Name: The Things They Carried
Rating: 4.122699386503068 (326 reviews)
ISBN: 9780767902892

Tim O'Brien

Heroic young men carry the emotional weight of their lives to war in Vietnam in a patchwork account of a modern journey into the heart of darkness

A Work of Fiction

The Things They Carried

Sadie Hoffman

“ ‘Once you’re alive, she said, you can’t ever be dead’ ”

Élise

… but his love was too much for him, he felt paralyzed, he wanted to sleep inside her lungs and breathe her blood and be smothered.

Brilliant. The chapter titled: "How to Tell a True War Story" specifically connected with me. I stuck so many sticky notes on the book it's insane.

Audric Kan

IBDP HL English Book:

Brilliant. The chapter titled: "How to Tell a True War Story" specifically connected with me. I stuck so many sticky notes on the book it's insane.

One of the first questions people ask about The Things They Carried is this: Is it a novel, or a collection of short stories? The title page refers to the book simply as "a work of fiction," defying the conscientious reader's need to categorize this masterpiece. It is both: a collection of interrelated short pieces which ultimately reads with the dramatic force and tension of a novel. Yet each one of the twenty-two short pieces is written with such care, emotional content, and prosaic precision that it could stand on its own. The Things They Carried depicts the men of Alpha Company: Jimmy Cross, Henry Dobbins, Rat Kiley, Mitchell Sanders, Norman Bowker, Kiowa, and of course, the character Tim O'Brien who has survived his tour in Vietnam to become a father and writer at the age of forty-three. They battle the enemy (or maybe more the idea of the enemy), and occasionally each other. In their relationships we see their isolation and loneliness, their rage and fear. They miss their families, their girlfriends and buddies; they miss the lives they left back home. Yet they find sympathy and kindness for strangers (the old man who leads them unscathed through the mine field, the girl who grieves while she dances), and love for each other, because in Vietnam they are the only family they have. We hear the voices of the men and build images upon their dialogue. The way they tell stories about others, we hear them telling stories about themselves. With the creative verve of the greatest fiction and the intimacy of a searing autobiography, The Things They Carried is a testament to the men who risked their lives in America's most controversial war.It is also a mirror held up to the frailty of humanity. Ultimately The Things They Carried and its myriad protagonists call to order the courage, determination, and luck we all need to survive. In 1979, Tim O'Brien's Going After Cacciato -- a novel about the Vietnam War -- won the National Book Award. In this, his second work of fiction about Vietnam, O'Brien's unique artistic vision is again clearly demonstrated. Neither a novel nor a short story collection, it is an arc of fictional episodes, taking place in the childhoods of its characters, in the jungles of Vietnam and back home in America two decades later.

dang this is so ahead of its time it’s crazy

Grace M

Read this like everyone else in HS, but JFC this is so much more intense as an adult, and as a military member. GRUESOME 

Kyra Cracchiola

WOW .. the power of story telling ..

Read this like everyone else in HS, but JFC this is so much more intense as an adult, and as a military member. GRUESOME 

Read sections for class, ended up finishing whole thing. Great collection of stories. Fantastic display of craft.

Derek Graf

Tobias V. Langhoff

A collection of short stories about a company in the Vietnam war, which is weaved together to a concise narrative; a sombering story about war and the people who fight it. At times meta-fictional, the author acts as a sort of unreliable narrator who at various times contradicts himself, and points it out, between the different stories. The audiobook narration by Bryan Cranston was masterful.

Gracie Marsden

One of my new favorite books. Beautifully and painfully written, with contradictory truths that make sense despite their paradoxical nature. The book is unique in its ability to make you feel the pain and the burden of soldiers at war.

destiny

i didn’t know if i was going to give this 5 stars but the last couple chapters really set it in. there were a couple times throughout where i wasn’t just imagining myself in the story but i was feeling what i imagined everyone else was in the book. it was such a ride and i very rarely get to experience that in books so it’s very deserving of 5 stars to me. connecting some of their feelings to my own made me so engrossed and lost in the best way possible. this truly was excellent to me. thank you to my former english teacher for showing this to me.

big ab

feels weird to rate this one. this is a reread, read it originally in like 2018(?), still so good.

The style of writing and storytelling was so unusual, like he was recounting the memories as they came, returning for elaboration at the necessary interval. It made the characters seem so much more human

a work of fiction

The things they carried

we read like half of this, but I liked the bits we read

Lara Engle

This book is difficult to read due to its subject matter. I found myself reading one or two sections and then I had to put it down to process, sometimes for days.

