Week 10: The Things They Carried

Book Cover Image:

 Book Summary:

The Things They Carried is a book that focuses mainly on the experiences of several characters involved with the Vietnam War, especially the fictionalized version of the author himself. In a school setting, it would better be suited for grades 9-12. It is an unconventional book in that their experiences of this war are not simply being told by relating the facts. Each chapter is an expression of the horror or challenge each character perceived. For example, the title chapter, "The Things They Carried," is concerned with the burdens of a soldier - both physical and mental. "Sweetheart of the Song Tra Ba" is most likely a lie one soldier is telling the others about his girlfriend. "The Man I Killed" is a chapter dealing with how one's trauma at seeing his first victim and deals with it by staring at the corpse and fantasizing about the victims life with great empathy -- what his life was like back home and what it would have been like had he lived. The book intentionally confuses borders -- distinctions between fact and fiction, autobiography and novel, memory and fantasy, right and wrong -- just as the Vietnam War raised such confusion. This ambiguous spirit of the book is captured in the chapter, "How to Tell a True War Story," when the narrator writes:

            A true war story is never moral. It does not instruct, nor encourage virtue, nor suggest 

models of proper human behavior, nor restrain men from doing the things men have always done. If a story seems moral, do not believe it. If at the end of a war story you feel uplifted, or if you feel that some small bit of rectitude has been salvaged from the larger waste, then you have been made the victim of a very old and terrible lie.

(O’Brien, 1990, p. 65).

APA Reference:

O’Brien, T. (1990). The things they carried. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

My Impressions:

My impressions of this book/novel/collection of short stories/memoir is that war is hell, not only for the actual death and destruction that it brings, but also the psychological devastation it presents to young men who are still boys in many ways. It is somewhat confusing in places, due to its genre(s), the lack of a continuous plot throughout the book, ambiguous nature of what is true, etc. If one wishes to read a novel about war, he or she might be disappointed if the expectation is that it should be a coherent story with a clear beginning, middle, and end, and a consistent narrator, and a clear sense of what is real and what is fantasy, what is truth and what is a lie. On the other hand, if you do not expect the traditional conventions of a novel, or autobiography, etc., and trust the author to express himself in a unique (and in this case, quite poetic way), then you will likely be as moved as I was. Relating the facts of the Vietnam War, after all, is not enough to express the deeper experiences these young men had. There were times the mother instinct in me wanted to tell them that everything would be okay, which would also be a lie. I believe this book will likely make a bigger impact on male readers than on female readers, however, as most of the main characters are young men behaving in distinctly male ways, and this may limit its audience somewhat. All in all, I consider The Things They Carried essential reading for anyone wanting to know the deeper "truths" of that era in American history.

Professional Review:

“Winner of a National Book Award in 1979 for Going After Cacciato ( LJ 12/15/77), O'Brien again shows his literary stuff with this brilliant collection of short stories, many of which have won literary recognition (several appeared in O. Henry Awards' collections and Best American Short Stories ). Each of the 22 tales relates the exploits and personalities of a fictional platoon of American soldiers in Vietnam. An acutely painful reading experience, this collection should be read as a book and not a mere selection of stories reprinted from magazines. Not since Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse - Five ( LJ 3/1/69) has the American soldier been portrayed with such poignance and sincerity. Literary Guild featured alternate. Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 11/15/89.”

Review Reference:

Annichiarico, M. (1990, February 15). [Review of the book The things they carried, by

T. O’Brien]. Library Journal, 115(3), 212. Retrieved from http://lj.libraryjournal.com/

Library Uses:

Focus ages: grades 9-12

This book could be a part of a Memorial Day display to honor all the Veterans of wars. It would be set up during April on order to give students time to check out the book before school is out. Also, there could be some veteran guest speakers to speak to the English classes on a particular day coinciding with the display setup.

This book could be an inspiration for a photography contest. Students could take photographs honoring friends or family members that are veterans. They could photograph them in any way the veteran would be comfortable, in a uniform, or not. They could put a caption under the photo detailing their time and location(s) of their service to our country. The library could group the photos on a wall to honor all the veterans.