BOOK REPORT: The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien

Title:            The Things They Carried 
Author:         Tim O'Brien
Copyright Date:  1990

My Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars ( good read)

Back-Cover Description
They carried malaria tablets, love letters, 28-pound mine detectors, dope, illustrated Bibles, each other. And, if they made it home alive, they carried unrelenting images of a nightmarish war that history is only beginning to absorb. Since its first publication, The Things They Carried has become an unparalleled Vietnam testament, a classic work of American literature, and a profound study of men at war that illuminates the capacity, and the limits, of the human heart and soul.

My Thoughts
The Things They Carried is a collection of short stories that tell of the author's time in Vietnam.  The odd thing about them is that they are fictional, but told as a direct memoir. Throughout the book, Tim O'Brien addresses the reader directly to talk about why he writes fictional stories about his experience during the war. He says that sometimes fiction is more truthful than the real thing. 

While this was a good book, The Things They Carried lacked the cohesion of the other war books I've read.  As I mentioned above, the author jumps back and forth between addressing the reader directly and addressing his memories.  Jumping back and forth between the two breaks up the flow of the book at times and seems redundant in certain occasions.  While most of the stories have a common thread that follows the natural passage of time in the war, you can tell that some of the stories were composed as separate entities, probably for different periodicals where one can't assume that the other ones have already been read. 

Like all good war stories, the reader is closely tied to the horrors, tension, boredom, solitude and camaraderie of war.  The stories revolve around the friendships formed and lost, and the soul searching which takes place everyday in a war zone.  The stories also touch on how a soldiers life is affected when returning from active combat; how you are never the same when you experience those horrors first hand. 

One of the more powerful stories for me actually takes place before Vietnam. It is about the author as a young man in a small Wisconsin town when he gets the dreaded draft letter.  He is forced to choose between possibly dying in a war that he didn't believe in and disappointing his family and community by running away across the Canadian border.  I honestly don't know what I would have done in his situation and I am glad I didn't have to make that choice. I also hope that Sims doesn't have to make it either when he gets to be draft age.

 I think I would have enjoyed it more not reading it cover to cover but by treating The Things They Carried as a magazine and spaced the readings out over a few months.  Each story is well written and deserves to be read in its own time.