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Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried
- Comprehensive reading and study guides for some of the world's most important literary masterpieces
- Concise critical excerpts provide a scholarly overview of each work
- "The Story Behind the Story" details the conditions under which the work was written
- Each book includes a biographical sketch of the author, a descriptive list of characters, an extensive summary and analysis, and an annotated bibliography.
- Concise critical excerpts provide a scholarly overview of each work
- "The Story Behind the Story" details the conditions under which the work was written
- Each book includes a biographical sketch of the author, a descriptive list of characters, an extensive summary and analysis, and an annotated bibliography.
149 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2004
About the author
Harold Bloom
1,708 books2,094 followersHarold Bloom was an American literary critic and the Sterling Professor of Humanities at Yale University. In 2017, Bloom was called "probably the most famous literary critic in the English-speaking world." After publishing his first book in 1959, Bloom wrote more than 50 books, including over 40 books of literary criticism, several books discussing religion, and one novel. He edited hundreds of anthologies concerning numerous literary and philosophical figures for the Chelsea House publishing firm. Bloom's books have been translated into more than 40 languages. He was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 1995.
Bloom was a defender of the traditional Western canon at a time when literature departments were focusing on what he derided as the "school of resentment" (multiculturalists, feminists, Marxists, and others). He was educated at Yale University, the University of Cambridge, and Cornell University.
Bloom was a defender of the traditional Western canon at a time when literature departments were focusing on what he derided as the "school of resentment" (multiculturalists, feminists, Marxists, and others). He was educated at Yale University, the University of Cambridge, and Cornell University.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 74 reviews
August 3, 2011
This book was a disappointment for me in spite of all the rave reviews it has gotten. The stories were well told but i got angry by the true stories versus untrue, the story-truths and the happening truths and the author repeated himself alot. I am in great conflict on my feelings for this one as the stories were in fact good and i am ashamed for not being able to consider this a brillant war story since the writer is obviously a Vet and i have no doubt his war experiences have haunted him deeply. I just felt like the whole truth would have served better and given it more depth. Then again perhaps as the author quoted, "In a true war story nothing is ever true." My favorite was the story of Norman Bowker and his return home and his drive around the lake. I must admit that part was brillant. I gave this one 3 stars.
May 18, 2014
This review and additional information about Tim O'Brien is available on my blog: www.shortstoryinsights.com
The Things They Carried is a semi-autobiographical collection of interconnected short stories, some of them loosely structured fragments and vignettes, that represent O’Brien’s reflections on the Vietnam War experience written at the age of 43. The Things They Carried was first published in 1990, twenty years after Tim O’Brien returned home from the Vietnam War. In 2010 a 20-year anniversary edition was published of this now-classic work.
New York Times Reviewer Robert R. Harris considers The Things We Carried an exceptional war narrative because O’Brien is able to move “beyond the horror of the fighting to examine with sensitivity and insight the nature of courage and fear, by questioning the role that imagination plays in helping to form our memories and our own versions of truth” (http://www.nytimes.com/books/98/09/20...)
Although these stories are often brutal and graphic, for which the book has been placed on many Banned Book lists, it is the psychological effects of war and its aftermath that are the focus of O’Brien’s writing.
“They carried all they could bear, and then some, including a silent awe for the terrible power of the things they carried.”
In “The Things They Carried,” the collection’s first and strongest story and arguably one of the best short narratives written about the Vietnam War, O’Brien introduces the seven grunts of his platoon—the Alpha Group. We follow them into the jungles of Vietnam and grow to know them individually through the litany of things they lug with them into combat—the tangible and the intangible, the physical and the psychological, the “mundane” and the “deadly.” (http://www.nytimes.com/books/98/09/20...)
Henry Dobbins carried his girlfriend’s pantyhose around his neck for good luck. Kiowa carried his grandfather’s feathered hatchet and his grandmother’s distrust of the white man. Rat Kiley carried comic books and M&Ms. Norman Bowker carried the thumb of a VC corpse. Ted Lavender was carrying toilet paper and tranquilizers when he was shot and killed. Lee Strunk carried a slingshot as “a weapon of last resort.”
In addition to the individual things these men carry with them day after day, O’Brien also describes what they carry in common:
“Often, they carried each other, the wounded or weak. They carried infectons. They carried chess sets, basketballs, Vietnamese-English dictionares, insignia of rank, Bronze Starsand Purple Hearts, plastic cards imprinted with the Code of Conduct. They carried diseases, among them malaria and dysentery. They carried lice and ringworm and leeches and paddy algae and various rots and molds. They carried the land itself—Vietnam, the place, the soil—a powdery orange-red dust that covered their boots and fatigues and faces. They carried the sky.” (p. 14)
And he describes the psychological burden of the “greatest fear” carried by these soldiers wherever they go:
They carried all the emotional baggage of men who might die. Grief, terror, love, longing—these were the intangible, 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 barely restrained, the instinct to run or freeze or hide, and in many respects this was the heaviest burden of all, for it could never be put down, it required perfect balance and perfect posture. They carried their reputations. They carried the soldier’s greatest fear, which was the fear of blushing. Men killed, and died, because they were embarrassed not to. It was what had brought them to the war in the first place, nothng positive, no dreams of glory or honor, just to avoid the blush of dishonor. They died so as not to die of embarrassment. (p. 20)
Although these soldiers often dump the tangible things they carry to lighten their loads as they trudge through the bush, the heavier psychological burdens they carry, including witnessing one anothers’ deaths, cannot be cast off.
