Book Review: The Things They Carried

The Things They Carried is a great book. Some have described it as one of the greatest, if not perhaps even the very best, war novel of all time.

I first read it a few years ago, after being given a copy from a coworker. She saw that I kept bringing in new books to read, and figured, as a reader, that I would be interested in this. However, never having read it before, I was worried that this book might be a bit preachy in a way, might demand that the war effort in Vietnam be more recognized and honored than it actually was.

Boy, was I ever wrong! 

Whatever your stance about the sixties, about the Vietnam conflict, whether you feel that the war was justified, or you were or would have been vehemently opposed, or whether you view the conflict as having been derailed by domestic politics here, a lack of will to win, or whether you view it as a mistake that the country would have done well to avoid, this book feels to me like a must read.

Now, I do not want to give anything away. This review will be spoiler-free. But the author just does a remarkable job. He is not preachy, again. Yet you feel his struggle, and his shock and his sense of some kind of loss of innocence, at numerous points. You feel his sense of invulnerability as a teenager, and his outrage that he should be drafted into a war he wanted no part of. The part where he meets an old man who lives across the river from Canada, and when he himself struggles to go ahead and make the jump - quite literally - to a new life up north of the border - really is poignant, and you feel all the divisions and pros and cons that he was weighing internally at the time. You can also feel the special connection with Kiowa, a good friend that he made in Vietnam, and Norman, who gets his own special post-war scene, where he drives around in a circle in his fictional hometown around a lake on the fourth of July. And the whole shit field scene, and the symbolism of that, was just unbelievable!

Also, as the title suggests, he describes the things that "they" carried. They of course were the soldiers, and he describes both literally and figuratively everything that the soldiers carried with them during the war. Both the items of necessity, to survive quite literally, as well as those things that each of them carried as souvenirs to remember their home and the people close to them by. As you read it, it truly dawns on you that, for the most part, these were just boys yet. Kids, caught up in something that was much larger than them, and which they had little control over, even those in leading positions. 

It should say something that I not only got completely absorbed with the book when I first read it those few years ago, but felt much the same magic, and even appreciated it more, after rereading it very recently. It is just a very good book, not to be missed. 

This book is a just read for anyone who wants to understand the Vietnam conflict itself, modern warfare, the sixties and the polarization of the time, or even anyone who simply appreciates a good story and excellent writing. Indeed, Tim O'Brien produced a book here that has it all, pretty much. Again, whatever your stance, take some time - not even all that much, because this is a quick read, and it really does move fast - and read this book.