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What are readers saying about The Things They Carried: A Work of Fiction?
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Experiment1880 posted a review at 2009-06-29 01:55:25.
(Language: English)
  
The Things They Carried was an interesting book in many different ways. It was well written, I found that the author had great talent in bringing readers into the story while sounding almost poetic at times. There was also a lot of depth to the story. He provides much to think about throughout the story showing the psychological effects of war in a way that isn't very common. Symbolism is everywhere in the story. The actual stuff characters carried were of a wide range, from guns to luck charms. Each of these represented a burden of some sort or another showing that burdens can be more than physical. Some of these burdens then relate to the ones readers have, even readers who have never been to war. The purpose and extent of truth, also a theme of the story, is presented in a unique fashion that gives readers much to discuss. The characters are well developed and realistic, especially the narrator himself. Each has a unique way of telling stories. Each is carrying different burdens. Each handles the war in a different way. This book is not a retelling of history, a recollection of facts, or even a work of fiction that focuses only on the fighting of war. I recommend this book.
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A Reader posted a review at 2008-12-28 11:08:00.
(Language: English)
I had to read this for my college class. On my own, I would likely never have picked it up, since it's very much not my type of book. It is essentially a set of fictional short stories revolving around the Vietnam War. If you enjoy war novels, you'll likely enjoy this one as well. Personally, I didn't care for it much, simply because I don't enjoy those types of books. I personally prefer for my reading to be an escape from real life. That being said, I can tell you that it is well-written and deserves its praise from fans of the genre.
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A Reader posted a review at 2008-02-22 08:39:23.
(Language: English)
A Postmodern take on the nature of war stories. What can I say? I like this book a lot.As with many of his novels, Tim O' Brien sets this one during the Vietnam War (of which he participated as a foot soldier). The experiences from the war help shape up the central point of the novel and brings about the moral question of war stories. The prose is beautifully written without straying into the realm of purple prose and the post-modern elements of existentialism, a non-linear narrative, and a meta-fictional structure give it a unique taste that even the most casual readers will enjoy.
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A Reader posted a review at 2008-04-14 08:12:51.
(Language: English)
I can't believe I loved a book about the Vietnam war. A lot of this book is disturbing, like shit (literally) you just couldn't make up it's so horrible, but it's more about the people and how they were (and are) affected by what they experience. This book feels so much bigger than a single war. There's a fascinating thread about storytelling that takes the book out of its narrow context and makes it relevant in much bigger ways. O'Brien's style is also engaging, a voice you can't get out of your head, and even though this book is heavy, it's also hilarious and ridiculous.
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Kim posted a review at 2010-09-07 08:23:12.
(Language: English)
This is an incredibly well written book, raw with deep emotion. It's Viet Nam era fiction but reads like a memoir. It is more about the atmosphere of the war rather than the war itself. It is visceral, haunting, provoking, gripping... The stories rip into you... on the front line line facing the man you just killed; on the Canadian border deciding you aren't brave enough to avoid the draft, back in Viet Nam watching your best buddy sink into a field of mud, back at home with no purpose surrounded by people who don't know how to welcome you home. I think this book might have been the best education on Viet Nam I've ever received. Some parts are hard to get through... but it is well worth reading.
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A Reader posted a review at 2009-02-02 08:01:25.
(Language: English)
The Things They Carried is a triumphant piece of fictional literature; now the finest war novel on my shelf. It is not a "period" story of historical fiction, or a yarn of neatly spun events. Rather, it reads as if it were a peek into a person's most intimate journal. Time and truth dissolve into each other as the author's reflections are splayed out across the trees, forests, fields, and holes of the Vietnamese landscape. A story of the highest order.
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A Reader posted a review at 2008-01-14 01:20:06.
(Language: English)
Not flowerly, but perfectly literary. Realistic. Conversational, raw, fast-paced, and only rarely repetitive or irrelevant - just how I like it. At times you can physically feel the emotions portrayed. No matter how metaphysical the stories become, you believe absolutely every word. I think that stems from the author's life itself - the protagonist shares the author's name, and it's a known fact that O'Brien served in the Vietnam War himself. It's because of this that after every story you ask, "Did he write this, or did he really live this?" And you can never decide. It's more a collection of short stories - they share characters, but you don't need to read them all at once, or even in order. Great for people with little time to read for pleasure. It sucks you in.