Several grunts of the Alpha Group appear in later stories in the collection as they hump the boonies or die in combat or struggle to find their way back into the real world and give meaning to their new lives.
The Man He Killed
O’Brien’s first grenade victim is introduced in the powerful story “The Man I Killed.” Scarred by guilt following the incident, O’Brien is continually haunted by the dead soldier’s image which he has memorized in detail. He tortures himself by fantasizing “a constellation of possibilities” that could have awaited this young man, had he lived. “The man I killed” was possibly a mathematics scholar, O’Brien imagines, who “took pleasure in the grace and beauty of differential equations” and dreamed of being a teacher. He wrote romantic poems at night and had fallen in love with a classmate who liked his quiet manner. Although he was not a fighter, “the man I killed” had been taught “that to defend the land was a man’s highest duty and highest privilege.” (p. 119) He had accepted this patriotic duty, but he hoped and prayed that the Americans would go away so that his bravery would not be tested, lest he disgrace his family and village.
“The man I killed” reappears in the next story, “Ambush,” as O’Brien imagines telling his daughter about throwing the grenade outside of the village of My Khe that blew the sandals off the young soldier. “Even now I haven’t finished sorting it out,” he confides.
“Sometimes I forgive myself, other times I don’t. In the ordinary hours of life I try not to dwell on it, but now and then, when I’m reading a newspaper or just sitting alone in a room, I’ll look up and see the young man step out of the morning fog.” (p. 128)
“Everything swirls”
“How to Tell a True War Story” is a recurring theme woven throughout the book, but the story that bears that title explores the relationship between storytelling and the war experience and the difficulty in trying to find an elusive truth, especially when the distinctions between memory and imagination become blurred over time. O’Brien writes:
“For the common soldier, at least, war has the feel—the spiritual texture—of a great ghostly fog, thick and permanent. There is no clarity. Everything swirls. The old rules are no longer binding, the old truths no longer true. Right spills over into wrong. Order blends into chaos, love into hate, ugliness into beauty, law into anarchy, civility into savagery. The vapors suck you in. You can’t tell where you are, or why you’re there, and the only certainty is overwhelming ambiguity.
In war you lose your sense of the definite, hence your sense of truth itself, and therefore it’s safe to say that in a true war story nothing is ever absolutely true.” (p. 78)
Telling the truth about war, O’Brien acknowledges, is nearly impossible because war is a contradiction. “War is hell,” he writes, “but that’s not the half of it, because war is also mystery and terror and adventure and courage and discovery and holiness and pity and despair and longing and love. War is nasty; war is fun. War is thrilling; war is drudgery.” (p. 76). Generalizing about war, according to O’Brien “is like generalizing about peace. Almost everything is true. Almost nothing is true.” (p. 77)
But this much is true, according to O’Brien: “You can tell a true war story by the way it never seems to end. Not then, not ever.” (p. 72)
My Favorites
Although “The Things They Carried” is the collection’s strongest story, “On the Rainy River” is my favorite. The only story in the collection that takes place before O’Brien goes to Vietnam, it is a highly autobiographical and powerfully emotional account of a young man’s struggle with his conscience before making the “cowardly” decision to go to war.
It’s hard to differentiate O’Brien the fiction writer from O’Brien the 21-year-old narrator who receives his draft notice in this story:
“I remember opening up the letter, scanning the first few lines feeling the blood go thick behind my eyes. I remember a sound in my head. It wasn’t thinking, just a silent howl. A million things all at once—I was too good for this war. Too smart too compassionate, too everything. It couldn’t happen. I was above it. I had the world dicked—Phi beta Kappa and summa cum laude and president of the student body and a full-ride scholarship for grad studies at Harvard. A mistake, maybe—a foul-up in the paperwork. I was no soldier. I hated Boy Scouts. I hated camping out. I hated dirt and tents and mosquitoes. The sight of blood made me queasy, and I couldn’t tolerate authority, and I didn’t know a rifle from a slingshot. I was a liberal, for Christ sake: If they needed fresh bodies, why not draft some back-to-the-stone-age hawk?” (pp. 39-40)
Uncertain whether to flee north or head to Vietnam, the narrator spends six days alone on the American-Canadian border, agonizing over his decision. He comes within 20 yards of the Canadian border and then instantly sweeps readers right into the middle of his emotional quandary (O’Brien at this best):
“You’re at the bow of a boat on the Rainy River. You’re twenty-one years old, you’re scared, and there’s a hard squeezing pressure in your chest.
What would you do?
