The Things They Carried

Rating:
Summary: A Beautiful Piece of Literature
Review: I like Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried even though his story is fictional and a collection of war stories. O' Brien puts much of his own emotion into the story. Some of his stories are funny, others are depressing, and some are even horrifying. He uses one of his stories to describe the loss of innocence and uses another story to explains that some Vietnam veterans did not know the purpose of their lives after the war.
O'Brien's book is different from most others because it lacks a plot and chronological order. O'Brien's book is effective because he knows how to captivate his readers. Most of his short stories force the reader to feel O' Brien's emotions and suffering. The author's book is his way of releasing his feelings of the Vietnam War. The Things They Carried is a beautiful piece of literature because Tim O'Brien wrote the book with all of his heart.

Rating:
Summary: A must read book
Review: Tim O'Brien's novel, The Things They Carried, is a book which lets the reader learn more about Vietnam. It is a story about the stories of one man's visit to Vietnam. The narrator who is the author proves how story telling can help understand situations and can also help get over situations. O'Brien intended writing this book for anyone who enjoys war stories or wants to learn more about the war in Vietnam. He is writting this book to give people an understanding of Vietnam and show people how powerful story telling can be. I enjoyed this novel because I was compelled through the whole story and beacause there is more to the story than just war.

The novel takes place in Veitnam during the war. Vietnam is in South East Asia and its climate hot. A lot of the land is covered with rainforests and that is where some of the fighting occurs. There is also a lot of rain. Tim tells the reader about the setting of the book. He also is a gifted storyteller. He believes that the story can be more important than the truth. If you read the book he will prove this point.

The Things They Carried is really a collection of short stories. Some of the stories go with the next chapter but most stories are summed up in one chapter. The stories touch upon the awful side of war and the lives of the men the with the narrator in war. There was one story I especially liked. It was about the narrator killing a Vietnamese man. The narrator shares with the reader the thoughts of a person in war. He says how dificult it was for him to kill the man. In this quote, Kiowa is trying to console Tim; "Tim, it's a war. The guy wasn't Heidi - he had a weapon. It's a tough thing, for sure, but you got to stop dwelling over it(126,O'Brien)." This quote shows how his friends wanted Tim to stop thinging about killing a man and to get over it to live the rest of his life. Tim had a very hard time with it. This is just one of the fascinating stories in the novel.

The Things They Carried was a very intersesting and riveting novel. I was fascinated by the way the author broke the book up into separate stories. It kept me interested, unlike most stories that have parts that are boring. In the last two chapters O'Brien ties everything together to separate the book from the typical war novel. If you like good literature you will like this book becuase Tim O'Brien is a great story teller. Do not let the title deceive you. There is more to this book than just the weapons and other things soldiers must carry. Tim accomplishes his purpose of writing his book. If you are wanting to read a good book, I highly recommend The Things They Carried.

Rating:
Summary: A Highly Recommended Book
Review: The Things They Carried was a thought-provoking and inspirational book. I originally stumbled across this book as a summer reading assignment for a high school English class, but soon after starting the book I became hooked. The book has been called both a novel and a collection of short stories. I believe it is the latter; however, all the stories are interwoven in such a fashion that they all blend together forming a single story line. The thing I liked most about this book was that it keeps you guessing what is fiction and what might be true. This happens mostly because the name of the main character is Tim O'Brien which is also the name of the author of the book. The book provides a first-hand look into the Vietnam War, and consequently I would recommend it to anyone who would like to read a great book.

Rating:
Summary: Review of "The Things They Carried"
Review: Almost all the characters, scenery, and stories of "The Things They Carried" are located in the Vietnam War. But the book is not about Vietnam and not about the war at all. So what's the book about? It is not a novel or collection of short stories but rather stories of Tim O'Brien's life, pre-war, during the war, and postwar, relating to the experiences of brotherhood in the Vietnam war composed in a novel. This book has many weak points, but makes up for it with many strong points. There are times in the book when O'Brien seems to be just rambling about nothing important, for example how heavy a hand grenade and land mine detectors are, but later in the book those facts have an importance on how the outcome of a situation occurs. Overall I thought this book was resourceful on the Vietnam war but definitely not enjoyable. I recommend this book to those interested in the effects of the Vietnam on the soldiers. On a scale from one to ten, its about a six.

Rating:
Summary: I didn't enjoy this book however i have some good info.
Review: I did not like THE THINGS THEY CARRIED. I thought that it was just a bunch of war stories carefully pieced together. Although I did think that Tim O'Brien did a good job of showing what it was like to be a soldier in Vietnam. You learn many things about war and why people have flashbacks about events that happened in Vietnam. I was mostly bored through out the whole book. However O'Brien did keep my attention in his stories of how he and his platoon passed the hours with practical jokes, stories and of home. The things that bored me were when he kept going on about the things that they literally carried. He described things like can openers, pocket knives, candy, cigarettes, a toothbrush, extra underwear, comic books, and all the weapons that the differently trained soldiers carried for different missions. After so much of this, you just want to call it quiets. One of the last things that I did like about the book was the fact that he told it through a soldier's point of view. Over all I did not like this book but thought that it was well written and thought that O'Brien was a very good poet. I will forever remember this book.

