The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien
4.5 stars
I feel like I should preface this review by saying, I’m a shitty reviewer. I read this book as a junior in high school for my AP English class and I’m only reviewing it now because I reread it as a sophomore in college for Introduction to Literary Studies class. However, I’m glad I didn’t write a review a couple years ago because in all honesty the teacher I had didn’t teach us about this book and I missed out so much because of that. This book is amazing and I feel like the biggest lesson I took away from rereading this novel as a future educator is that it matters how you present and teach a novel to students. This is not a novel that students should use scaffolding and Socratic seminars for. This is a novel that is meant to be lectured about because it will go over a young person’s head otherwise. I originally gave this novel 3.5 stars and that doesn’t hold up. This novel deserves much more than that. This novel is a cinematic masterpiece (is that a slight pun based off of the last stories?) and focuses heavily on the concept of storytelling. O’Brien is a wonderful writer and I’m so happy that I had the opportunity to reread this novel and experience it as an adult with more experience.
I still have my notes in my notebook from my first reading of this book. I’ll list them quickly and say whether this observation still holds up before I get to my full review which will be a breakdown of each story.
Original Thoughts:
• Shockingly entertaining. Now: Probably not the best descriptor for a war novel, but this novel is both shocking and entertaining. This was the first war novel I read and I think that I wasn’t expecting to like this or be entertained as much as I was. I have read a few war novels since and I actually love war novels. They are important facets in understanding humanity and the world we live in.
• Great depiction of war. Now: 100% agree. I think I’m even more aware of just how true this statement is as an adult.
• Loved the question of what’s real or fiction, but after a while it became annoying. Now: This refers to the Side B of the book and spoiler, but not really because it says it on the title page, all this is made up. It’s just that stories. There’s some truth in it because it’s a story and all stories are based on some level of truth. It is not annoying to me now, but that’s because I already knew what to expect with the majority of the stories and was aware of O’Brien’s level of pettiness. I think he’s a masterful storyteller and I’m surprised he’s not more acclaimed because he outshines a majority of writers by far.
• A lot of great scenes. Now: I didn’t not realize that these “scenes” were short stories. Didn’t get the memo. LOL
• Whether it is all real or metaphors this book was still impactful. Now: Still a true statement.
• O’Brien knows how to write. Now: At least I was aware of great writing back then and knew what it looked like.
Most of my thoughts still hold up, but I want to tackle each story and my thoughts on each story because I feel like that better convey how well-done this novel is and how if you haven’t picked this novel up then you should. However, there will be spoilers, so tread with caution if you don’t want to know who dies. SPOILER: It’s a war story.
Side A- My professor described this book as a vinyl record with a Side A and a Side B. Side A focuses more on the stories of the soldiers in O’Brien’s platoon. When you look at it in that way it makes the stories easier to see as just that stories that may have a little bit of truth sprinkled in them.
“The Things They Carried”
This story follows Lieutenant Jimmy Cross and his guilt over Ted Lavender’s death. It focuses on the burdens the soldiers carry- physical and mental. It’s a little slow in certain parts, but it’s a strong opener and it’s one of the best stories in this novel.
Favorite Quote: “They carried all the weight they could bear, and then some, including a silent awe for the terrible power of the things they carried.”
“Love”
This is a story from the character Tim O’Brien’s PoV about Jimmy Cross’ love for Martha, the girl he carried a picture of in the previous story. It’s short and quick, but this is what I consider to be the first hinting that this is a story and not a true story.
“Spin”
This a metafiction piece that focuses on the spin that a story can take.
Favorite Quote: “Forty-three years old, and the war occurred half a lifetime ago, and yet the remembering makes it now. And sometimes remembering will lead to a story, which makes it forever. That’s what stories are for. Stories are fore joining the past to the future. Stories are for those late hours in the night when you can’t remember how you got form where you were to where you are. Stories are for eternity, when memory is erased, when there is nothing to remember except the story."
“On the Rainy River”
This follows O’Brien and a story he has never told before. The story of when he almost went to Canada to escape the draft. It’s a very powerful piece and it’s one of the longer stories in this novel, but I think it’s long because it’s so personal and it’s one of the truer pieces. Plus, it has a wise old man to guide him to make the right decision. I still don’t know if that man was real or not, but he fits into the message that all great journeys have wise old men (i.e. Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, etc.) to help the young hero.
Favorite Quote: “I survived, but it’s not a happy ending. I was a coward. I went to the war.”
“Enemies”
This is a three-page look into the paranoia that sets in when two members of a platoon are at war with each other while being at war.
Favorite Quote: “Like fighting two different wars, he said. No safe ground: enemies everywhere. No front or rear.”
“Friends”
A quick look at the turn-around between Strunk and Jensen from the previous story and their friendship.
“How to Tell a True War Story”
This is one of the best pieces of fiction I’ve ever read. It tells the story of Curt Lemon’s death five times in true war story fashion. It’s brilliant and beautiful. A little sick when it comes to the lemon tree thing, but it shows how genius this book and each individual story is.
Favorite Quote: Pretty much the whole story. I have 20 sections highlighted and five of them are starred. I can’t decide which quotes are my favorite because they are brilliant quotes and to take them out of context destroys the context of a true war story.
“Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong”
This is my favorite story in the collection. It is told by O’Brien who is telling the story through Rat Kiley about Mary Anne and how she was brought to Vietnam by her boyfriend. Mary Anne is the most important thing about this book because she shows how people can be hardened physically and mentally as she becomes a part of the land until she is nothing left but a story.
Favorite Quote: “You just don’t know,” she said. “You hide in this little fortress, behind wire and sandbags, and you don’t know… Sometimes I just want to eat this place. The whole country—the dirt, the death— I just want to swallow it and have it there inside me. That’s how I feel. It’s like this appetite. I get scared sometimes— lots of times—but it’s not that bad. You know? I feel close to myself. When I’m out there at night, I feel close to my own body, I can feel my blood moving, my skin and my fingernails, everything, it’s like I’m full of electricity and I’m glowing in the dark—I’m on fire almost—I’m burning away into nothing—but it doesn’t matter because I know exactly who I am. You can’t feel like that anywhere else.”
“Stockings”
The magic of Dobbins’ girlfriend’s stockings. Nothing special, but it’s funny.
“Church”
Kiowa and Dobbins talk about being a minister after the monks in a pagoda take a liking to Dobbins.
Favorite Quote: I do like churches. The way it feels inside. It feels good when you just sit there, like you’re in a forest and everything’s really quiet, except there’s still sound you can’t hear.”
Side B- This section focuses more on Tim O’Brien and O’Brien’s personal stories during the war, before the war, and after the war.
“The Man I Killed”
This story follows the man O’Brien killed and his projection of himself and his past onto the story of the man.
Favorite Quote: “His life was now a constellation of possibilities.”
“Ambush”
This story follows how O’Brien killed the man he killed during an ambush after his daughter ambushes him with whether or not he killed someone during the war.
Favorite Quote: “For me, it was not a matter of live or die. I was in no real peril. Almost certainly the young man would have passed me by. And it will always be that way."
“Speaking of Courage”
This is the saddest story in the book for me. I cried so hard because it is about Norman Bowker after the war circling around the lake in his hometown and his desire to tell the story of Kiowa’s death and how he can’t. I cried because Bowker’s sadness and inability to express himself is something I’ve seen reflected in my grandfather when he was alive and it pains me how common this is for veterans.
Favorite Quote: “Still, there was so much to say.
How the rain never stopped. How the cold worked into your bones. Sometimes the bravest thing on earth was to sit through the night and feel the cold in your bones. Courage was not always a matter of yes or no Sometimes it came in degrees, like the cold; sometimes you were very brave up to a point and then beyond that point you were not so brave. In certain situations you could do incredible things, you could advance toward enemy fire, but in other situations, which were not nearly so bad, you had trouble keeping your eyes open. Sometimes, like that night in the shit field, the difference between courage and cowardice was something small and stupid.
The way the earth bubbled. And the smell.”
“Notes”
This is where we learn that Bowker committed suicide and how it made O’Brien revisit and rewrite this story several times to convey what Bowker asked him to truly write about.
Favorite Quotes: “By telling stories, you objectify your own experience. You separate it from yourself. You pin down certain truths. You make up others. You start sometimes with an incident that truly happened, like the night in the shit field, and you carry it forward by inventing incidents that did not in fact occur but that nonetheless help to clarify and explain.”
“In the Field”
This is a retelling Kiowa’s death in third person where we see Jimmy Cross and unnamed soldier (O’Brien) and the guilt they are facing. This is a really brilliant story predominately because of how O’Brien chooses to tell it and how he retells Kiowa death.
Favorite Quote: “In the field, though, the causes were immediate. A moment of carelessness or bad judgment or plain stupidity carried consequences that lasted forever.”
“Good Form”
Everything is a lie. LMAO I remember how pissed I was when I read this.
Favorite Quote: “I’m left with faceless responsibility and faceless grief.”
“Field Trip”
O’Brien takes his daughter, Kathleen, on a field trip to Vietnam and the shit field where Kiowa drowned. Still pissed that there is not Kathleen. I’ve been emotionally manipulated well.
Favorite Quote: “For twenty years this field had embodied all the waste that was Vietnam, all the vulgarity and horror.”
“The Ghost Soldiers”
This follows the story of O’Brien getting shot and no longer being in the field. It takes a toll on him and he also has an enemy to take revenge on. This is one of my least favorite stories and I don’t know what it is about it, but it leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
Favorite Quote: “I was the beast on their lips—I was Nam—the horror, the war.”
“Night Life”
This story focuses on why Rat Kiley isn’t medic anymore and it just so happens that first story foreshadowed what would happen. Coincidence? Definitely not.
Favorite Quote: “Like the nights had its own voice— that hum in your ears—and in the hours after midnight you’d swear you were walking through some kind of soft black protoplasm, Vietnam, the blood and the flesh.”
“The Lives of the Dead”
This story follows the story of Linda, O’Brien’s first love and his first encounter with death. It’s a beautiful story and really cements the overall theme and importance of storytelling. It’s harrowing.
Favorite Quote: “The thing about a story is that you dream it as you tell it, hoping that others might then dream along with you, and in this way memory and imagination and language combine to make spirits in the head. There is the illusion of aliveness.”
Overall, this is a marvelous collection of short stories as a whole that wonderfully come together to show the importance of telling stories and keeping alive and how essentially by writing this novel, O’Brien will live on forever when someone opens up this book.
Whimsical Writing Scale: 5
Character Scale: 4
Plotastic Scale: 4.5
Cover Thoughts: I really like the cover. It’s not a favorite, but it’s a Vietnam photo and it fits.
Have you read The Things They Carried? What are some of your favorite war fiction novels? Let me know down below in the comments!
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