Title: The Things They Carried
Author: Tim O’Brien
Today I finished a book that I have been reading on and off for a couple weeks. This book was just incredible. As you readers may know, war books are pretty popular on manlyreads, but this book takes war stories to a new level. O’Brien was himself a Vietnam War veteran, and ever since he returned home from combat, he has been writing books and stories about the gruesome war. This book especially peeked my interest because rather than being one continuous narrative, it is a compilation of many different stories; a sort of abstract that creates one fluid pictures. The stories he tells are sometimes sad, scary, graphic, and even humorous. I still, even after reading the stories and doing some background work, cannot tell if these stories are truth or fiction, but either way, it is on heck of a read if you love great writing.
Nam
Best Quotes: “They used a hard vocabulary to contain the terrible softness. Greased they’d say. Offed, lit up, zapped while zipping. It wasn’t cruelty, just stage presence. They were actors. When someone died, it wasn’t quite dying, because in a curious way it seems scripted, and because they had their lies mostly memorized, irony mixed with tragedy, and because they called it by other names as if to encyst and destroy the reality of death itself.” p. 19
“At night, when I couldn’t sleep, I’d sometimes carry on fierce arguments with these people. id be screaming at them, telling them how much i detested their blind, thoughtless, automatic acquiescence to it all, their simpleminded patriotism, their prideful ignorance, their love-it-or-leave-it platitudes, how they were sending me off to fight a war they didn’t understand and didn’t want to understand.” p. 43
“‘Amazing,’ Dave Jensen kept saying, ‘A new wrinkle. I never seen it before.’ Mitchell Sanders took out his yo-yo. ‘well, that’s Nam,’ he said, ‘Garden of Evil. Over here, man, every sin’s real fresh and original” p. 76 (must read chapter, How To Tell a True War Story)
“I want you to feel what I felt. I want you to know why story-truth is truer sometimes than happening truth.” p. 171
not reading this book is a mistake.
manlyreads 