The Things They Carried

The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I'm not sure where I found out about this book so it took me by surprise. I've read a lot of war stories, but nothing about Vietnam before. This was an interesting perspective to a piece of history that I know very little about. This is a collection of short stories about the author's time in 'Nam. Some it becomes repetitive, but in a way that adds to the darkness of the subject. Some things you can't let go, they continuously loop through your head and you keep living it over and over. There were especially touching moments when he talked about his past, how he felt about being drafted, and a haunting story about a friend who went home and didn't know how to deal with no longer being in the war. This is a good piece for anyone who wants to read from the perspective of someone who was there.

Synopsis: A classic work of American literature that has not stopped changing minds and lives since it burst onto the literary scene, The Things They Carried is a ground-breaking meditation on war, memory, imagination, and the redemptive power of storytelling.

The Things They Carried depicts the men of Alpha Company: Jimmy Cross, Henry Dobbins, Rat Kiley, Mitchell Sanders, Norman Bowker, Kiowa, and the character Tim O’Brien, who has survived his tour in Vietnam to become a father and writer at the age of forty-three.

Taught everywhere—from high school classrooms to graduate seminars in creative writing—it has become required reading for any American and continues to challenge readers in their perceptions of fact and fiction, war and peace, courage and fear and longing.

Recommended Reading:
Matterhorn by Karl Marlantes
Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston