Tim O'Brien

The Things They Carried (Paperback)

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(4.6) 4.6 stars out of 10 reviews 10 reviews
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The Things They Carried (Paperback)

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4.6 out of 5stars
(10 reviews)
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Most helpful positive review

5.00 out of 5 stars review
Verified Purchaser
07/08/2021
This piece of (non-)fiction is a…
This piece of (non-)fiction is a truly incredible and moving account of the War in Vietnam... It sounds strange to say it, but I'm looking forward to rereading this harrowing story.
francoisvigneault

Most helpful negative review

4.00 out of 5 stars review
Verified Purchaser
07/08/2021
Really a 4.5--just a brilliantly…
Really a 4.5--just a brilliantly written book. So many stories that explore truth versus fiction, the ways men deal with the things they have to do in wartime, the effect of war on both men and women. The only flaw I found in this book was that sometimes it let down a bit for me.
mamashepp
  • 5.00 out of 5 stars review
    Verified Purchaser
    07/09/2021
    One of my favorite books. Definitely…
    One of my favorite books. Definitely multiple re-reads in order. Powerful, yet subtle writing that opens the reader up to the private spheres of servicemen/veterans.
    Devon_Romo
  • 4.00 out of 5 stars review
    Verified Purchaser
    07/09/2021
    The Things They Carried is an…
    The Things They Carried is an interesting look at war, and what the people in war must do to in order to survive...emotionally and physically. Despite the topic, the book is amazingly light and easy to read. For that reason, this book is a four star book. I opened this book expecting a series of short stories, but I'm not quite sure that's what it was. I'm not quite sure I've ever read a book like this before--O'Brien has a knack for writing in a way I have never seen before, and I commend him for it. The book is, partially memiors, of himself and his company, partially just stories the reader is lead to believe--but then he tells us that it's not true. Any of it. As a reader, I am left wondering what, in this book is truthful or not. But, I think that is what O'Brien means to happen. To blur the lines between truth and fantasy, because that is what war is like. A good read.
    csweder
  • 5.00 out of 5 stars review
    Verified Purchaser
    07/08/2021
    This piece of (non-)fiction is a…
    This piece of (non-)fiction is a truly incredible and moving account of the War in Vietnam... It sounds strange to say it, but I'm looking forward to rereading this harrowing story.
    francoisvigneault
  • 4.00 out of 5 stars review
    Verified Purchaser
    07/08/2021
    Really a 4.5--just a brilliantly…
    Really a 4.5--just a brilliantly written book. So many stories that explore truth versus fiction, the ways men deal with the things they have to do in wartime, the effect of war on both men and women. The only flaw I found in this book was that sometimes it let down a bit for me.
    mamashepp
  • 5.00 out of 5 stars review
    Verified Purchaser
    05/09/2021
    This was a really great book, one…
    This was a really great book, one that deserves all the praise it has received. It is not just a book about Vietnam, or the US in the 60s. This is a book about storytelling, about the stories we tell ourselves, and about the stories we tell to others. Through our stories, we can survive trauma, we can create meaning, and we can remember the dead.
    evenlake
  • 5.00 out of 5 stars review
    Verified Purchaser
    05/05/2021
    A powerful look at the Vietnam War…
    A powerful look at the Vietnam War through one mans eyes. While it is listed as fiction I cant help but believe that many of the stories are true with the names changed to protect the innocent. It is a compelling read especially if you know someone who went to war.
    foof2you
  • 5.00 out of 5 stars review
    Verified Purchaser
    09/29/2017
    The Things They Carrie...
