The Things They Carried

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Summary: The Things They Carried
Review: Tim O'Brien is a very interesting author. When reading the book I was so curious as to what he was thinking while writing all these stories. He gives question to the if the story you are reading is real or if it had just been created from the depths of this very eccentric author's imagination. I felt question, mystery and sometimes even confusion. But, reading this was worth it and was very informative about the Vietnam war and even more about the lives of the soldiers and the emotional baggage of what they went through. I also learned a lot about the author. He becomes one of his characters, real or not, and describes his fears, wants, and needs to great detail. I would be very curious to learn more about him and read more of his works.

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Summary: The Things They Carried
Review: The Things They Carried is a collection of Vietnam war stories about a group of drafted young men. The book is a fictional account of these young men. None of the men ever existed, yet as Tim O'Brien tells the story, you come to realize that it doesn't matter if any on the men ever lived, or if any of the stories ever happened. Whether something is real or not doesn't matter, what does, is the morals, values, or anything that you can take away from the story. The men that O'Brien talks about seem real. At times in the book you can forget that they are fictional characters and feel for them. The account of the lives of these men that O'Brien gives, before and after the war, along with during the war, is amazing. I would say that the accounts of the lives of these men, even though fictional, probably is right on target with what happened to most Vietnam veterans during and after the war. This book is great, one of a handful I have enjoyed in English class. As a side note, as I started reading this book I also started taking a Vietnam class. This book helped me understand how bad that war was and what type of people fought in it. This is truly a great book.

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Summary: Moving and affecting
Review: This will be a short review. I am a twenty year-old college student who did not live through the Vietnam War, and I have no relatives who are Vietnam veterans. And this is still perhaps he most moving story I have ever read. These characters are realistic, but not quite real, since every war story is somewhat surreal. I believe that every reader will find a character they identify with, and find elements of themselves in every character, so that when a character dies you feel the loss yourself. This is an incredible story. The history student inside of me appreciated the way that the confusion of the then college-aged baby-boom generation and the chords of dissent were realistically handled.

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Summary: This is an excellent book
Review: The novel The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien was an excellent work of fiction about the Vietnam War. O'Brien does a magnificent job of taking a collection of stories and weaving them together to form a novel. Each story is intricately place to give the maximum effect. The characters are described and identified by what they carried, both physically and emotionally. He uses repetition and descriptive language to make the book come alive. You can almost feel like you are in Vietnam and you are experiencing everything that these soldiers went through. Sometimes you will even forget that this is a work of fiction because it seems so real. To further confuse you, he even names the main narrator Tim O'Brien, who is also a writer like him. This novel is a powerful story of how Vietnam affected people and how it changed their lives. I encourage everyone to read this book because it is truly a well-written, magnificently crafted book.

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Summary: A breathtaking account of the Vietnam War!
Review: The things they carried was awe inspiring. It took you in the places of the men. It made me feel there pain, smell their pig stinch, and feel their love. Tim Obrien takes you with him and his war buddies through passages of the Vietnam war. THe things they carried is truely the best war story I have ever read, I recommend it to anyone loving a good war story. You should definately check it out. VERY GOOOD!

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Summary: The Things They Carried
Review: The book "The Things They Carried" is a first-hand account of the Vietnam War. The author, Tim O'Brien, was a soldier in the Vietnam War. This allows him to tell some of his true stories of combat, in the novel. If you have never read a novel about war, as I had, this book will be a shocking introduction to the Vietnam War genre. I would highly recommend this book to anyone who is interested in non-fictional pieces of writing. Although the book is not wholly non-fictional, it still has some stories that are true, and noted as such. The way he explains the relationships between the people in his platoon then, and now, is the most interesting part of the book, in my opinion. I hope this gives you reason enough to read the book, I am glad I did.

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Summary: Stories From Vietnam
Review: Tim O'Brien's novel, The Things They Carried, was one of the strongest books I have ever read. O'Brien brings you back with him to the humid jungles of Vietnam as he, and his fellow soldiers search for themselves while fighting for their lives. This novel gave me a real understanding of what the soldiers faced in this war without a cause. It gives each reader an idea of the huge amount of emotion stress each soldier carries which only gets worse with each passing day. The soldiers fighting not only leave behind their friends who were killed, but they also leave behind a part of themselves. O'Brien uses the concept that stories will keep anything alive, and I think he demonstrates this in the writing of this book. Overall I truly enjoyed this book and would strongly recommend it.

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Summary: The Things They Carried
Review: The Things They Carried, by Tim O'Brien, is yet another magnificent work by the thrilling author. The novel focuses on the "Truths" of the Vietnam war, even though the author openly confesses that many of the "Truths" that the young protagonist of the novel,Tim, faces never really exsisted. A mixture of memoir, novel, and short story formats in one; Tim O'Brien's, The Things They Carried, deserves five stars.

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Summary: The True Feeling
Review: This is a wonderfully novel, it is controlled and wild, from a personal aspect. After reading this you really feel like you have a good grip on what it was really like to be in the Vietnam War. Tim O'Brien does a excellent job letting you know what it was really like in the situations. You get to know the charaters personally, how they felt, and what their role was. He discribes the scenes so good, expesially the mud feild. This book lets the readers know the emotional aspects of the War, along with the violence. I like how this book also feels like a confession of all of the soldiers, they are letting people know things they never told. I suggest this book to anyone, you don't even have to be a big war fan, because that I am not, but anyone who is interested in the craft of writing. You can just tell it is written through personal experience, by the way he jumps around, it is tough and awesome!

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Summary: The Things They Carried is an excellent book.
Review: The things they carried is the best war book I have ever read. I am actually reading it for the second time. Though the first I didn't read it all the way through, I am really enjoying it now. They book goes into great detail of the life of severel of O'brien's war buddies. I really suggest you read this book, and recomend it to everyone you see. It is so awesome.