Would you jump? Would you feel pity for yourself? Would you think about your family and your childhood and your dreams and all you’re leaving behind? Would it hurt? Wouldit feel like dying? Would you cry, as I did?” (p. 54)
Although the narrator insists he tried to will himself overboard, he found he could not do it. Not unlike “the man I killed” in Vietnam who reluctantly went to war to defend his land, the narrator could not risk the embarrassment to his family, his town, and himself by deserting his country. “I couldn’t make myself brave,” he confesses. “I would go to the war,” he writes, “I would kill and maybe die—because I was embarrassed not to.” (p. 57)
The Things They Carried is a semi-autobiographical collection of interconnected short stories, some of them loosely structured fragments and vignettes, that represent O’Brien’s reflections on the Vietnam War experience written at the age of 43. The Things They Carried was first published in 1990, twenty years after Tim O’Brien returned home from the Vietnam War. In 2010 a 20-year anniversary edition was published of this now-classic work.
New York Times Reviewer Robert R. Harris considers The Things We Carried an exceptional war narrative because O’Brien is able to move “beyond the horror of the fighting to examine with sensitivity and insight the nature of courage and fear, by questioning the role that imagination plays in helping to form our memories and our own versions of truth” (http://www.nytimes.com/books/98/09/20...)
Although these stories are often brutal and graphic, for which the book has been placed on many Banned Book lists, it is the psychological effects of war and its aftermath that are the focus of O’Brien’s writing.
“They carried all they could bear, and then some, including a silent awe for the terrible power of the things they carried.”
In “The Things They Carried,” the collection’s first and strongest story and arguably one of the best short narratives written about the Vietnam War, O’Brien introduces the seven grunts of his platoon—the Alpha Group. We follow them into the jungles of Vietnam and grow to know them individually through the litany of things they lug with them into combat—the tangible and the intangible, the physical and the psychological, the “mundane” and the “deadly.” (http://www.nytimes.com/books/98/09/20...)
Henry Dobbins carried his girlfriend’s pantyhose around his neck for good luck. Kiowa carried his grandfather’s feathered hatchet and his grandmother’s distrust of the white man. Rat Kiley carried comic books and M&Ms. Norman Bowker carried the thumb of a VC corpse. Ted Lavender was carrying toilet paper and tranquilizers when he was shot and killed. Lee Strunk carried a slingshot as “a weapon of last resort.”
In addition to the individual things these men carry with them day after day, O’Brien also describes what they carry in common:
“Often, they carried each other, the wounded or weak. They carried infectons. They carried chess sets, basketballs, Vietnamese-English dictionares, insignia of rank, Bronze Starsand Purple Hearts, plastic cards imprinted with the Code of Conduct. They carried diseases, among them malaria and dysentery. They carried lice and ringworm and leeches and paddy algae and various rots and molds. They carried the land itself—Vietnam, the place, the soil—a powdery orange-red dust that covered their boots and fatigues and faces. They carried the sky.” (p. 14)
And he describes the psychological burden of the “greatest fear” carried by these soldiers wherever they go:
They carried all the emotional baggage of men who might die. Grief, terror, love, longing—these were the intangible, 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 barely restrained, the instinct to run or freeze or hide, and in many respects this was the heaviest burden of all, for it could never be put down, it required perfect balance and perfect posture. They carried their reputations. They carried the soldier’s greatest fear, which was the fear of blushing. Men killed, and died, because they were embarrassed not to. It was what had brought them to the war in the first place, nothng positive, no dreams of glory or honor, just to avoid the blush of dishonor. They died so as not to die of embarrassment. (p. 20)
Although these soldiers often dump the tangible things they carry to lighten their loads as they trudge through the bush, the heavier psychological burdens they carry, including witnessing one anothers’ deaths, cannot be cast off.
Several grunts of the Alpha Group appear in later stories in the collection as they hump the boonies or die in combat or struggle to find their way back into the real world and give meaning to their new lives.
The Man He Killed
O’Brien’s first grenade victim is introduced in the powerful story “The Man I Killed.” Scarred by guilt following the incident, O’Brien is continually haunted by the dead soldier’s image which he has memorized in detail. He tortures himself by fantasizing “a constellation of possibilities” that could have awaited this young man, had he lived. “The man I killed” was possibly a mathematics scholar, O’Brien imagines, who “took pleasure in the grace and beauty of differential equations” and dreamed of being a teacher. He wrote romantic poems at night and had fallen in love with a classmate who liked his quiet manner. Although he was not a fighter, “the man I killed” had been taught “that to defend the land was a man’s highest duty and highest privilege.” (p. 119) He had accepted this patriotic duty, but he hoped and prayed that the Americans would go away so that his bravery would not be tested, lest he disgrace his family and village.
“The man I killed” reappears in the next story, “Ambush,” as O’Brien imagines telling his daughter about throwing the grenade outside of the village of My Khe that blew the sandals off the young soldier. “Even now I haven’t finished sorting it out,” he confides.
“Sometimes I forgive myself, other times I don’t. In the ordinary hours of life I try not to dwell on it, but now and then, when I’m reading a newspaper or just sitting alone in a room, I’ll look up and see the young man step out of the morning fog.” (p. 128)
“Everything swirls”
“How to Tell a True War Story” is a recurring theme woven throughout the book, but the story that bears that title explores the relationship between storytelling and the war experience and the difficulty in trying to find an elusive truth, especially when the distinctions between memory and imagination become blurred over time. O’Brien writes:
“For the common soldier, at least, war has the feel—the spiritual texture—of a great ghostly fog, thick and permanent. There is no clarity. Everything swirls. The old rules are no longer binding, the old truths no longer true. Right spills over into wrong. Order blends into chaos, love into hate, ugliness into beauty, law into anarchy, civility into savagery. The vapors suck you in. You can’t tell where you are, or why you’re there, and the only certainty is overwhelming ambiguity.
