The Things They Carried / In The Lake Of The Woods

by Tim O'Brien

“Tim O’Brien is the best American writer of his generation.” — San Francisco Examiner

With more than two million copies in print, The Things They Carried is a classic work of American literature that has been changing minds and lives since it burst onto the literary scene. It is a groundbreaking meditation on war, memory, imagination, and the redemptive power of storytelling. In the Lake of the Woods is an unforgettable novel of love and mystery. When long-hidden secrets about his past come to light, John Wade—a Vietnam veteran and recent candidate for the U.S. Senate—retreats with his wife to a cabin in northern Minnesota. She mysteriously vanishes and several explanations, all of them disturbing, rise to the surface.

Genres: Literature, Historical Fiction, Read For School, Fiction, Classics

528 pages, Hardcover

Published November 1, 2011

About the author

Tim O'Brien is an American novelist who served as a soldier in the Vietnam War. Much of his writing is about wartime Vietnam, and his work later in life often explores the postwar lives of its veterans.
O'Brien is perhaps best known for his book The Things They Carried (1990), a collection of linked semi-autobiographical stories inspired by his wartime experiences. In 2010, The New York Times described it as "a classic of contemporary war fiction." O'Brien wrote the war novel, Going After Cacciato (1978), which was awarded the National Book Award.
O'Brien taught creative writing, holding the endowed chair at the MFA program of Texas State University–San Marcos every other academic year from 2003 to 2012.

Reviews

[Janet Rose · Rating 5 out of 5]

Eye opening and haunting story of being a soldier in the Vietnam War. I was too young to remember and he brought this alive for me. I am in awe of what these young men had to go through. Thank you for your service!!!

[Danielle Skillings · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was pleasantly surprised how much I enjoyed this one. Really knew and and still know very little of the Vietnam war but this gave me a little spark of curiosity about it. This is a great one if you like to understand the psychology of what war (and a controversial war) can do to someone. Very interesting.

[sylvia · Rating 3 out of 5]

not bad for an in-class reading

[John Clark · Rating 5 out of 5]

An immersive and gripping narrative of the Vietnam war.

[Dylan Mcswaggerpants · Rating 5 out of 5]

I LOVE IT. I got wind of this book from the Juniors this year saying that they had to read it for American lit next year and i wanted to give it a try. I didn't expect much but a another war book with a few interesting parts shoved in the pages. This took me completely by surprise. The first chapter was full of literary devices and motifs that one could grasp on to and guide themselves through the chapter. All throughout the first chapter there was the constant idea of weight. One ounce, 10 lbs, 24 oz. I immediately saw the motif and i was able to follow it throughout the whole chapter. I also loved how O'Brian was able to make the characters feel alive. Of course all characters are alive persay, but he "showed not told" what they were thinking and feeling. He didn't just narrate, he gave them actions. A clear picture was painted in my mind all the time and i could feel the hot sweaty jungle of Vietnam. My favorite chapter was the chapter when the boys were on a listening post for about a week. The words explained how the jungle spoke to them and how they could actually hear a cocktail party going on a mile away. It spoke to me on a personal level too. The story wasn't just a story, but an understanding of what people had to go through in a war that wasn't favorable. Especially on this memorial day weekend while writing this review it gives me respect for the armed soldiers overseas. Overall I loved and appreciated this book to the fullest. It was a great read that made me both think and feel at the same time. It spoke to me on a personal level, and showed me Vietnam the way the soldiers saw it.

[Chris Rizzo · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried back in November.

I definitely was supposed to read this for class in high school and never got around to it (Sorry Mrs. Bonesho 😬) so when I installed my bookshelves I felt like it was time.

O’Brien is such an excellent writer. This book was filled with moments that could both turn my stomach and break my heart.

The scene in the boat at the Canadian Border in particular was simply incredible.

Tim O’Brien says repeatedly that none of the stories he tells are true, and yet each vignette is so raw and powerful in isolation it doesn’t even matter if that’s the case.

Would highly recommend this quick and impactful read.

[Roger DeBlanck · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Things They Carried :
O’Brien’s The Things They Carried is one of the most impressive and enduring pieces of literature examining the Vietnam War. Evoking devastating insight and visceral impact, the book has been an instant classic since its publication in 1990. O’Brien’s stories confront his traumatic and haunted memories of Vietnam, and he forces us to examine more closely a war that will not fade from the American consciousness. His stories are also revelatory and confessional in communicating the psychological scars that soldiers carry. Finishing as a runner-up for the Pulitzer Prize, the book has remained exceedingly important as a mainstay in college courses ranging from history to English departments. O’Brien’s landmark book continues to serve as a vital document helping us address and understand the burdens of war.

In the Lake of the Woods :
In this dark and mysterious novel, O’Brien examines the aftermath of Vietnam in the form of the mental baggage soldiers carry home. He looks at the shame and guilt that haunt John Wade, a veteran of Vietnam who now serves as a United States Senator from Minnesota. Wade’s inability to confront his past prevents his ability to heal. In the Lake of the Woods is a memorable and important novel that will keep you gripped with tension.

[Dave Mohan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Although I tend to love most books I read, this one was particularly great. Going into the book, I had a somewhat unsure mentality, thinking that it would be the war stories of a veterans reminiscing day-dreamily on killing people. However, it was quite the opposite; rather, O'Brien is a liberal who was drafted into the war against his will and describes the horror of Vietnam. The book certainly adds an entirely different dimension to the lives of the soldiers lost in war, and humanizes them to make them a lot more than just a number in the total of people killed in the war. Overall, great book. Would highly recommend.