    The Things They Carried is an excellent companion to Ken Burns's documentary, The Vietnam War, in which Tim O'Brien is one of the many contributors. It is categorized as a work of fiction...a series of stories about being a foot soldier in Vietnam, which O'Brien was. I think the line between fact and fiction is very very blurry here, but I have no doubt that all of it is True. O'Brien plays around with the concept of truth in fiction within the text; he tells the same story from different perspectives, often repeating certain "facts" like a mantra, or as if the narrator is attempting to settle the "truth" of the matter in his own mind in a way he can live with. He presents certain chapters as direct address to the reader (here's why I told that story that way), but are those "real" or factual, or just also True? There is no shying away from the grim, unimaginable horrors of that particular war; the things clean-cut American kids (many of them teenagers, can we please never never never forget that?) did there that defy their upbringing are spelled out in graphic prose. The things that they suffered and endured and died from, the lies they were told and the other lies they told themselves or their loved ones, the physical torment they learned to live with, and the mental anguish that eventually did some of them in are all in there. And yet the overall effect of The Things They Carried isn't depressing or horrifying at all. It's a brilliant piece of writing, with flashes of pure poetry, and an interesting structure. The sum is quite inexplicably beautiful. Highly recommended.
    laytonwoman3rd
  • 5.00 out of 5 stars review
    Verified Purchaser
    01/24/2013
    The thing about a sto...
    "The thing about a story is that you dream it as you tell it, hoping that others might then dream along with you, and in this way memory and imagination and language combine to make spirits in the head. There is the illusion of aliveness." (Page 230) Tim O'Brien is quite a storyteller. Here's what I felt while I was reading: it was twilight on a hot summer evening. The crickets were chirping as I sat on the porch swing, gently moving it back and forth, while I listened to these stories of this author's time in Viet Nam. He had me mesmerized from the first page. But wait a minute, what the heck was I reading? When I looked at the LT tags, before I read the book, I saw---memoir, short stories, fiction, historical fiction---memoir and fiction? How is that possible? Further investigation, after I finished the book, revealed that the work is something called metafiction, a term I was unfamiliar with. According to what I gleaned, although the author and the main character in the stories share the same name, age, and experience in Viet Nam, the book is a work of fiction, something the author reiterated many times throughout the narrative. Another thing that helps to define metafiction is the author telling about the writing of the book which happens in the story entitled How to Tell a True War Story." So apparently this is not memoir but fiction. Why he didn't make it clear by giving the character a name other than his own is puzzling. The stories are heartbreaking and reveal the depth of despair that one of the worst times in our country's history brought about. It should be required reading for all those who serve as president or congressional member, those people who make the decisions to send boys to war; those who choose to put lives on the line while they rest comfortably at home. The stories also reveal the camaraderie apparent in the relationships between these brave soldiers. If we can't learn from these experiences we're bound to make the same mistakes, over and over. The characters are all well-drawn and show great depth and the almost two dozen interrelated and interwoven stories that comprise this book, are incredibly well done. Some will tear your heart out. Some will make you smile. Some will fill you with amazement and wonder. And anger. The first (and title) story The Things They Carriedhad enormous impact and set the stage for what was to come and introduced, intimately, the characters: "The things they carried were largely determined by necessity. Among the necessities or near-necessities were P-38 can openers, pocket knives, heat tabs, chewing gum, candy, cigarettes. Military Payment Certificates, C rations...Most of them were common grunts and carried the standard M-16 gas-operated assault rifle which weighed 23 pounds unloaded, but which was always loaded." (Page 4) As you turn the pages and get to know the members of Alpha Company, you realize you are in the hands of a master storyteller and for him it's all about the story: "Forty-three years old, and the war occurred half a lifetime ago, and yet the remembering makes it now. And sometimes remembering will lead to a story, which makes it forever. That's what stories are for. Stories are for joining the past to the future. Stories are for those late hours in the night when you can't remember how you got from where you were to where you are. Stories are for eternity, when memory is erased, when there is nothing to remember except the story." (Page 38) And as a reader, what more could you want? Very highly recommended.
    brenzi
  • 4.00 out of 5 stars review
    Verified Purchaser
    11/10/2010
    I wasnt going to writ...