In war you lose your sense of the definite, hence your sense of truth itself, and therefore it’s safe to say that in a true war story nothing is ever absolutely true.” (p. 78)
Telling the truth about war, O’Brien acknowledges, is nearly impossible because war is a contradiction. “War is hell,” he writes, “but that’s not the half of it, because war is also mystery and terror and adventure and courage and discovery and holiness and pity and despair and longing and love. War is nasty; war is fun. War is thrilling; war is drudgery.” (p. 76). Generalizing about war, according to O’Brien “is like generalizing about peace. Almost everything is true. Almost nothing is true.” (p. 77)
But this much is true, according to O’Brien: “You can tell a true war story by the way it never seems to end. Not then, not ever.” (p. 72)
My Favorites
Although “The Things They Carried” is the collection’s strongest story, “On the Rainy River” is my favorite. The only story in the collection that takes place before O’Brien goes to Vietnam, it is a highly autobiographical and powerfully emotional account of a young man’s struggle with his conscience before making the “cowardly” decision to go to war.
It’s hard to differentiate O’Brien the fiction writer from O’Brien the 21-year-old narrator who receives his draft notice in this story:
“I remember opening up the letter, scanning the first few lines feeling the blood go thick behind my eyes. I remember a sound in my head. It wasn’t thinking, just a silent howl. A million things all at once—I was too good for this war. Too smart too compassionate, too everything. It couldn’t happen. I was above it. I had the world dicked—Phi beta Kappa and summa cum laude and president of the student body and a full-ride scholarship for grad studies at Harvard. A mistake, maybe—a foul-up in the paperwork. I was no soldier. I hated Boy Scouts. I hated camping out. I hated dirt and tents and mosquitoes. The sight of blood made me queasy, and I couldn’t tolerate authority, and I didn’t know a rifle from a slingshot. I was a liberal, for Christ sake: If they needed fresh bodies, why not draft some back-to-the-stone-age hawk?” (pp. 39-40)
Uncertain whether to flee north or head to Vietnam, the narrator spends six days alone on the American-Canadian border, agonizing over his decision. He comes within 20 yards of the Canadian border and then instantly sweeps readers right into the middle of his emotional quandary (O’Brien at this best):
“You’re at the bow of a boat on the Rainy River. You’re twenty-one years old, you’re scared, and there’s a hard squeezing pressure in your chest.
What would you do?
Would you jump? Would you feel pity for yourself? Would you think about your family and your childhood and your dreams and all you’re leaving behind? Would it hurt? Wouldit feel like dying? Would you cry, as I did?” (p. 54)
Although the narrator insists he tried to will himself overboard, he found he could not do it. Not unlike “the man I killed” in Vietnam who reluctantly went to war to defend his land, the narrator could not risk the embarrassment to his family, his town, and himself by deserting his country. “I couldn’t make myself brave,” he confesses. “I would go to the war,” he writes, “I would kill and maybe die—because I was embarrassed not to.” (p. 57)
July 9, 2010
This book is an unforgettable masterpiece. Run to your library or book store if you have not had the pleasure of reading this meditation on the nature of war. Check it out, buy it, savor it and join me in this sensual journey into hell. Warning though – beautiful as it is – it is not for the fainthearted.
I have been so blown away by O’Brien’s writing skill that I approach this review with some trepidation, because no matter what I write, it pales in comparison to what I am writing about. O’Brien wrenches, pulls, pushes and tugs the reader, heart, mind and soul, into the vignettes that comprise this book. This is not a novel, it is not a series of short stories. The closest I can come to describing it is the word meditation in a series of vignettes concerning a group of very different boys, in a war that should never have been fought. The title comes from the idea that each of these boys has baggage of some kind weighing him down, not just 40 pounds of war supplies (baggage) carried upon their backs, but each of them also carry individual tokens or keepsakes (baggage) that O’Brien links to their values, beliefs, past and personalities – that which makes them individuals in situations made to stamp out individuality.
A few months ago I read The Zookeeper’s Wife, a book that critics said was a feast for the senses and which I thought was completely over-written and contrived. I think that Ackerman was trying to achieve exactly what O’Brien actually achieved, and achieved masterfully when he composed The Things They Carried. I use the word composed because he pulls in each of our five senses as if each was an instrument in an orchestra, and this composition becomes an organic sum of the experiences of what must have been like in Vietnam through the harmony and individuality of each sense. He is a genius at evoking what it must be like to experience, actually experience, the horror of war through the senses, the gurgle and coppery smell of blood from a dying VC, the wails and shrieks of children burned by napalm, the dull eyes of death, the sucking of the mud into which your buddy falls from a fatal wound, the stagnant water, the stench of a field that doubles as a sewer, the rain, rain, rain, the acrid burn of stomach acid, the thin pages of a bible carried by a buddy, the ever-present mosquito repellent .