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A Reader posted a review at 2007-12-29 12:45:53.
(Language: English)
I hate war stories. They are full of "unexpected heroes" and tales of brotherhood that I never fully understood being a girl with only one sister. I was forced to read this book for my writing class this summer, and now, I could not begin to describe it's amazing intracacies and details. On the surface, it is a war story, but beneath the words, I was able to discover--with a lot of help from my professor--exactly how much this book trancends the label of "war story" into a love story, a hate story, or most accurately, a life story. I have learned so much about writing from reading O'Brien's work. I can't reccomend this book enough.
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A Reader posted a review at 2007-10-23 09:47:40.
(Language: English)
I've got two brothers in the military. I have no intention of joining any of the armed forces and my brothers don't really like to talk about their experiences of war.... but they both recommended this to me..... it gave a detailed description of what it was like I think that it means they like it. I loved this One of my favorite passages: "And in the end, of course, a true war story is never about war. It's about sunlight. It's about the special way that dawn spreads out on a river when you know you must cross the river and march into the mountains and do things you are afraid to do. It's about love and memory. It's about sorrow. It's about sisters who never write back and people who never listen."
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A Reader posted a review at 2009-03-31 06:29:47.
(Language: English)
When I first picked this book up, I thought, "Oh great, another book about war." I'm not a big fan of war and graphic violence. But when I started reading this, I was completely blown away. It's not so much about war as it is about life, love, loss, and writing and storytelling itself. Even though I love reading fiction, I've always been uncomfortable with writing fiction stories because they're not true, it's always felt like lying to me. But this book taught me that a story can be untrue and true at the same time, that sometimes untrue facts added can make a story even truer to itself. But I can't really explain it as well as O'Brien did, so I'd strongly suggest this book to anyone. I also found that the writing style was somewhat similar to that of Vonnegut's, so I think that anyone who likes Vonnegut would also like this book.
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A Reader posted a review at 2008-05-20 02:40:06.
(Language: English)
Through this collection of connective short-stories evolving around his time in the Vietnam War, Tim O’Brien exposed the cruelty of not the opponents, but war itself on the soldiers from both sides. Every story has its nuances and further explores the things that went through O’Brien and his mates’ minds in response to the atrocities that were happening around them. All of these soldiers had to deal with the fact that death is arbitrary in war. One could be smiling and horsing around for a moment, and was blown up the next. Unlike their normal lives removed from Vietnam, the Quang-Ngai province became the hellish ground in which they witnessed the expendability of human lives. Jimmy Cross, a character in “Thing They Carriedâ€, had to experience firsthand with dealing with his friends’ death because he felt responsible for pushing these men into danger. First it was Ted Lavender, who was shot on his way back from the bathroom while Cross was occupied with the mundane thoughts of his high-school crush. Then it was Kiowa, who was buried in the sewage field due to Cross’ lack of judgment. Even though nobody condemned him for these casualties, Cross could not stop wondering how his thoughtless enrollment in the Officers Training Corps qualified him as a leader and inadvertently jeopardized his men due to his lack of experiences. Ted and Kiowa’s deaths contributed to the pool of numerous soldiers that had to lie down in Vietnam. Whether it was Jimmy Cross’s faults or not, the fact remained that it only took a small miscalculated moment to end the life of men at war.There were also other examples of how totally preventable the deaths of these soldiers were. Curt Lemon, a good hearted soldier who died from his own grenade in a game of catch, was a prime evidence of how war could destroy a human for no apparent reason. In retelling the story of Curt Lemon in “The Dentistâ€, O’Brien attempted to identify Lemon with the readers who had no hand-on experiences with war. O’Brien recounted that Curt Lemon was so afraid of the dentist that he right before his check up. However, it was the fact that Lemon returned the next day insisting the dentist to pull out one of his perfectly good tooth that showed the readers how brave each human being is aspired to be. Then when Curt Lemon died a completely absurd death, we couldn’t help but wondering if brevity had any ground over luck when it came to war. As the civilians who stayed behind in safety, we hear about the heroic acts of these soldiers who died fighting for their respective countries. From the letters such as one written by Rat Kiley to Lemon’s sister, each soldier’s death was told in such a way that it became worthy of a tragic hero’s unfortunate downfall. Somehow this hero-celebration made war more justifiable. This, according to “Things They Carriedâ€, was not the case.Unlike the death of O’Brien first love Linda in fifth grade which remained with him even when he became a forty-three jaded veteran, the deaths of O’Brien’s fellow soldiers did not impact him as much. One might blame himself for another soldier’s death (such was the case of Jimmy Cross); however, one never had to ask why a soldier died. War was a perfectly sufficient answer. Paradoxically, being a casualty in war made one more honorable, yet at the same time more reasonable.
