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by: Tim O'Brien
Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9780140147735
ISBN: 014014773X
Label: Penguin (Non-Classics)
Manufacturer: Penguin (Non-Classics)
Number Of Pages: 288
Publication Date: April 01, 1991
Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics)
Sales Rank: 28482
Studio: Penguin (Non-Classics)
Related Items:
Editorial Review:
Product Description:
One of the first questions people ask about The Things They Carried is this: Is it a novel, or a collection of short stories? The title page refers to the book simply as 'a work of fiction,' defying the conscientious reader's need to categorize this masterpiece. It is both: a collection of interrelated short pieces which ultimately reads with the dramatic force and tension of a novel. Yet each one of the twenty-two short pieces is written with such care, emotional content, and prosaic precision that it could stand on its own.
The Things They Carried depicts the men of Alpha Company: Jimmy Cross, Henry Dobbins, Rat Kiley, Mitchell Sanders, Norman Bowker, Kiowa, and of course, the character Tim O'Brien who has survived his tour in Vietnam to become a father and writer at the age of forty-three. They battle the enemy (or maybe more the idea of the enemy), and occasionally each other. In their relationships we see their isolation and loneliness, their rage and fear. They miss their families, their girlfriends and buddies; they miss the lives they left back home. Yet they find sympathy and kindness for strangers (the old man who leads them unscathed through the mine field, the girl who grieves while she dances), and love for each other, because in Vietnam they are the only family they have. We hear the voices of the men and build images upon their dialogue. The way they tell stories about others, we hear them telling stories about themselves.
With the creative verve of the greatest fiction and the intimacy of a searing autobiography, The Things They Carried is a testament to the men who risked their lives in America's most controversial war. It is also a mirror held up to the frailty of humanity. Ultimately The Things They Carried and its myriad protagonists call to order the courage, determination, and luck we all need to survive.
Amazon.com:
'They carried all the emotional baggage of men who might die. Grief, terror, love, longing--these were intangibles, but the intangibles had their own mass and specific gravity, they had tangible weight. They carried shameful memories. They carried the common secret of cowardice.... Men killed, and died, because they were embarrassed not to.'
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
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating:  - This Book is a Touchstone
With nearly 700 reviews already, this book is not a touchstone for me alone. I'm a few years younger than Mr. O'Brien, am also from Minnesota, and participated in the last year of the draft. I remember sitting in a dormroom my freshman year with many other young men watching the draft lottery on TV. Three-hundred-and-sixty-six ping-pong balls bounced in a cage, one ball for every birthday of the year. The order they were removed was the order of the draft. At the ninth ball, someone groaned dejectedly. ... Read More
Rating: - Brilliant - Audio version was captivating
This review is based on the audio version. First let me say, that I generally do not care for short stories, and I have also managed to avoid most books about war. Once I began listening to this book, I would find myself sitting in my car (after having reached my destination) just to hear a bit more. The reader was fabulous and the stories ...all of them....just had me wanting to hear more.
The Things They Carried is a collection of short stories filled with tension. The stories are based on the ... Read More
Rating: - Powerful read
Tim O'Brien took me to a place I could not have imagined. At long last I now have a bit of insight into why so many of my friends who fought in Viet Nam, have found it so difficult to talk about. Beautifully written. Heart wrenching, exquisite, humbling - each person who served, and came back with even a modicum of sanity is to be cherished by us all, not by just their families and loved ones.
Rating: - TIMELESS
"First Lieutenant Jimmy Cross carried letters from a girl named Martha . . . ." And I will always carry this book in my heart and mind. It is unforgettable.
Rating: - GREAT!
I thought this book was good in both what happens physically to soldiers body and what happens mentally to soldiers body. a must read
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