It is also about the transformative power and evil of war, about how it twists – not exactly a tabula rasa – but a fully formed person into something else. That something is not always attractive. He is brutally and completely honest. I have to say that I was taken aback at the idea that one would be too embarrassed to NOT kill, too embarrassed to not take the courageous path to Canada. I shouldn’t have been, because non-conformity goes against human nature, and this is why we have more wars than conscientious objectors.
O’Brien’s style has been compared to Hemingway. I have no earthly clue why. Hemingway’s spare, bare bones style forces the reader to fill in the blanks. O’Brien wraps the reader in sensory clues about the inner feelings and external influences of the characters. You do not have to fill in anything. It is all there for you to smell, taste, see, hear, touch and imagine.
This book deserves 5 stars because it is amazing. It deserves more because it is transformative and it pokes at areas of raw affect that are not always readily available. How can that level of feeling or emotion be easily available? We cannot feel that deeply often, otherwise we’d be basket cases. For me this book evoked a deep flow of anger, sadness, frustration and meditative experiences that most works never come close to inducing. It touched me in a way that few other books ever have. Reading this book has been an unforgettable experience.
I have been so blown away by O’Brien’s writing skill that I approach this review with some trepidation, because no matter what I write, it pales in comparison to what I am writing about. O’Brien wrenches, pulls, pushes and tugs the reader, heart, mind and soul, into the vignettes that comprise this book. This is not a novel, it is not a series of short stories. The closest I can come to describing it is the word meditation in a series of vignettes concerning a group of very different boys, in a war that should never have been fought. The title comes from the idea that each of these boys has baggage of some kind weighing him down, not just 40 pounds of war supplies (baggage) carried upon their backs, but each of them also carry individual tokens or keepsakes (baggage) that O’Brien links to their values, beliefs, past and personalities – that which makes them individuals in situations made to stamp out individuality.
A few months ago I read The Zookeeper’s Wife, a book that critics said was a feast for the senses and which I thought was completely over-written and contrived. I think that Ackerman was trying to achieve exactly what O’Brien actually achieved, and achieved masterfully when he composed The Things They Carried. I use the word composed because he pulls in each of our five senses as if each was an instrument in an orchestra, and this composition becomes an organic sum of the experiences of what must have been like in Vietnam through the harmony and individuality of each sense. He is a genius at evoking what it must be like to experience, actually experience, the horror of war through the senses, the gurgle and coppery smell of blood from a dying VC, the wails and shrieks of children burned by napalm, the dull eyes of death, the sucking of the mud into which your buddy falls from a fatal wound, the stagnant water, the stench of a field that doubles as a sewer, the rain, rain, rain, the acrid burn of stomach acid, the thin pages of a bible carried by a buddy, the ever-present mosquito repellent .
It is also about the transformative power and evil of war, about how it twists – not exactly a tabula rasa – but a fully formed person into something else. That something is not always attractive. He is brutally and completely honest. I have to say that I was taken aback at the idea that one would be too embarrassed to NOT kill, too embarrassed to not take the courageous path to Canada. I shouldn’t have been, because non-conformity goes against human nature, and this is why we have more wars than conscientious objectors.
O’Brien’s style has been compared to Hemingway. I have no earthly clue why. Hemingway’s spare, bare bones style forces the reader to fill in the blanks. O’Brien wraps the reader in sensory clues about the inner feelings and external influences of the characters. You do not have to fill in anything. It is all there for you to smell, taste, see, hear, touch and imagine.
This book deserves 5 stars because it is amazing. It deserves more because it is transformative and it pokes at areas of raw affect that are not always readily available. How can that level of feeling or emotion be easily available? We cannot feel that deeply often, otherwise we’d be basket cases. For me this book evoked a deep flow of anger, sadness, frustration and meditative experiences that most works never come close to inducing. It touched me in a way that few other books ever have. Reading this book has been an unforgettable experience.
March 11, 2026
This book was intense but through its story telling it left messages of how war should not be glorified and the emotional burdens one carries from it. The unreliable narrator and fragmented storytelling allows one to see meaning often comes from interpretation as feeling something is more powerful than understanding it. This author is clever and does a wonderful job of allowing individuals to feel the impact of war. After reading this book I felt both heartbroken and inspired.
Read
June 9, 2010The " The things they carried " by Tim O'Brien is an electrifying read , if war stories weather real or fiction are in your interest it's a good book to pick up and read. I liked this book in many ways; I enjoyed the authors detail and description of the war and the scenery, he gave you a clue of everything and detailed it so well that you could see the blood gore or feel the sadness and madness the soldiers expressed. I felt confused and wonder when Mark Fossie brought his hometown sweetheart to come out to Nam i stressed it that would anyone in there right mind come to a battle field being a female and in one of the most dangerous war we have experienced. The character development was an interest to my to reading of soldiers that our out there fighting and connect it to your own experienced of having family or friends in war, This book remind of me "Fallen Soldiers" by Walter Dean Myers because both books talk of the facts of war and what type of change it brings to a individuals life and the description and detail it prevailed
February 18, 2008
O'Brien's smart. O'Brien's a good writer. technically. but this book is all smoke, mirrors and mirrors and smoke. smoked mirrors. mirrored smoke.
i got so upset reading this book (upset at the way it's constructed. upset as the intention. the games O'Brien plays). so upset i must recommend it as a must-read.
i got so upset reading this book (upset at the way it's constructed. upset as the intention. the games O'Brien plays). so upset i must recommend it as a must-read.