I love how this book isn't just about war. I think it's mostly about the nature of storytelling. Stories help us shape our identities and our lives. We must take the time to consider our story and who we want to be if we have any hope of sharing that meaningfully with others.

Dimitris Papastergiou

If you purchased this book, good, I did too, but you need to put that down and buy the audiobook, because you NEED to listen this book narrated by Bryan Cranston. It's so good. He's so good, you'll want every single book narrated by him afterwards.

Now that this is out of the way, this isn't a war book, this is a sad book. This is a before, now and after book, that's going to take you through the lives of people who will make you feel for them even though you will never understand what they went through.

It's not your typical war book, and it's not your typical fictional war book either. Simply because there are no heroes here and Tim O'Brien makes sure you get that, and along with Cranston's voice it becomes even more dramatic if that's possible. Great story!

Recommended!

The million copy bestseller that redefined the way the world saw war. One of the ten books - novels, memoirs and one very unusual biography - that make up our Matchbook Classics' series, a stunningly redesigned collection of some of the best loved titles on our backlist.

rumbledethumps

This was a really great book, one that deserves all the praise it has received. It is not just a book about Vietnam, or the US in the 60s. This is a book about storytelling, about the stories we tell ourselves, and about the stories we tell to others. Through our stories, we can survive trauma, we can create meaning, and we can remember the dead.

Trish

This book/memoir is everything you want in a collection of war stories. It touches upon all the sentiments and realities that I have always been curious about, but too embarrassed to ask. Tim O'Brien is a brilliant writer, there's no doubt about that. There's a wistfulness in his writing that reminds me of conversations with my Grandpa over hot tea on bright summer mornings. I'm just a child listening to the stories of a world, of a time I can't imagine, that I'm privileged enough to never have been a part of. This is a great book for the summer time. It's easy to put down and pick up. It is divided into several short stories, if you will, and each one is moving and emotional in its own way. War stories aren't usually my thing, but I may go out of my way to pick up another book by Tim O'Brien in the near future.

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I loved this book. The writing style may not be for everyone as it can be confusing but trust that everything makes sense in the end. This book is heartbreaking and beautiful. I highly recommend it. (ps. Kiowa is the best)

Aaliyah Jenkins

rylee m

Rick Dobrowolski

I keep going back and forth on whether I liked this book or not. It caught my interest. But I wasn't sure which parts of the book and which not to, especially since the author laid everything out in the beginning as possibly being false. The book did well at jerking on your emotions and getting you thinking, so, if that's the kind of book you like, then go for it. Of course, I am used to and love the Shaara's historical fiction novels on the Civil War, and this book falls short of their level of writing and authenticity for sure.

Allison Garrett

Ok, so I started this book today because it is one of two required summer reading books for AP 11 English. I was not looking forward to it at all and I was geniunely surprised by how much I actually enjoyed it. I am not one for war stories, I don't like the action or the death or things blowing up, but the way that Tim O'Brien tells this story makes the characters come alive and give the reader a real inside into what it was like in Vietnam during the war.

Rachel

Beautifully written and very moving. It's a book I won't soon forget.

tim h

Firmly in my top 5 novels of all time. Masterpiece

Barry Hess

Melody Izard

Tim O’Brien tells us war stories that may or may not be true. And that depends a lot on what truth is. The truth, especially when you are dealing with war is very slippery. With these powerfully connected short stories he tries to explain the complexity of feelings a young soldier carries with him before, during and after combat experience. Take the regular intricate emotional turmoil a 19 or 20 year old is going through while trying to find their own voice, their role, their niche in life, then add seeing one of your war buddies get blasted up into the trees with nothing but body parts and intestines remaining. Then imagine being ordered to clean up the remains. 

O’Brien’s stories are hard-hitting, right-to-the-point stories of a man approaching middle-age, reflecting back and still trying to survive the Vietnam War.

Bill Mazza

I feel like I'm one of the only people who didn't seem to enjoy this book. However, I will admit that I read this right after reading a World War I history that was excellent (A Storm in Flanders, detailing arguably the worst area to be in that war) so I found myself having a lot less empathy for the individuals in this book, frequently comparing what they were going through to what the soldiers in Flanders experienced. Not fair to Tim O'Brien, but I just found myself not caring throughout a lot of this. Not bad, not great. 

The Things They Carried A Work of Fiction

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