The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien

"This writing is so powerful that it steals your breath...."

The above is a quote from the Milwaukee Journal, about this novel. They took the words right out of my mouth.

I always read the back-cover and inside-cover blurbs about a book, but I take them with a grain of salt, as they say. In a first-edition, the blurbs are written by published writers, and I cynically assume that they were paid or that they just like to see their names in print or that they are trading tit for tat. (I'll praise you if you praise me later.) If the edition is a subsequent printing, the blurbs from newspapers are very often (rather obviously) edited and sometimes come from second or third tier newspapers or magazines. So I've found that it's best not to take the blurbs too seriously.

The edition I read of this novel had eight pages of blurbs at the beginning, AND I THINK THEY WERE ALL ACCURATE; for example: "A stunning performance." (New York Times Book Review); "Evocative and haunting...." (Wall Street Journal); "This book is persuasive in the desperate hope that stories can save us." (Publisher's Weekly); "It is the ultimate, indelible image of war in our time, and in time to come." (Los Angeles Times); "The Things They Carried is as good as any piece of literature can get...." (Chicago Sun-Times); "Go out and get this book and read it." (The Veteran). And much more--all to the point that this is an astonishingly good book.

It's specifically about the war in Vietnam, but it's actually about any war, particularly the new kind of war where the enemy does not wear a uniform and can lurk anywhere, where civilians and enemy soldiers look the same, where no "front" exists, where the young men (and now women) live in constant tension, waiting for an unseen enemy to attack.

O'Brien served in Vietnam and the stories told here ring of absolute truth, but through several digressions he tells us that the events are invented, but true, nevertheless. He says, "I want you to feel what I felt. I want you to know why story-truth is truer sometimes than happening-truth....What stories can do, I guess, is make things present." I have read very few books that seemed as present as this one.

I wish I were still teaching, so that I could assign this book to my students. For one thing, it provides textbook-worthy examples of the skillful use of language and detail to create impact. But more importantly, it conveys ideas that are important today. O'Brien says, "But this too is true; stories can save us."

I wish I could make this book required reading for everyone.