The Things They Carried

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Overview

A classic, life-changing meditation on war, memory, imagination, and the redemptive power of storytelling, with more than two-million copies in print

Depicting the men of Alpha Company—Jimmy Cross, Henry Dobbins, Rat Kiley, Mitchell Sanders, Norman Bowker, Kiowa, and the character Tim O’Brien, who survived his tour in Vietnam to become a father and writer at the age of forty-three—the stories in The Things They Carried opened our eyes to the nature of war in a way we will never forget. It is taught everywhere, from high school classrooms to graduate seminars in creative writing, and in the decades since its publication it has never failed to challenge ...

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More About This Book

Overview

A classic, life-changing meditation on war, memory, imagination, and the redemptive power of storytelling, with more than two-million copies in print

Depicting the men of Alpha Company—Jimmy Cross, Henry Dobbins, Rat Kiley, Mitchell Sanders, Norman Bowker, Kiowa, and the character Tim O’Brien, who survived his tour in Vietnam to become a father and writer at the age of forty-three—the stories in The Things They Carried opened our eyes to the nature of war in a way we will never forget. It is taught everywhere, from high school classrooms to graduate seminars in creative writing, and in the decades since its publication it has never failed to challenge our perceptions of fact and fiction, war and peace, and courage, longing, and fear.

In 1979, Tim O'Brien's Going After Cacciato -- a novel about the Vietnam War -- won the National Book Award. In this, his second work of fiction about Vietnam, O'Brien's unique artistic vision is again clearly demonstrated. Neither a novel nor a short story collection, it is an arc of fictional episodes, taking place in the childhoods of its characters, in the jungles of Vietnam and back home in America two decades later.

Editorial Reviews

From Barnes & Noble
"Vietnam was full of strange stories, some improbable, some well beyond that, but the stories that will last forever are those that swirl back and forth across the border between trivial and bedlam." First published in 1979, Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried is an unparalleled Vietnam testament, a classic study of men at war that brilliantly -- and painfully --illuminates the capacity, and the limits, of the human heart and soul. Focusing on the members of a single platoon (one of whom happens to be a 21-year-old grunt named Tim O'Brien) the 22 interconnected stories of this collection catalogue not only the things they carried into battle -- M-16s, grenade launchers, candy, Kool-Aid, and cigarettes -- but more importantly, the things they carried inside, and the nightmares they carried home.
Christopher Tuplin
This is a collection of stories about American soldiers in Vietnam by the author of Going After Cacciato. All of the stories "deal with a single platoon, one of whose members is a character named Tim O'Brien. Some stories are about [their] wartime experiences....Others are about a 43-year-old writer—again, the fictional character Tim O'Brien—remembering his platoon's experiences and writing war stories (and remembering writing stories) about them. —The New York Times Book Review
More Reviews (1) Fewer Reviews
From The Critics
...[B]elongs high on the list of best fiction about any war....crystallizes the Vietnam experience for everyone [and] exposes the nature of all war stories.

Product Details

  • ISBN-13: 9780767902892
  • Publisher: Crown Publishing Group
  • Publication date: 12/29/1998
  • Edition description: Reprint
  • Edition number: 1
  • Pages: 272
  • Product dimensions: 5.25 (w) x 7.91 (h) x 0.70 (d)

Meet the Author

Tim O'Brien
Tim O'Brien
In collections of short stories and essays -- The Things They Carried and If I Die in a Combat Zone, Box Me Up and Ship Me Home -- and in his novels -- most notably, the National Book Award-winning Going After Cacciato -- Tim O'Brien has established himself as a startling and authoritative voice on one of the darkest chapters in American history -- the Vietnam war.

Biography

Tim O'Brien has said it was cowardice -- not courage -- that led him, in the late 1960s, to defer his admittance into Harvard in favor of combat in Vietnam. The alternatives of a flight to Canada or a moral stand in a U.S. jail were too unpopular.

He has since explored the definitions of courage -- moral, physical, political -- in his fiction, a body of work that has, at least until recently, dealt almost exclusively with America's most unpopular war and its domestic consequences. His first book, If I Die in a Combat Zone, Box Me Up and Ship Me Home looked at the war through a collection of war vignettes that he had written for newspapers in his home state of Minnesota, and his second book was a novel, Northern Lights, that he later decried as overly long and Hemingwayesque -- almost a parody of the writer's war stories.