    I wasn't going to write a review of this book. There have been many other reviews written; very well written, informative and descriptive reviews. I didn't think that I could add anything relevant that hasn't already been written. But as I turned the last page of the book, I felt that I had to write this. This book is about death. It is about life, love, courage, cowardice, and compassion, but it is mostly about death. Real death. Limbs missing, organs, blood, an empty star-shaped hole where an eye used to be, jaw bone down in the neck, bloated, stinking, real death. Curt Lemon standing in shadow, slowly stepping sideways into the sunlight. One second he is alive. The next second he is in pieces hanging off the branches of a tree. Lemon tree. I was in the military. I was fortunate enough to never see combat. The most dangerous thing that happened to me was being chased by a wild boar through the woods of Denmark. Or maybe the most dangerous thing was being chased through the streets of Bremen by a drunken German girl with pink hair. But I wonder how many of my friends later had to go to Iraq or Afghanistan? How many of them were killed? How many of them were turned into lemon trees? In the last story of The Things They Carried, O'Brien writes of being in love when he was nine years old and of his girlfriend dying of a brain tumor. Linda, O'Brien's nine year old dead girlfriend, tells him what death feels like: '"Well, right now," she said, "I'm not dead. But when I am, it's like...I don't know, I guess it's like being inside a book that nobody's reading." "A book?" I said. "An old one. It's up on a library shelf, so you're safe and everything, but the book hasn't been checked out for a long, long time. All you can do is wait. Just hope somebody'll pick it up and start reading."' In his stories, O'Brien brings the dead back to life. He makes them sit up and speak. He makes them go trick-or-treating. They go ice skating. They ask you what is wrong. Why are you crying? And in a sense, O'Brien is pondering life after death. He seems to hint that he doesn't believe the Christian notion of life after death, however he clearly wonders what happens. That people's lives can't just go away. Souls don't just evaporate. And isn't this what we all think about, or try not to think about? What is it going to feel like? Or will it be just black emptiness? Or pain? Or celestial angels? Or rebirth? It is the one thing that we all have in common. We will all die. Every single one of us. And what is worse, all of our loved ones will die. All of them. There is no story that will make that sound any better. What these stories do accomplish is making us reflect honestly on death. We try not to be timid. We try not to be sentimental. But isn't it only natural? Tim O'Brien is a master storyteller and a brilliant writer. I look forward to reading more of his books. An apt review for Veteran's Day.
    Quixada
  • 4.00 out of 5 stars review
    Verified Purchaser
    02/22/2010
    I kick myself, metapho...
    I kick myself, metaphorically, at times when I think about how I missed an opportunity to meet Tim O'Brien, the author of The Things They Carried. He came to the school I was attending, and I was off doing something else, probably editing a newspaper, or playing a video game, or working on homework. It's unimportant. I missed an opportunity to meet him. I have this hang-up. I like meeting authors. I get sad when I think about how I never could convince my school (in Indiana) to get Vonnegut to visit. And now it's too late (and I live in Texas!). But, I love meeting authors. And I would have loved to meet O'Brien. Granted, it's not too late. I just don't have very many opportunities for meeting authors, so I try to take 'em as I get 'em. But, why would I have wanted to meet O'Brien? Well, if you've read The Things They Carried, you might want to meet him too. Or never meet him, and constantly be fleeing from him. Either way. The Things They Carried is a war book. It focuses on the Vietnam war, both in Vietnam and in the US. It's satirical, but it's also moving, as if Heller were covering a different war, but keeping it toned down from time to time. I enjoyed this book, and found it to be very readable, and quite enjoyable. At times, there'd be a long stretch of dark or deep or depressing events, and then one of the characters would say something off-color, breaking the somber mood, causing me to laugh out loud. From what I've heard about O'Brien's comments on this book, I really, really, really kick myself. I'd love to hear them in person. But that didn't keep me from enjoying it, and shouldn't keep you from doing likewise.
    aethercowboy
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