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A Reader posted a review at 2007-09-07 10:25:50.
(Language: English)
Yes, this is a war book. Yes, it's graphic in parts. (perhaps it's ugly reality will balance out the fake {and yet still ugly} "reality" of "What a Girl Wants"...) I think it is good to read this book for several reasons: 1. It'll make my life easier. Selfish, I know, but I have to read it for my other book club anyway. ;) Ok, sorry, I'll be serious. 2. I personally know very little (read, nothing) about the war in Vietnam. To be honest, I know little about modern American history, and not much more about American history as a whole. I believe it is good to know our past to help guide the steps of our future. I believe mothers play a big role in shaping the thinking of their children, and it's important to teach them what is worth dying for, and killing for. We must think these things through before we can pass them on. 3. There are men in all our lives: fathers, brothers, husbands, sons. Men are called to different roles than women are called to, like that of soldier. It is helpful for us to accept those roles; and in order to be able to accept, we must (on some level) understand. Review: Gritty. Honest, particularly in its confusion. Interesting. Sad. At moments moving, at moments disturbing. Much truth, but no conclusion drawn. I believe we are able to go a step further than our author, Tim O'Brien, and ask, not so much "was it worth it, was it right, was it wrong?", but "What IS worth dying for, what IS worth killing for, where do we draw the line, by what standard...?" Many have tried to answer these questions. Maybe it is time we joined the conversation...
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A Reader posted a review at 2011-08-16 08:19:10.
(Language: English)
Hmm, I read this book about three months ago (April '11) so I'm not writing this review with the words fresh in my mind. However, here's what I remember. O'Brien's novel is based loosely on his experiences in Vietnam. However, he claims it is a work of fiction. I am sure that all of the characters in the novel are based on someone with whom the author has interacted. Some of the chapters are short stories that were published in Esquire before the book was published in its current form. Of the chapters that most impacted me were "The Things They Carried", "The Man I Killed", and "In the Field." The first is a reflection on the necessary items that each soldier humped across the fields and jungles of Vietnam. Things like grenades, insect repellent, salt tablets, etc. But it's more than the necessities. It's also letters, pictures, good-luck pebbles, and rabbit's feet. But more than the things they carried were the hopes and dreams and fears and memories that went with each man. It is a touching reminder of the horrors of war and the reality of loss that cannot be shaken when men leave the battle zone. There is a disjointed effect to the book that left me wanting more - more depth to some of the characters, more action, more information, more resolution. Maybe O'Brien's purpose is to create that lack of movement to reflect the inactivity of Vietnam. Maybe his purpose was to leave the reader with a sense of ambiguity. Maybe he wanted there to be a lack of closure. I also think that the purpose of the book is to create the tension between truth and fiction. Reading this book as an individual left me without the opportunity to discuss this tension with others. I think reading this book in a group and discussing it in community would probably have made the book more meaningful. A good read and one I will probably go back to again at some point.
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A Reader posted a review at 2008-06-16 08:54:31.
(Language: English)
Other than being a favorite of Tay Zonday, this book is not terrible because it's a somewhat interesting, possibly eye-opening, blunt account of the American involvement int the Vietnam War, especially important because of its depiction of the impact the war had on the soldiers in it. Its characters are pretty sympathetic, and it gets pretty graphic at times, which, if done well, is a plus in my book. My only real criticism is O'Brien's diatribe about fact versus fiction and fact versus truth, what factually happened in Vietnam doesn't properly convey what truly happened there, so with this he justifies stretching the truth in parts of his otherwise true story. Of course, this is logically and philosophically absurd, but it lends itself well to the novel. Not a bad read at all, though not one of my favorites. I know a lot of people who really loved this book, so try it on for yourself.
