The+Things+They+Carried

__The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien __ Tim O'Brien's novel depicts life before, during, and after the Vietnam War. Whether his stories are all 100% true is still unknown to this day, but that isn't the point of this book. The point is to get the reader to feel how the soldiers felt, like they were actually there and experiencing the horrors. This book is written in the form of how the human memory works.There is no chronological order, all of his stories are written in the order he remembers them. Not only does O'Brien tell his own war story, he tells the story of his fellow soldiers, some who were never able to tell their own.

__Essential Quotes __

//"I was drafted to fight a war I hated." (O'Brien 38) //

//"Forty-three years old, and the war occurred half a life time ago, and yet the remembering makes it now." (O'Brien 36) //

//"I was no soldier. I hated Boy Scouts. I hated camping out. I hated dirt and tents and mosquitoes. The sight of blood made me quesy, and I couldn't tolerate authority, and I didn't know a rifle from a slingshot."(O'Brien 39) //

//"In any true war story, but especially a true one, it's difficult to separate what happened from what seemed to happen." (O'Brien 67) //

//" There's no place to go. Not just in this lousy little town. In general. My life, I mean. It's almost like a got killed over in Nam...Hard to describe." (O'Brien 150) //

//"I survived but it's not a happy ending. I was a coward, I went to war." (O'Brien 58) //

//" It was the burden of being alive" (O'Brien 17). //

//" The typical load was 25 rounds. But Ted Lavender, who was scared, carried 34 rounds when he was shot and killed outside Than Khe, and he went down under and exceptional burden, more than 20 pounds of ammunition, plus the flak jacket and helmet and rations and water and toilet paper and tranquilizers and all the rest, plus the unweighted fear" (O'Brien 6). //

//" Stories are for eternity, your memory is erased, when there is nothing to remember except the story" (O'Brien 38). //

// "You take your material where you can find it, which is in you life, at the intersection of the past and present" (O'Brien 34). //

//" Often in a true war there is not even a point, or else the point doesn't hit you until twenty years later..." (O'Brien 82). //

//" In any war story, but especially a true one, it's difficult to separate what happened to what seemed to happen" (O'Brien 71). //

__Reviews About the Book __ __About the Author __ <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 17px; line-height: 25px;">For a personal interview with Tim O'Brien, click here. media type="youtube" key="3vcmASDmEr8" height="315" width="560" media type="youtube" key="-neNb8p1H78" height="315" width="560" Back To Home Page
 * "The Things They Carried: is as good as any piece of literature can get....It is controlled and wild, deep and tough, perceptive and shrewd".- Chicago Sun Times
 * "You've got to read this book...In a world filled too often with numbness, or shifting values, these stories shine in a strange and opposite direction, moving against the flow, illumination life's wonder".- Dallas Morning News
 * "Powerful...Composed in the same lean, vigorous style as his earlier books, The Things They Carried, adds up to a captivating account of the experiences of an infantry company in Vietnam...Evocative and haunting, the raw force of confession."- Wall Street Journal
 * Born: 1946 in Minnesota.
 * Graduated from Mcalester College in 1968.
 * Served as an infantryman in the US Army in Vietnam, February 1969 until March 1970.
 * Short stories published in various magazines such as: The New Yorker, Harper's, The Atlantic.
 * Received many literary awards.
 * Now he works at the University of Texas.
 * Currently living in Texas.
 * Other novels include: //Going After Cacciato, If I Die in a Combat Zone , Tomcat in Love, Northern Lights, "Where Have You Gone, Charming Billy", In the Lake of the Woods, July July, and The Nuclear Age.//