His third book, Going After Cacciato in 1978 does not suffer such criticism from the author. Or, for that matter, from the critics. Grace Paley praised the novel -- which follows the journey of a soldier who goes AWOL from Vietnam and walks to Paris -- as "imaginative" in The New York Times. And the book became a breakthrough critical success for O'Brien, the start of a series that would give him the unofficial title as our pre-eminent Vietnam storyteller. Cacciato even won the prestigious National Book Award for fiction in 1979, beating out John Irving's The World According to Garp.

"Going After Cacciato taunts us with many faces and angles of vision," Catherine Calloway wrote in the 1990 book America Rediscovered: Critical Essays on Literature and Film of the Vietnam War. "The protagonist Paul Berlin cannot distinguish between what is real and what is imagined in the war just as the reader cannot differentiate between what is real and what is imagined in the novel... Paul Berlin is forced, as is the reader, into an attempt to distinguish between illusion and reality and in doing so creates a continuous critical dialogue between himself and the world around him."

Born in Austin, Minn., to an insurance salesman and schoolteacher, O'Brien grew up as a voracious reader but didn't find the courage to write until his experiences in Vietnam. After the war, he studied at the Harvard University's School of Government and was a staff reporter at The Washington Post in the early 1970s. He writes from early in the morning until the evening and has a reputation for discarding long passages of writing because he finds the effort substandard. He also can do extensive revisions of his books between editions.

His follow-up to Cacciato, 1981's The Nuclear Age, had a draft dodger find his fortune in the uranium business though he is consistently plagued by dreams of nuclear annihilation. Critics labeled it a misstep. But his subsequent effort, The Things They Carried, a collection of short stories about Vietnam, reaffirmed his reputation as a Vietnam observer. "By moving beyond the horror of the fighting to examine with sensitivity and insight the nature of courage and fear, by questioning the role that imagination plays in helping to form our memories and our own versions of truth, he places The Things They Carried high up on the list of best fiction about any war," The New York Times said in March of 1990. And his next novel, In the Lake of the Woods, another Vietnam effort, won the top spot on Time's roster of fiction for 1994.

In Lake, Minnesota politician John Wade, whose career has suffered a major setback with the revelation of his participation in the notorious My Lai massacre from the Vietnam War, retreats to his cabin with wife Kathy, who later disappears. The Times Literary Supplement said it was perhaps his "bleakest novel yet" and that "the most chilling passages are not those which deal with guns and gore in Vietnam but those set in Minnesota many years later, revealing a people at ease but never at peace." Pico Lyer, writing in Time, said "O'Brien manages what he does best, which is to find the boy scout in the foot soldier, and the foot soldier in every reader."

O'Brien's more recent efforts -- his sexual comedy of manners Tomcat in Love and July, July, which centers on a high-school reunion of the Vietnam set -- have not received the high praise of his earlier efforts. But O'Brien has said he is not writing for the critics, noting that Moby Dick was loathed upon its release.

"I don't get too excited about bad reviews or good ones," he told Contemporary Literature in 1991. "I feel happy if they're good, feel sad if they're bad, but the feelings disappear pretty quickly, because ultimately I'm not writing for my contemporaries but for the ages, like every good writer should be. You're writing for history, in the hope that your book -- out of the thousands that are published each year -- might be the last to be read a hundred years from now and enjoyed."

Good To Know

O'Brien was stationed in the setting of the infamous My Lai massacre a year after it occurred.

His father wrote personal accounts of World War II for The New York Times.

O'Brien's book The Things They Carried was a contender as Washington D.C. looked in 2002 to find a book for its campaign to have the entire city simultaneously reading the same book.