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A Reader posted a review at 2010-11-16 07:11:48.
(Language: English)
Very good book. It gave me more of an insight into the Vietnam War. And what my husband and other soldiers went through.
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A Reader posted a review at 2011-10-04 03:22:52.
(Language: English)
Amazing book for veterans and civilians alike, good glimse of that war and time in the military.
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A Reader posted a review at 2007-12-04 10:07:11.
(Language: English)
Like many of the reviewers here, the first time I read the novel I was in high school. I was considering a career in the service, and I found this book to have a unique perspective compared to many others in the genre and time period. I ended up joining immediately after high school and I have picked up the book and read it again several times since. Many themes have already been explored here, so I will limit my remarks to O'Brien's telling war stories. In the abstract, war stories serve a dual purpose, one is to provide a therapeutic benefit to the storyteller and the other is to convey the emotion the actual events created (another reviewer mentioned this). As I have met an increasingly greater number of veterans over the years, it appears that the needs of the former outweigh the needs of the latter. So, it is initially interesting that O'Brien would want to convey a minority position for telling war stories. The "things" carried in the title are burdens, as the stories progresses a character becomes overburdened and either resolves the circumstance or dies. The circumstances created by the stories are not unique, O'Brien alludes that he did not create them. I have personally seen the story in the Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong played out a number of times, and it probably goes back to WWII at the latest. Similarly, the Yellow Tree goes back to Korea. Nonetheless, these stories traditionally expound on a sort of animalism that some believe soldiers in war zones possess. O'Brien never gets to the issue of animalism. Rather, he coats it over with some sort of human appeal when he describes taking his daughter to an area like the one where he served. O’Brien is interested in conveying the emotion of the circumstance because he does not feel that the facts of the situation can adequately cover the flavor of the story. He chooses to expand this notion of poetic license to state that the stories, themselves, cannot totally describe the situation, but traditional war stories can. At the end of this process is a novel that contains a compilation of traditional war stories set in Vietnam, which offer little literary merit in themselves. The notion of the purpose of writing to be a therapeutic exercise now appears more reasonable. The stories no longer have to be true, original, or remotely based in some witnessed reality. O’Brien is trying to raise a family and cope with an extremely difficult situation of haunting memories, fallen comrades, and a family he is trying to shield from this reality in the only manner a fiction writer knows: by telling stories that he enjoys which serve a purpose in themselves.
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A Reader posted a review at 2008-12-03 02:29:39.
(Language: English)
This is quite a remarkable novel about the war in Vietnam. It consists of several short stories but all with one major theme - the things the carried through the war. Just like O´Briens "Going after Cacciato" imagination plays a huge part. The fact that as a soldier you have to have something to hold on to - real or unreal. I got this recommended by a professor when I studied in Michigan and I must say that it is a masterpiece. I have read O´Briens other novels about the war, and they are all great, but this one stands out as the best.
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Donna posted a review at 2011-09-04 05:02:31.
(Language: English)
This is possibly the harshest book I've ever tried to read, compelling from page one. Though a novel, O'Brien's story delivers stunning insight into the reality of teenagers we still send to perform our ill-defined missions in country and then expect them to return to us unscathed in body, mind and soul. What they carry with them and bring home IS reality. Thanks, Tim O'Brien.
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A Reader posted a review at 2007-09-26 09:46:49.
(Language: English)
The Things They Carried is the 2007 selection for the Eden Prairie Reads initiative (epreads.org). I was a little hesitant at first, unsure of how well I’d enjoy a collection of Vietnam War stories. The book is less about gunfire and battles won or lost, and more of a peek inside the head of the men involved – doubt, terror, obsession, camaraderie, death, survival instinct, the psychological turmoil of going home, and ultimately, for some, closure. Although considered a work of fiction, one gets the feeling that all of the stories have some basis in reality. In fact, several times the author refers to himself as being present in the stories. As a reader, I felt some frustration in not being able to determine what was true.
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Theresa posted a review at 2009-09-10 04:40:46.
