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Loading... The Things They Carried (Flamingo)by Tim O'Brien
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will love Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. A strange little book. Deeply moving, deeply powerful, deeply true. But not for the faint of heart. (  ) KMWeiland | Dec 8, 2009 |  I first discovered Tim O'Brien by his being mentioned in reviews and commentaries. I searched out some of his books at the library and for about 8 or 10 months, I read a bunch of books by Tim O'Brien, T. C. Boyle and Peter Straub. I know each one is different but I conveniently put them together in a group so that I could imagine I could find out what it's like to live in the United States from the 1970s onward. I live in Canada and have relatives and friends in the U.S.A., but have only visited there 6 times. Because the reports of this country in every day's news reports are through a journalistic medium, I need something with a different kind of depth to really find out about the society. These three authors are ideal for this purpose. After reading this book, I got out an audio-book from my local library of Daniel Ellsberg reading his Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers. I will continue to read as much as possible about this fascinating period of American history. I would like to respond to the topic mentioned in other reviews about strictly factual reporting in this work, versus made-up stories. My own philosophical bent in this regard is I don't care which one it is for my purposes. Everyday life is awash in the effects and experiences of the imaginative mind, and all the things that are really true are just as valid as all the things that could be true, might be true, or should be true. The people that have a duty to sort out the factual from the imaginative are judges, lawyers, legislators, and some religious leaders. I don't envy their task. But as a reader of imaginative literature, the good part is it doesn't matter, or rather, it does matter, just not in the way it does for those other people I just mentioned. libraryhermit | Dec 3, 2009 | "The Things They Carried," by Tim O'Brien, seemingly portrays the gruesome, horrifying details about war. However, O'Brien admits to the readers that he made up at least half of his stories. This makes an interesting task for the reader to try to determine which stories are "real," and which ones he just makes up. The diction O'Brien uses in many stories truly depicts the harsh and brutal realities of the Vietnam war that are unknown to many. billsrage55 | Nov 12, 2009 | The Things They Carried is a complex novel that includes personal accounts that soldiers face during war. O'Brien really gives the reader a clear idea of what it is like to go to war, both during and afterwards. He compiles a variety of stories that leave the reader depressed, shocked, and moved all at the same time. He gives people an idea of what it is like to live knowing that any second could be your last. He does an amazing job of illustrating the emotions and thoughts that go through a soldier's mind. O'Brien openly admits that many of his stories were stretches far from the truth, however I feel that it is necessary to convey what soldiers go through during war. In the end no matter how well the story is told, no one can fully understand what it is like to experience war with living through it. I feel that even if a person is not interested in war or history, they can really get something out of this book. Many people take for granted the fact that we constantly have men and women fighting to protect our country. It is important for people of all ages to learn about what really occurs during war, both the good, and the bad. (  ) dkaul | Nov 12, 2009 | The Things They Carried is an intriguing war novel about the triumphs and horrors of the Vietnam War. The purpose of the novel is to inform the reader about what exactly it is like to be a soldier during wartime, and how the soldiers handle themselves during certain situations. Vietnam War veteran Tim O’Brien could not have been a better or more qualified author. O’Brien uses his own experiences to make the book very real. His fictional accounts of comrades, battles, death, and the lives of friends after the war do a marvelous job of encompassing the full war venture. O’Brien wants everyone to know what it is like to serve your country in battle. He wants the world to know how hard it is, beginning the day you receive your draft letter, and ending, most likely never. War is something that always stays with you, no matter how long it has been since your return. The images, the death, the destruction, and just the sheer brutality of it all. We learn that many, such as Norman Bowker, simply can't handle it. But at the same time, O’Brien wants us to know that war is like a drug. Some people get caught up in it and lose all sense of clarity. Old rules are no longer in effect and old truths are no longer true. In war you lose your sense of the definite. War is hell, but also so many other things such as mystery, terror, adventure, courage, discovery, holiness, love, and hate. I think that O’Brien wants the reader to realize that although war is awful, there is so much more that goes into it than what meets the eye. A fantastic read. Yes, I read it as part of my AP English summer assignment and went into it dreading the fact that I had committed to such a class. I am so glad I got a chance to read such a story. This is the kind of book that I would read for pleasure (if I had the time). Some of its content is rather explicit, so I would recommend it to older teens, especially those interested in war/history. rbiedry | Nov 6, 2009 |  no reviews | add a review
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A finalist for both the 1990 Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award, The Things They Carried marks a subtle but definitive line of demarcation between Tim O'Brien's earlier works about Vietnam, the memoir If I Die in a Combat Zone and the fictional Going After Cacciato, and this sly, almost hallucinatory book that is neither memoir nor novel nor collection of short stories but rather an artful combination of all three. Vietnam is still O'Brien's theme, but in this book he seems less interested in the war itself than in the myriad different perspectives from which he depicts it. Whereas Going After Cacciato played with reality, The Things They Carried plays with truth. The narrator of most of these stories is "Tim"; yet O'Brien freely admits that many of the events he chronicles in this collection never really happened. He never killed a man as "Tim" does in "The Man I Killed," and unlike Tim in "Ambush," he has no daughter named Kathleen. But just because a thing never happened doesn't make it any less true. In "On the Rainy River," the character Tim O'Brien responds to his draft notice by driving north, to the Canadian border where he spends six days in a deserted lodge in the company of an old man named Elroy while he wrestles with the choice between dodging the draft or going to war. The real Tim O'Brien never drove north, never found himself in a fishing boat 20 yards off the Canadian shore with a decision to make. The real Tim O'Brien quietly boarded the bus to Sioux Falls and was inducted into the United States Army. But the truth of "On the Rainy River" lies not in facts but in the genuineness of the experience it depicts: both Tims went to a war they didn't believe in; both considered themselves cowards for doing so. Every story in The Things They Carried speaks another truth that Tim O'Brien learned in Vietnam; it is this blurred line between truth and reality, fact and fiction, that makes his book unforgettable. --Alix Wilber
(retrieved from Amazon Fri, 24 Apr 2009 07:57:52 -0400)
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