July 29, 2018
The Things They Carried by Tim O’ Brien
So one of worst things that could happened to my wallet has occurred in the last few months. The small house next door has been renovated into a thrift store with a steady ever changing collection of used books. And with my book wormy tendencies, that cannot be healthy at all, because I’ve been buying books there. Today's book came from there. It is a book I got there called The Things They Carried by Tim O’ Brien.
The book's is a nonfiction collection of stories recollecting various events of a soldier and his platoon in Vietnam. The stories vary conceptually and are engaging tales that are written in a beautiful fashion. One tale is about his first day in the war. Another is about how at first he ran away to Canada when he was drafted, but met an old man who made him come back. Then there are the bizarre stories such as how his friend died in a river of poo or how man smuggled his girlfriend onto a medical base, and how her new found fascination and love for killing people led her into the jungle to never seen again. The stories tie to each other roughly but not all are not chronological and are much more emotionally driven than action driven.
The good? This is amazingly entertaining. The tales are short, yet wonderfully detailed and thought provoking at the same time. The stories are abstract, odd, and wonderfully raw. The author does not tell the tale of true blue heroes fighting for their country, but as fragile young naive broken men, who often times take on a bizarre morbid sense of humor to handle things or must travel down a dark road that leaves them on the brink of insanity. It’s dark, gritty and wonderfully written.
The bad? I really wish there was something bad to say about this book, but there isn’t. Every story here is great and it is paced out incredibly well.
Overall, it’s a great book that everyone should read. Even if you don’t like war, this is still a piece of history. And I feel that everyone to some extent should understand what terrible things these soldiers went through. And O’ Brien here is just a great writer on top of all of that. Much like Michael Crichton, he could probably write a cooking recipe that’s exciting. So just read it if you get a chance.
4 smoothies out of four
Overall Rating: A Dark Gritty Emotional Tale of War
So one of worst things that could happened to my wallet has occurred in the last few months. The small house next door has been renovated into a thrift store with a steady ever changing collection of used books. And with my book wormy tendencies, that cannot be healthy at all, because I’ve been buying books there. Today's book came from there. It is a book I got there called The Things They Carried by Tim O’ Brien.
The book's is a nonfiction collection of stories recollecting various events of a soldier and his platoon in Vietnam. The stories vary conceptually and are engaging tales that are written in a beautiful fashion. One tale is about his first day in the war. Another is about how at first he ran away to Canada when he was drafted, but met an old man who made him come back. Then there are the bizarre stories such as how his friend died in a river of poo or how man smuggled his girlfriend onto a medical base, and how her new found fascination and love for killing people led her into the jungle to never seen again. The stories tie to each other roughly but not all are not chronological and are much more emotionally driven than action driven.
The good? This is amazingly entertaining. The tales are short, yet wonderfully detailed and thought provoking at the same time. The stories are abstract, odd, and wonderfully raw. The author does not tell the tale of true blue heroes fighting for their country, but as fragile young naive broken men, who often times take on a bizarre morbid sense of humor to handle things or must travel down a dark road that leaves them on the brink of insanity. It’s dark, gritty and wonderfully written.
The bad? I really wish there was something bad to say about this book, but there isn’t. Every story here is great and it is paced out incredibly well.
Overall, it’s a great book that everyone should read. Even if you don’t like war, this is still a piece of history. And I feel that everyone to some extent should understand what terrible things these soldiers went through. And O’ Brien here is just a great writer on top of all of that. Much like Michael Crichton, he could probably write a cooking recipe that’s exciting. So just read it if you get a chance.
4 smoothies out of four
Overall Rating: A Dark Gritty Emotional Tale of War
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December 12, 2024Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried is a powerful collection of interconnected stories set during the Vietnam War, following a group of soldiers as they face both the physical dangers of combat and the emotional burdens it places on them. The main characters include Lieutenant Jimmy Cross, burdened by his responsibility and love for a girl named Martha; Tim O'Brien, the narrator, who reflects on his war experiences; Kiowa, a spiritual and grounded soldier; and Rat Kiley, a medic struggling with the war's psychological toll. The book explores external conflicts of combat and internal struggles of fear, guilt, and trauma. I found the novel extremely interesting, with Tim O’Brien's poetic writing capturing the complexity of the soldiers' emotional lives. The symbolic "things" they carry, representing both physical and emotional weight, added depth to the story. I highly recommend this novel for those interested in war literature or psychological fiction, as it focuses not just on the battles, but on the lasting effects of war. The emotional bonds between the soldiers and the way O’Brien handles trauma made this a memorable and impactful read. When reading I was truly engaged in too what I was reading. There wasn't a time when I didn't know what was going on. I liked the authenticity of the characters and the way they bond under extreme circumstances is also a favorite aspect, as it shows their vulnerability and humanity amid the horrors they face.
