823. The Things They Carried

The Things They Carried

Tim O'Brien
1990
Around 250 pages

We've been in a bit of slump, but Tim O'Brien is here to breathe some life into this blog! Unfortunately, the subject matter is so upsetting that it's still not enjoyable read, but at least it's high quality.

This is a collection of short stories concerning the Vietnam War, from the perspective of a platoon of American soldiers. Many of the characters are auto-biographical, so we have another author dealing with his trauma through writing. Good for them. My favorite story was "The Man I Killed" where O'Brien imagines a life story for the man he killed in My Khe.

We have had a few of these fictionalized war memoirs. I guess they want to protect the identities of their comrades committing war crimes, or maybe the truth is just too extreme to look at directly. It's interesting that this book focuses on PTSD as much as the events of war. We haven't seen too many authors address what life looks like after for the survivors.

Well written and well structured. Definitely a haunting read.

RATING: ****-

Interesting Facts:

A film adaptation of the book, directed by Rupert Sanders and starring Tom Hardy, is currently in pre-production.

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