(Language: English)
Sometimes raw. Sometimes elegant. Sometimes gruesome. Sometimes beautiful. O'Brien's account of a Vietnam veteran's tour of duty is mesmerizing and artful. His masterful telling and retelling of the Alpha Company's war stories illustrates the fluidity between truth and remembered truth -- and why the difference between the two may not matter. A classic must-read for anyone who lived through the second half of the 20th Century.
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A Reader posted a review at 2007-09-29 09:27:37.
(Language: English)
Everyone should read this book whether you are a fan of war stories or not. The Things they Carried is less about the Vietnam War and more about those involved in the war. Interestingly, it is a work of fiction and the way O'Brien discusses this, only makes the stories portrayed that much more interesting. O'Brien clearly depicts the emotions involved in such an atmosphere where terror, instinct, and guilt control the minds of young soldiers who lose their ignorance and innocence in a war which none desire to be part of. At times the novel can be heart wrenching and explicitly descriptive. Your opinion of the Vietnam War will forever be changed as will your opinion on life.
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A Reader posted a review at 2009-03-03 08:35:46.
(Language: English)
My high school never assigned The Things They Carried so I never bothered to pick it up ‘til now when I found it gathering dust on my brother’s bookshelf. But it’s definitely a book everyone can enjoy; O’Brien’s collection of short stories reads like poetry. He layers the “truths” about his experience in Vietnam with fictional accounts that reveal more than any purely factual retelling. Even if you don’t like war novels I would recommend this book.
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A Reader posted a review at 2009-07-21 07:04:06.
(Language: English)
War fiction--not my usual genre, but a good departure from the chick-lit I've been marinating in lately. O'Brien is a Writer with a capital "W." These are serious stories about Vietnam and all its emotional ramifications. While I found getting through the more combat-oriented stories a tad laborious (no fault of the author, just not my thing), some of the other stories, especially the ones that dealt with the ambiguity of emotions before and after the war were deeply affecting. The last story, where O'Brien intersperses details about the dead bodies he encountered in Vietnam with the first dead body he saw, that of his nine-year-old first love who died from a brain tumor, got to me so bad that I had to start another, funnier book right away just to get it out of my head.
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A Reader posted a review at 2009-06-25 07:48:42.
(Language: English)
Tim O'Brien's writing carries the scars of the traumatic events that shaped him, much as Pat Conroy's does from his life with a tyrannical father and Kurt Vonnegut's did from the bombing of Dresden. In THE THINGS THEY CARRIED, O'Brien uses plain but lyrical language to surround a remarkable series of inter-related short stories -- about a depleted company of American soldiers in Vietnam around 1970 -- with a string of even shorter meta-stories talking about those short stories, including what was accurate and what was not, how the author was affected by the events in the stories and even the nature of stories themselves. There were so many great short stories that it's almost disrespectful to the ones I leave out to list them. My favorites are THE THINGS THEY CARRIED (possessions and emotions soldiers carried in their knapsacks), ON THE RAINY RIVER (O'Brien's Hamlet-like struggle deciding whether to enlist or dodge the draft), SWEETHEART OF THE SONG TRA BONG (what happens when a soldier sneaks his innocent high school sweetheart over to 'Nam), THE MAN I KILLED (contemplating the nonmilitary life of the Viet Cong man O'Brien killed in combat), SPEAKING OF COURAGE (feelings of a discharged soldier who goes back home to the American life he is no longer a part of), IN THE FIELD (how one of their own died), THE GHOST SOLDIERS (plotting revenge against a replacement medic whose shoddy job cost O'Brien pain, humiliation and separation from his beloved band of soldiers) and THE LIVES OF THE DEAD (comparing the dead in Vietnam to a young American girl O'Brien knew who died of brain cancer). In the meta-stories, O'Brien says the stories he is telling about his band of soldiers is fiction while simultaneously giving us fact after fact to show they are real. "I want you to feel what I felt," he wrote. "I want you to know why story-truth is truer sometimes than happening truth." With its vivid depiction of gruesome, funny, fantastic and heart-breaking events, THE THINGS THEY CARRIED does an absolutely brilliant job of showing us things we don't want to see and making us think about things we don't want to think about.
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