along with the differing tone and style, is part of a larger mood that O'Brien is setting. As the stories shift from reflective to frustrated to eerie calm to tortured, the reader can better feel the impact of this collection. I can't speak for anyone but myself, but if you want to have a keyhole through which you can peer to get a glimpse of a soldier in Vietnam, this is it.
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