[Vivian Adram · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow. moving. vivid. hard to get out of your head once you imagine all the words. makes me want to go to vietnam now. to rewatch all those series of NAM when I was a kid. to find out more about Tim O'Brien. And to make sure, somehow, no baby buffalo ever has to go through that. :( ever!

[J.K. George · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book hits home like any book about wars and the people who fought them. Add the US's missteps in Viet Nam, and you have a classic.

[Christine Discenza · Rating 5 out of 5]

Heart wrenching

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

oh my god. this is one of the only books about war that had truly captured my attention and is worth every single award it received.

[Sam M.]

good read

[Glenda Carroll · Rating 5 out of 5]

Haunting, hypnotic prose that gets to the very core of what war is like. I have never read anything like this.

[Jeff · Rating 4 out of 5]

I remember hearing the first chapter of this book read on NPR's "Selected Shorts" in the summer of 2002, and thinking it was one of the most beautiful things I'd heard: a beautiful meditation on humanity, war, and how the things we carry sustain and weigh on us. The rest of the book wanders in and out of the territory and the narrative O'Brien lays out in that first chapter. Nothing in the rest of the book (even the last chapter) is as tight or beautiful as that first chapter. But it's still a great work of art and meditation on souls fractured by an experience (the Vietnam war) that keeps them from ever truly returning to the people they once were.

[NC Weil · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien
reviewed by NC Weil

This book has won many accolades, as short pieces and as a whole. It deserves them all. But I'm afraid to recommend it to my sons, who are in their twenties. Its juxtapositions of life and death, of ghoul humor and matter-of-fact insanity, are so raw, I fear my sons will fall in love with war, and want to be part of it, and be lost to life.

In today's paper in 2010 there's a story about the 5th Stryker Brigade in Afghanistan – five soldiers are being tried for murder-for-sport and corpse desecration. And in their cruelty, I see the young men of this story – nineteen years old, just been drafted and dropped into Hell. They do callous things to survive, to differentiate themselves from the slaughter they must daily encounter. They do them to push back the fear that stalks every waking second and hunts them in their fitful sleep. They distance themselves from the meat they want not to be. By pushing each other to shows of indifference, and joking about what would otherwise make them incapable of what they are required to do, they survive – or die.

What is the worst death: to be flung in shreds into the treetops so your mates have to climb up and gather your fragments? To be sucked down in a flooded field of mud and shit in the driving rain, so your buddies have to foul themselves finding you, digging you out to send your corpse home? To be shot taking a piss on a lovely morning?

Or is it the death of your own self, your civilian carelessness and ease? Is it the pretty girl smuggled in by her boyfriend, who takes to war with an addict's intensity, joining the Green Berets so she can melt into the jungle and come back with human-body-part trophies, dead to her previous life? Every story in this book could be made up. Every story is too real to be disbelieved.

It's about how we look at the world, how we draw the lines between ourselves and the emptiness surrounding our little sparks. By layering fact and experience, it's about how we can force death to a draw, play the game out longer, relish another morning of not being dead yet. Heartbeats and friends are all we have.

[Michael Lunsford · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a thought provoking and heart wrenching work that is told over the series of small stories. While each story starts abruptly they tend to have common themes and share the same set of characters more or less told in chronological order from events of the war in Vietnam. Those stories blend truth and fiction so much so that the reader doesn't really know what's real, but that is one of the main themes of the book. It is an emotional ride where you really feel for the characters told in stories full of their experiences from Vietnam and how it has shaped and changed them forever. The stories of sadness, loss, longing, and the struggle to find a way back in society after war will really pull at the readers heart-strings. Highly recommended read.

[Dat Tran · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tim O’ Brien illuminated the emotional and physical burdens soldiers carried during the Vietnam War. His style of writing is both straightforward and eloquent. The soldiers were referred to as tangibles and intangibles. Unlike the tangibles items, the intangibles were something the soldiers would not, and could not, physically set down. The book itself contains interconnected stories about the soldiers. O’Brien was able to link the gaps between each character and formed a cohesive story. His work impacted my writing style because it is very intricate and deep, thus, challenging the mind to think beyond what is present.

[Matt Bizzell · Rating 4 out of 5]

In the Lake of the Woods has gone down to 4 stars for me, because this read-through felt too familiar. Not because I've already read it a few times, but that I've just read more broadly in in postmodernism (and contemporary literature, in general), and for a book coming out in the mid-90s, it feels a lot older. I still really like the O'Brien message and the commitment to no resolution in this work, but it just doesn't do as much for me as it used to.

[Paul Courchene · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great set up for some very poignant moments. As far as combat autobiographies go this one was not stressful like Eugene Sledge's book or deep in details like Tommy Franks book but still a good short story to read.

[Marcia Ronsani · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nothing brings the reader the experience of Vietnam and how it shaped a generation like this book does.

[Rochelle]

*****

reread this year

[Karol.holden · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved this book. It moved me in ways I never expected. O'Brien's prose is intoxicating.

[Jody · Rating 4 out of 5]

having a hard time getting thru this one. It's ok so far. I am only about 1/2 way through it.

[Darren · Rating 5 out of 5]

just finished this book for the 2nd time and it got even better. I would recommend this to anyone, even if they are not into Vietnam. its more then a war story.

[Stephen Park · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have read these stories, as well as some of his other tales, and they are magical in understanding... especially if you are an old grunt.

[Ashton Boothroyd · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very emotional and heavy look into Vietnam.

[Barbara · Rating 5 out of 5]

Listing this b/c good reads won't let me record re-reading In the Lake of the Woods on its own.