The Things They Carried

Tim O'Brien

A couple months back I picked up "The Things they Carried" and it went into one of the many book piles to wait until the inspiration to read it hit me.

Then, a couple weeks ago, Fanoula raved about it once more, so it moved up to the top of the stack. Glad it did.

At the beginning of the book is the disclaimer something to the effect that "the characters are fictional and with the exception of events in O'Brien's life the stories are fictional". I found that statement puzzliing, since O'Brien is in all but one of the stories (and the one he is not in directly he is the listener).

Two stories were particularly memorable to me, and the book as a whole was good. I can't think of a bad story, in fact. The best IMHO were "The Things they Carried", which is a fairly straightforward telling of what each person in the squad took into battle, not just equipment to fight with, but photos, good luck charms, and even 'mental' baggage. The other memorable one I'll mention was O'Brien's near flight to Canada after he was drafted, his trip north to Minnesota, and an old guy taking him within spitting distance of the border by boat. He considered his failure to swim to shore and avoid the draft as his major act of cowardice.

Although this book is of short stories, and any could, I believe, be read individually, characters and themes run through the stories making it read more like a novel than short stories.

It is obvious that this work is O'Brien's attempt to excorcise the demons of Vietnam. I wonder if he did?