Rating: 
Summary: A Tearfull proclaimation of his role in Vietnam
Review: Wow!!! What a refresher... Tim O"Brien has made my stomach believe in what the Vietnam war has done to it's victims.
In many perspectives he has taken much of the sentiment out of the war and replaced it with a true sadness.
This man had talent!!! In his simple language he tells you what the war was like, but then also shows you.
I picked up the book thinkinh, great another war book, but now it is my most highly regarded books.
I had to read the ending over and over because it was written so beautifully.
I give Tim O'bien a ten for his masterpiece of self-revelation and emotion.
Rating: 
Summary: Vietnam Vets: Still Carrying A Full Ruck
Review: Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried is a brilliant metaphor, not only for the experiences we Nam vets had during the war (I served in the 101st Airborne Division in 1969-70, the same timeframe as O'Brien but further north), but also for some of the experiences we have had since getting back to 'The World.' As a psychologist, let me recommend that fellow Nam vets start to reduce or eliminate the current load in their psychological ruck or back pack. I reduced my load by returning to Nam for a two-week trip during the Summer of 1994, a few months after Tim O'Brien was back. Apparently my trip back was able to help me offload more from my metaphorical ruck than his trip back did for him. Tim, hang in there because we need your unique insight
Rating:
Summary: I rate this book higher than 10
Review: A gripping series of Vietnam stories gathered in a format
of O'Brien's devising. It is not a collection of short stories, but it
is not one story with a beginning and an ending. It is perhaps closest
to listening to a soldier storyteller over a long period time. While
you listen to his stories, you hear a bit of his personal life; he uses
repetition of events and certain phrases to reinforce familiarity with
the tales. Closing the book you believe you know the narrator very
well. Attempting to further confuse fiction with non-fiction, O'Brien
gave his storyteller the name "Tim O'Brien."
Rating:
Summary: O'Brien's book refuses to be classified in any one genre
Review: There are few books I would tell every person I know to read, but this is one of them. O'Brien's book defies any
classification into the categories of "fiction,"
"non-fiction," "short stories" or "novel." The best description of this book would simply be "stories," in the purest form.
O'Brien does not waste a single sentence, not even a word,
in pursuit of the truths of this masterwork. Few books genuinely take my breath away; this one did. While nominally
about Vietnam, it's really about humanity. Please read it.
Rating: 
Summary: The Things They Carried
Review: "By necessity and because it was SOP, they all carried steel helmets that weighed 5 pounds including the liner and camouflage cover"(pg2). After reading this line and analyzing the cover one can assume that its a war novel. If you like war novels, this is the book to read. Through Tim O'Brien different but interesting form of writing in this book, being in little stories of the men, it helps give you an idea on what they are thinking during the hard times of war. By far the most interesting characters would have to be Bobby Jorgenson. This man risks his life for the other men, the medic during the war. If one has never heard of this book or never cared to read a war book, this book has it all. Not only does it contain war stories but also storied of love, family, friends and others. I highly recommend this novel.
Rating:
Summary: A Modern War Novel of Merit
Review: I was introduced to this book by my son who is attending school in California. Apparently, the book is on the California school curriculum. Tim O'Brien has written a nicely paced novel that differs greatly from the traditional war story. The novel is essentially a series of short stories that have been loosely tied together. The stories serve to give the reader a feel for Vietnam and the quandaries that the war generated. Was the war right? Should a draftee flee to Canada rather than just simply accept the bloodshed in a civil war that seemed to have no purpose? O'Brien offers no clear answers. Rather he leaves the questions hanging with the reader compelled to come to his or her own conclusions. The novel is not wantonly gruesome as war must often seem to its participants. It is simply a telling of certain events that must have had some impact on the author. Yes, war is hell but lessons can be learned. Tim O'Brien has played his role in this process. The book should be read by a wider audience than just high school students in the USA.
Rating:
Summary: The Best Book I've Ever Read
Review: I tell all my high school literature students that I can separate my life into two sections: before I read this book and after. Yes, it's that good. The way O'Brien weaves truth and fiction with memory, guilt, regret, love, and a myriad of other very human emotions is amazing.
Beyond the emotions incorporated in the novel, one cannot ignore the mastery of language O'Brien possesses. I sit here at a loss as I try to find the appropriate words to describe the control O'Brien has over his style and the English language. Immediately after finishing the book, I knew I had to read it again because the next book I read could never measure up. A must read for even the most reluctant or skeptical reader.
Rating: 
Summary: Carried too far
Review: What a frustrating book. The first thing you'll notice is how jarringly inauthentic it seems (Do soldiers really talk like that? really think like that?). Eventually you'll realize why -- it's almost entirely made up.
Read the portion where Tim O'Brien kills a man. This is a war, mind you, but in this book Tim O'Brien is virtually inconsolable when he kills an enemy combatant for very legitimate reasons. The whole scene simply didn't ring true to me. After all, O'Brien has witnessed and recounted incredible depravity in this war. But yet when he kills a Viet Cong (a very clean kill), he starts up with this sappy, faux-intellectual introspection. I find it pretentious, but I'm sure other readers will find it fascinating. Anyway, while reading this I'm thinking: This is why we lost the damn war. One of our soldiers kills an enemy and instead of celebrating, he wants to read poetry.
Luckily, as we find out a little while later, it's all a lie. He never killed a man. In fact, almost the entire book is a lie. Because, as O'Brien puts it, there is more truth in a lie than there is in a truth -- or some other pretentious garbage that I'm sure all the "intellectual" readers will slobber over.
At the end of the book, O'Brien begins a bizarre account of a 9-year-old girl who dies of cancer. The story has nothing to do with the Vietnam War and seems utterly out of place, as if it were stuffed into the final pages to fill space. Luckily -- like most of the book -- it never happened. I guess we can be glad for that.
Rating:
Summary: Gold Standard
Review: This book is a perfect introduction to the mind-bending, mysterious work of Tim O'Brien. Arguably his best work (although Going After Cacciato is also quite good), The Things They Carried marks an impressive achievement in modern literature. O'Brien eschews the cliches of war and creates a profoundly original and deeply moving work that should be read by everyone, even if the Vietnam War is not of any interest to you.
O'Brien's mastery of the language has never been better than it was here, and his perspective is fictional autobiography--fictional in the sense that it never happened, but still autobiographical because the underlying feelings and attitudes are very much rooted in truth. Rather than a traditional anti-war book, a la All Quiet on the Western Front, this book transcends the polemic and talks more about the human condition, what we do and what we know. My favorite section in the book is his talk about what war is and isn't--it's written with the truth and knowledge of someone who's been there and wants to tell what it was like, but, as to paraphrase what he says, it's one of those things that you don't understand for twenty years, then you wake up in the middle of the night understanding it and try to wake up your wife to tell her, but by the time she gets up you've forgotten.
Passionate, moving, and unforgettable, this is a book for the ages.
Rating:
Summary: Masterpiece of Human feelings and actions
Review: Tim Obrien's "the thinbgs they carried" has little or nothing to do with war. The book instaed speaks of the human enedavour and the effect that war has on the soul. The book it self made me feel as if I was bleeding to death while i read. It hurt. Plain and simple O'brien hurts in this Novel. It truly doesnt matter what is true and what is not because either way the book makes us all feel. Maybe not for all this is still the best book i have read in ages.
|