April 24, 2018
This touching ensemble of stories about the Vietnam War by Tim O'Brien is told in a discombobulated way as if the author himself is confused by his own words, creating a perfect parallel to the mindset that so many had about this ravaging conflict. Why are we doing this? What does it offer us?
We are willing to listen to the stories of people killing others but his loss of self and loss of purpose told the stories that so many of us are afraid to listen to sometimes. It is saddening and awakening to listen to the stories that people are scared to listen to, and O'Brien does an exceptional job telling them.
We are willing to listen to the stories of people killing others but his loss of self and loss of purpose told the stories that so many of us are afraid to listen to sometimes. It is saddening and awakening to listen to the stories that people are scared to listen to, and O'Brien does an exceptional job telling them.
May 4, 2024
The Things They Carried, by Tim O'brien goes through multiple different war stories of different soldiers who were drafted into the Vietnam war. The common theme throughout the novel deals with the coping mechanisms, and strategies younger soliders, who still are not fully matured, take in attempts to deal with different situations such as the loss of their friends, the yearn to be back from war living a normal life, and other issues that put them in places where coping is necessary. Overall , I really enjoyed this novel, however one thing I did not like was how there were multiple different stories within the book. Each chapter was a different story which I did not enjoy.
June 3, 2025
O'Brien tends to break the rules of grammar and syntax to create sentences that I would write in high school. Out of solidarity, I say, you're doing too much. The idea of capturing scenes of war in a kaleidoscopic fashion where you don't know what's real and what's not is beautiful and, I'm sure, both heartfelt and heartbreaking in its accuracy. But not every other sentence has to be "profound" and "artistic"!
January 24, 2023
This book was about Tim Obrien and his journey throughout his journey in Vietnam. It was about why people tell stories and a lot of other questions. I rated it this because it wasnt my type of book or my favorite but it definitely wasn't bad.
September 18, 2023
There is a lot of power in simple words describing complex feelings and events. The way that this book was written tells a story and pulls you into it, then describes why and how we tell stories is so important. I really enjoyed this book.
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January 7, 2024Read this book the first time in high school and was encouraged to read it again through a few of my fellow service members. Was able to connect with the stories and the purpose behind them much more than as a 17 year old kid with no worries.
October 4, 2017
this is the story of a american soldier who is at war. A first person story of the american soldier. I really enjoyed this book because i enjoy fighting books.
July 1, 2021
Pretty emotional story ... the emotional and physical trials of those who fought in Viet Nam War!
August 28, 2021
One of the best I've read on Vietnam Veterans, and it's a sadly-beautiful piece of literature.
May 11, 2022
This is storytelling at its best. You won’t just read this book, you will experience it!
September 5, 2022
Great insight to Vietnam soldiers
October 17, 2023
only read the first short story for school but why is it so sexist
December 30, 2023
no notes.
March 2, 2024
A book from last month that I forgot, mainly, because I really wanted to block it out.
I’m starting through personal experience to understand the validity of emotional triggers.
I’m starting through personal experience to understand the validity of emotional triggers.
April 7, 2025
I wanted to read this book so bad it was so good but I had to quit because there was to much swearing and ect.
April 10, 2025
It’s a really good book but it’s not something I’d re-read.
September 16, 2022
great insights. The summary and the analysis in it are a particular standout. The “critical views,” though, are a hit-or-miss, though more miss than hit for me… it can just be that I’m too dumb and delirious to understand them, though.
August 13, 2010
I was not able to finish the book on time, but I read about 158 pages. The book of "The Things They Carried" was a very fabulous book, but might be very confusing. The writer Tim O'Brien has made the Vietnam war an astonishing way of making it realistic as possible. Putting details to the book had really hit you and made you have a part in the book. This book made you think throughout the whole story.
Making this book kind of realistic has thought you how the Vietnam was very brutal. Throughout the story four soldiers that die. One is named Ted Lavender. He is a scarred guy that carries a lot of ammo, but soon within the story he dies. Tim O'Brien did an ashtonishing job of explaining how he died. "There was a swollen black bruise under his left eye." "The cheekbone was gone." Tim also tells you how the all the troops did when the Vietnamese shot Ted Lavenders. Some of the troopers shot shot wildly and the rest couldn't even a muscle. There is also three more that died which are Curt Lemon, Rat Kiley, and Kiowa. To see how they died you should read the book.
Not like other war stories that they just keep you in war, but Tim O'Brien didn't do that. Well he did ,but he explained the lives of each charcter in the book. It may get confusing threwout the story, but soon the story will come back again and soon you will get the point again. Not finishing this novel made me still wanting to finish the book becuase it made me think of the war and how this book was such a good novel.
Making this book kind of realistic has thought you how the Vietnam was very brutal. Throughout the story four soldiers that die. One is named Ted Lavender. He is a scarred guy that carries a lot of ammo, but soon within the story he dies. Tim O'Brien did an ashtonishing job of explaining how he died. "There was a swollen black bruise under his left eye." "The cheekbone was gone." Tim also tells you how the all the troops did when the Vietnamese shot Ted Lavenders. Some of the troopers shot shot wildly and the rest couldn't even a muscle. There is also three more that died which are Curt Lemon, Rat Kiley, and Kiowa. To see how they died you should read the book.
