"It's All Exactly True."

This past year in English 3 Honors we read a well-known but understated book called The Things They Carried, by Tim O'Brien. Earlier this week, in preparation of possibly writing a college essay about it, I reread it, and took substantial notes in the margins. Personally, I see writing in books as a minor form of sacrilege, but sometimes I need my notes right there, and anyways, I only write in used books. The point is, this book actually means a lot to me.

The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien

This is kind of a hard book to summarize. It's a series of metafictional, semi-autobiographical short stories that take place during (or in connection with) the Vietnam War. The narrator is a young soldier named Tim O'Brien who shares many significant characteristics with the author (most obviously being that they both fought in the Vietnam War). However, even if it matters to you, it's very hard to tell what is real and what is fiction (for example, he very convincingly speaks of his daughter Kathleen, who is absolutely no more than a character in the book). Although, there are times when he explicitly says that a certain thing is made up - not that you can believe him when he says that. It's all about the art of storytelling; he really shows how sometimes in order to make the reader really understand the story, it can't be all true. Sometimes it can't be true at all. Anyways, these short stories, though able to stand alone, are meant to be read together, and in the order they are in. There are things that just click when you read the book the way it's supposed to be read. Like how as you move through the book, it seems like it's just about this guy's time in the war, but it's really about the bond between all the men in the Alpha Company, but it's really about the effect the war had on all of them, but it's really about how to tell a true war story, but it's really about how true the truth actually is. Really, it's about stories, how they arrive, how they affect people, their importance, all of that. And at first you think he's writing all of this because the war really damaged him, and this is how he is dealing with that, but in the last chapter, he introduces a new aspect of his life that affected him deeply, and you realize that this, this, is the real reason for everything. Which completely changes your view of the entire book.
So when you read it again, you get a whole lot more out of it.

I think it's safe to say that this is the only book I have ever read for school that I have actually liked (excluding Shakespeare). I mean, for me, school really ruins books. You are forced to read certain books, and in a certain amount of time, which I find really takes the enjoyment out of reading. Also, English teachers these days go way overboard with the analyzing. I mean really, I would rather not know why the blue house in Beloved has the address 124. (Besides, I kind of feel like they were finding meaning in that number where there wasn't supposed to be any.) In my experience, school turns reading into a chore.
But reading this was not a chore. I fell behind in reading many of the past year's school-assigned books, and usually just skimmed the endings, but for this, I read ahead. Which never happens for me with school books. But I was more or less enthralled by both Tim O'Brien's writing style and his many interweaving stories. I mean, I feel like I did a lot of reviewing in my summary (oops...), but I don't know; this book is really hard to explain. His characters, all of them, are incredibly real and distinct, and it's easy to imagine that they're all as real as Tim himself (because even if the narrator is not the same as the author, thinking of them - him - as two different people is not even an option), and that they all have lived real, human lives. Every single character has a history and a future, though not all of them are told. The stories, though separate, flow spectacularly. And the way he writes, where he emphasizes his own twisting of the truth in an effort to give the story the impact it deserves, is thoroughly fascinating. As the story and its themes evolve, so did my ideas about both it and the art of storytelling. And, being a writer myself, this was invaluable; I see my own style as being similar in a number of ways to that of Tim O'Brien, so this book really gave me a kind of stylistic goal to emulate. This book is really a role model for me.
And I definitely can't wait to read more of his writing.

I don't know if there's a movie, and I don't really care. I don't. There is no way they could satisfactorily capture the writing style, because that's what it is. It's not in ANY way a style, it's a writing style. The beauty in it comes from the reading of it. What? What? Fine. You know what? Fine. I'll look it up.
Okay, so in an NPR interview from March 2010, Tim O'Brien said it has been optioned many times, but it hasn't yet reached the big screen.
However, according to Wikipedia, one of the stories, "Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong," was adapted in 1998, into a film starring Kiefer Sutherland, titled A Soldier's Sweetheart.
Happy?
Oh, thanks. Now I kinda want to watch that... AND it's got Georgina Cates! She was in An Awfully Big Adventure, which was really good despite the title. I watched that when I was home alone after the SAT. It's got Alan Rickman in it (which is, of course, why I watched it). And I can totally see her as Mary Anne! Geez...
Ooh, good, it's not streamable on Netflix. Now I won't be tempted.
Except I still am.
I blame this on you guys.

I suppose I should thank the English 3 Honors teachers for making me read this, but I really don't want to. Hey, thanks to Sarah, my college essay coach, for helping me choose to write an essay about The Things They Carried, so leading me to read it again. I got a lot out of it the first time, but I definitely got even more out of it the second time.

Anyways, splendid book.

Recommendation: Oooh. Umm, let's see. I'd say this is a good read for anyone who just wants to read a book about the Vietnam War, or any war, really, because the effect of war on those involved does not differ between wars. It's a better read for someone interested in alternative writing styles, or who wants to read an engaging manual on storytelling (though it's so much more than that). And anyone who just wants to read a really good book. However, it is about war, so there is death, and there is also a fair amount of foul language. If you find this offensive, or are young (high school is definitely fine, and I know I at least could have managed it in middle school - well, maybe not sixth grade, cause that was my stab-people-with-pencils-whenever-they-swear-in-hearing-range phase). Also, and this is a BIG also, there is some animal cruelty. Enough in the second instance (there are two) that I both wanted to cry and felt sick. For some people, this will be a huge problem - I told my mom that even though she'd like the rest of it, I thought she should absolutely NOT read it. I flat out told her not to, because I know that that stuff really gets to her, and I didn't want her to just skip those bits, because you have to read all of the book, in the sequence it was meant to be read, in order to get everything out of it that you can. I beg you, if you do decide to read The Things They Carried, to please follow this one bolded statement.