The things they carried

a work of fiction

Paperback, 273 pages

English language

Published Nov. 7, 1991 by Penguin Books.

ISBN:
978-0-14-014773-5
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4 stars (7 reviews)

The Things They Carried (1990) is a collection of linked short stories by American novelist Tim O'Brien, about a platoon of American soldiers fighting on the ground in the Vietnam War. His third book about the war, it is based upon his experiences as a soldier in the 23rd Infantry Division.

28 editions

Review of 'The Things They Carried' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

A collection of linked and overlapping stories about the experience of being in country during Vietnam charged with the flavor of that wartime experience so different from our other wars. The anecdotes loop around on themselves to charge the images with a second or third dose of significance after the passage of time has changed their significance in the narrator's mind, becoming more shattering, more sickening, more nightmarish, or more baffling depending on the angle they come around. Not everything is to be taken at face value, for it does not profess to be a memoir.
I had to admire it for what it was without completely accepting what it held out to me as art. It was like visiting a collection of gruesome curios over and over again, not always an easy read with a clean takeaway. I will never have a remotely comparable experience of my own to …

Subjects

  • Vietnamese Conflict, 1961-1975
  • Fiction / General
  • Fiction
  • Fiction - General