Not like other war stories that they just keep you in war, but Tim O'Brien didn't do that. Well he did ,but he explained the lives of each charcter in the book. It may get confusing threwout the story, but soon the story will come back again and soon you will get the point again. Not finishing this novel made me still wanting to finish the book becuase it made me think of the war and how this book was such a good novel.
November 17, 2012
The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien is phenomenal war story about the soldiers of the Vietnam War. O’Brien depicts what the men have to carry with them throughout the war. He shows that the soldiers not only carry what is on their backs, but they carry fear, passion, excitement, anger and sadness with them along their journey in the war. O’Brien also shares his story about being a soldier and how it affected him before he went into the war and after he left the war. He not only gives his story, but he shares his comrade’s stories as well. He tries to give the reader the truth about war and to tell the reader there is no real meaning to war, it is just war. The story truly shows the Vietnam War through the soldier’s eyes and heart. Tim O’Brien does this by telling what the men carried for protection mentally such as one soldier would ware panty hoses around his neck as his lucky charm. He also told a story of when one of his fellow soldiers dies he witness a soldier that was close to the dead soldier taking out his anger and depression out on an animal by shooting it and kicking it. The Things They Carried really showed me what it was like for soldiers at war, I felt like I could walk in their shoes for a while. As I read the book my heart sadden for the soldiers that had and have to experience these emotions, fears and anxieties. I came away from the book appreciating the military and all that they do for me and my country.-Kristina Simpson
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May 27, 2014This book is about a young man who went to Vietnam. It real shows the war in a new light. EX, it talks more about the soldiers in the war than the war itself like when they talk about a commander had his girl friend shipped in and then after a couple of week lost her mind and began kill a lot of people there and then comparing Vietnam to a drug. They go through chapter explaining the weapons and gear and the weight of them. It also skips aloud a lot EX, the first chapter they are in Vietnam and the next they are back before the war. And the talking about the main characters abstains to go to war and how he was going to flee the county and move to Canada to escape the draft. And the few times someone dies the amount of information given about it is crazy. EX, May favorite character dies the native American, when he dies it almost repeats it self talking about how when this one guy siting next to him turns on a flash light to show my favorite character it reveals their position to the enemy and a mortar strict rains down on them in the S&*t field (as it was were the Vietnamese people pooped),and when he is sent under several feet of S#$t it talks a lot about how it happened and how it was his fault, and he had to find his body. Well any thing I don't like in this book is very well balanced out with the good and so I think that this is a very dramatic book with little to no action but that does not matter. The book is very good and I enjoyed it.
May 18, 2008
This is a wonderfull book by a master story teller. I read it with a class of Union Workers, most of them unwilling college students, almost forced to read works of fiction, non-fiction, and poetry. But they responded so enthusiastically to this book, we loved every session of the three weeks allocated to discussing this book.
The major reason was the truth of the book that will not grow old or redundant. Although Tim O' Brien tells the painfull story of Vietnam, the suffering of the characters was not lost on my men (many of them older than me). One thing that gave additional strength to the narrative, are the ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Almost everyone, pro and anti war had something to say about the book. Most of thosae comments and journals were great. What else does a teacher need?
And then the connection of the central character to the craft of Writing---one more reality for my class. Many of them, though very good writers, were reluctant writers nevertheless. O' Brien eased their pain somewhat, by putting forth his own struggle with his craft. I had some of the best papers to read from this class. At times, I myself identified with my O 'Brien, He became the trobadour, the ballad-singer, that could entrall the whole village/court.
The major reason was the truth of the book that will not grow old or redundant. Although Tim O' Brien tells the painfull story of Vietnam, the suffering of the characters was not lost on my men (many of them older than me). One thing that gave additional strength to the narrative, are the ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Almost everyone, pro and anti war had something to say about the book. Most of thosae comments and journals were great. What else does a teacher need?
And then the connection of the central character to the craft of Writing---one more reality for my class. Many of them, though very good writers, were reluctant writers nevertheless. O' Brien eased their pain somewhat, by putting forth his own struggle with his craft. I had some of the best papers to read from this class. At times, I myself identified with my O 'Brien, He became the trobadour, the ballad-singer, that could entrall the whole village/court.
June 8, 2015
"The Things They Carried" by Tim O'Brien is a book about love, courage and hope. In the novel, the narrator describes the things all the men of the company carry (hence the title.) Each of these things are more in the physical sense- mosquito repellent, marijuana, pocket knives and chewing gum, all of which can be used to defend and forget while battling out at war. The story revolves mainly around two characters, Jimmy Cross, lieutenant of the Alpha Company and Martha, the girl he is madly in love with. Throughout the book Cross carries letters and reminders of Martha, although he has only been on one date with her and is still curious about their love he cannot help but think about her 24/7 while he is out on the battle field. Towards the end of the novel Cross begins to come to conclusions that his fantasies about his love with Martha are pointless and only a dream that he carries within his heart, so he burns his memories of Martha along with all her letters and the two photographs of her he carried. Soon after he burns his love he plans to call his men of battle together and assume the blame for Lavender's death. Although they are all quite upset that they lost one of their soldiers he reminds himself that his job is not to be loved but to lead.
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