Rating:
Summary: A great war story
Review: The Things They Carried is a great depiction of Vietnam through the eyes of Tim O'Brien. Through his first hand experience he is able to tell about the war through fictional stories that in some instances describe what he went through more than the actual truth. For example, when Tim describes the experience of his first kill. In reality he didn't actualy kill the person but in his mind he did. For this reason he comes up with this story as a way to describe as best he could what he went through. Another example of when he creates a fictional story is when he describes his trip up north to Canada after he had tried to escape the draft. In actuality he joined the war but in his book he describes a six day trip up north in which he decides whether to go to war or not. This to me seems like something that he wished he had the courage to do but in reality he felt he was just meant to go. Most of his stories in fact describe an event or story in which through his eyes and in his mind seemed to happen or he had wanted to happen but in actuality it didn't. In conclusion I feel that "The Things They Carried" is a great book that gives a small glimpse into what these men might have gone through while in the war.

Rating:
Summary: A great war story
Review: The things they carried is a great depiction of Vietnam through the eyes of Tim O'Bian. Through his first hand experience he is able to tell about the war through fictional stories that in some instances describe what he went through more than the actual truth. For example, when Tim describes the experience of his first kill. In reality he didn't actualy kill the person but in his mind he did. For this reason he comes up with this story as a way to describe as best he could what he went through. Another example of when he creates a fictional story is when he describes his trip up north to Canada after he had tried to escape the draft. In actuality he joined the war but in his book he describes a six day trip up north in which he decides whether to go to war or not. This to me seems like something that he wished he had the courage to do but in reality he felt he was just meant to go. Most of his stories in fact describe an event or story in which through his eyes and in his mind seemed to happen or he had wanted to happen but in actuality it didn't. In conclusion I feel that "The Things They Carried" is a great book that gives a small glimps into what these men might have gone through while in the war.

Rating:
Summary: The Things They Carried: A Work of Fiction By Tim O'Brien
Review: The Things They Carried was a wonderful book depicting the fictional lives of Alpha Company during the Vietnam War. The book offered O'Brien's views in the form of a collection of stories that takes place in the U.S. during the war, in Vietnam, and in postwar U.S. Tim O'Brien's view of the war was unique because he had actually been there. Through creating fictional stories from his own true-life experience, a unique writing style was created.

The Characters in The Things They Carried contained a mixture of personalities and characteristics. To me the characters contained a level of insecurity and unpredictable violence. One example of these evident unpredictable behaviors was when Rat Kiley strapped a C4 explosive to a dog and blew it up. This random and violent behavior was evident in almost every character and added to the build up and release of conflict in the book.

One chapter in The Things They Carried stood out among the rest. In chapter 17, In The Field, the idea of war and its consequences was identified. The squad questions whose fault it was when Kiowa was hit and killed in a rice paddy. This chapter truly questioned my ideas and reasoning behind the fault of war and who should be responsible for death. Through my reading of this chapter, and the book, I gained a feeling that war and killing is not just a single person's fault, but rather the fault of all those who participate in combat against a so called foe.

Tim O'Brien's use of combining fiction with reality offered a new way of explaining what actually happened in Vietnam. I felt that his technique was unique, but at times was a little to strait forward. O'Brien would actually point out that he was making his own stories up as he went along. His act of telling us the truth about the reality of his story took too much out of the plot and denied a sound ending to the book. Overall, the book was entertaining and offered good insight to what Vietnam was like to Tim O'Brien.

Rating:
Summary: Very Good Book
Review: If I did not have to read this book for summer reading, I probably would never have found out that this book even existed. When I first picked up the book, I read the back page to see what it was about. Then I started to read the first chapter, and could not put the book down. It only took me about a week to complete the book. For me to do something like that is un-heard of, because I hate reading books. Except this one. The Things They Carried was an excellent book, and every time I picked it up, I could hardly put it down. Tim O'Brien did a superb job in putting together the stories from Vietnam into one great book. I felt as if I had experienced all the stories after reading them.

Rating:
Summary: Read this book
Review: This book was well deserving of the 1990 Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award. This book was hard to put down after I started to read it. When reading this book you feel as if you are in Vietnam with the rest of the platoon. The stories the Tim O'Brien has to tell are captivating and bring you closer to the characters. The reason why I only gave this book a 4 instead of a 5, is because sometimes the stories in this book confused me. They often refer to the same story in different point of views which took away form the momentium of the book. Overall I enjoyed this book and would highly recommend it.