- Paperback: 272 pages
- Publisher: Broadway; Reprint edition (Dec 29 1998)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0767902890
- ISBN-13: 978-0767902892
- Product Dimensions: 13.3 x 1.8 x 20.1 cm
- Shipping Weight: 249 g
- Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (370 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #112,651 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- See Complete Table of Contents
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Amazon
"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 --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.
From Publishers Weekly
Weapons and good-luck charms carried by U.S. soldiers in Vietnam here represent survival, lost innocence and the war's interminable legacy. "O'Brien's meditations--on war and memory, on darkness and light--suffuse the entire work with a kind of poetic form, making for a highly original, fully realized novel," said PW. 60,000 first printing.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.
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Most helpful customer reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Vietnam Revisited in all Its Shame and Glory,
By Ian Gordon Malcomson (Victoria, BC) - See all my reviews (HALL OF FAME) (TOP 10 REVIEWER) (REAL NAME)
This review is from: The Things They Carried (Paperback)
I've read plenty of books - fiction and non-fiction - on the subject of the Vietnam and none has come close to capturing the futility and pathos of the conflict like this one. O'Brien's stories about various defining personal moments in the war have a "Red Badge of Courage" ring to them. They are creatively expressed and thoughtfully arranged in such a way as to convey the maximum impact of war. The inexplicable event usually pops up from nowhere; the inopportune moment always seems to be lurking somewhere in some misty swamp of miasmic evil; and the inevitable ending in the form of death happens like clockwork. Bring these all together and the reader has the modern war that Tim O'Brien describes in so many different colours, shapes, sizes, and phases. While most, if not all, of O'Brien's tales are not based on actual experiences that he had while in Nam, the descriptions he offers create a vivid picture of what it might be like to enter this killing field where the rules of engagement are lost in a world of the surreal. The combat zone is where the soldier's life is defined by what he carries with while on patrol: love, fear, determination, memories, dogtags, keepsakes, loyalty and guilt. It is this last one that often haunts a soldier for years after, and becomes the dreadful unfinished business of war. Out of the recounting of many individual failings and inadequacies emerges the poignant image of a personal hell that many vets live with to this day. I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to enter into the soul of any large-scale conflict and discover what makes it tick. Trust me when I say it is a fascinating world that awaits you.
3.0 out of 5 stars
People you wouldn't want to know,
This review is from: The Things They Carried (Paperback)
I was encouraged to read this book about American troops in Vietnam by a friend who thought it wonderful. All I could think of as I read was "I would not want to know these people". There is, however, a lovely lyrical section in the middle of the book as the author tries to decide whether he will draft dodge to Canada. Worth reading.
5.0 out of 5 stars
An amazing book,
By Terence Herlz (Essen, Germany) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Things They Carried (Paperback)
THE THINGS THEY CARRIED is a powerful memoir in the form of a collection of short stories about the haunting life of Tim O'Brien and a company of soldiers in Vietnam.The Things They Carried was a thought-provoking and inspirational book. This highly vivid description of the Vietnam War kept me reading through the night until the last page. I am not a big reader but once I picked up this book I was reading for hours! This book gives a taste of Vietnam for those who were not there. The interesting thing about this book is that it tells the true life of the soldiers giving us a better idea of what the soldiers went, and what war really is. One comes close to understanding how the feelings from going to war, leaving their families behind them, losing loved friends, killing another man, and how the pathetic nature of the foods and sleeping conditions; all traumas of war that can change a human being forever. If you like war novels, then this is a must read. Even if you don't like war books and think they're all the same, read this and you will reconsider. One thing for sure is that you will appreciate the style of writing and the way it makes you think. You still get to laugh despite the deaths and destructions. The soldiers seem to taunt life with life and death games. Written with a deep message and in a manner similar to CHEKHOV AND TISI JANVIER, this anthology of related short stories about the Vietnam War portrays men who faced their fears, confronted danger, came out alive but became scarred for life.
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