    1. Also Known As:
      William Timothy O’Brien
    1. Date of Birth:
      October 1, 1946
    2. Place of Birth:
      Austin, Minnesota
    1. Education:
      B.A., Macalester College, 1968; Graduate study at Harvard University

Table of Contents

The Things They Carried Love Spin On the Rainy River Enemies Friends How to Tell a True War Story The Dentist Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong Stockings Church The Man I Killed Ambush Style Speaking of Courage Notes In the Field Good Form Field Trip The Ghost Soldiers Night Life The Lives of the Dead

Foreward

1. Why is the first story, "The Things They Carried," written in third person? How does this serve to introduce the rest of the novel? What effect did it have on your experience of the novel when O'Brien switched to first person, and you realized the narrator was one of the soldiers?

2. In the list of all the things the soldiers carried, what item was most surprising? Which item did you find most evocative of the war? Which items stay with you?

3. In "On The Rainy River," we learn the 21-year-old O'Brien's theory of courage: "Courage, I seemed to think, comes to us in finite quantities, like an inheritance, and by being frugal and stashing it away and letting it earn interest, we steadily increase our moral capital in preparation for that day when the account must be drawn down. It was a comforting theory." What might the 43-year-old O'Brien's theory of courage be? Were you surprised when he described his entry into the Vietnam War as an act of cowardice? Do you agree that a person could enter a war as an act of cowardice?

4. What is the role of shame in the lives of these soldiers? Does it drive them to acts of heroism, or stupidity? Or both? What is the relationship between shame and courage, according to O'Brien?

5. Often, in the course of his stories, O'Brien tells us beforehand whether or not the story will have a happy or tragic ending. Why might he do so? How does it affect your attitude towards the narrator?

6. According to O'Brien, how do you tell a true war story? What does he mean when he says that true war stories are never about war? What does he mean when he writes of one story, "That's a true storythat never happened"?

7. In "Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong," what transforms Mary Anne into a predatory killer? Does it matter that Mary Anne is a woman? How so? What does the story tell us about the nature of the Vietnam War?

8. The story Rat tells in "Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong" is highly fantastical. Does its lack of believability make it any less compelling? Do you believe it? Does it fit O'Brien's criteria for a true war story?

9. Aside from "The Things They Carried," "Speaking of Courage" is the only other story written in third person. Why are these stories set apart in this manner? What does the author achieve by doing so?

10. What is the effect of "Notes," in which O'Brien explains the story behind "Speaking Of Courage"? Does your appreciation of the story change when you learn which parts are "true" and which are the author's invention?

11. In "In The Field," O'Brien writes, "When a man died, there had to be blame." What does this mandate do to the men of O'Brien's company? Are they justified in thinking themselves at fault? How do they cope with their own feelings of culpability?

12. In "Good Form," O'Brien casts doubt on the veracity of the entire novel. Why does he do so? Does it make you more or less interested in the novel? Does it increase or decrease your understanding? What is the difference between "happening-truth" and "story-truth?"

13. On the copyright page of the novel appears the following: "This is a work of fiction. Except for a few details regarding the author's own life, all the incidents, names, and characters are imaginary." How does this statement affect your reading of the novel?

14. Does your opinion of O'Brien change throughout the course of the novel? How so? How do you feel about his actions in "The Ghost Soldiers"?

15. "The Ghost Soldiers" is one of the only stories of The Things They Carried in which we don't know the ending in advance. Why might O'Brien want this story to be particularly suspenseful?

Reading Group Guide

1. Why is the first story, "The Things They Carried, " written in third person? How does this serve to introduce the rest of the novel? What effect did it have on your experience of the novel when O'Brien switched to first person, and you realized the narrator was one of the soldiers?

2. In the list of all the things the soldiers carried, what item was most surprising? Which item did you find most evocative of the war? Which items stay with you?

3. In "On The Rainy River, " we learn the 21-year-old O'Brien's theory of courage: "Courage, I seemed to think, comes to us in finite quantities, like an inheritance, and by being frugal and stashing it away and letting it earn interest, we steadily increase our moral capital in preparation for that day when the account must be drawn down. It was a comforting theory." What might the 43-year-old O'Brien's theory of courage be? Were you surprised when he described his entry into the Vietnam War as an act of cowardice? Do you agree that a person could enter a war as an act of cowardice?

4. What is the role of shame in the lives of these soldiers? Does it drive them to acts of heroism, or stupidity? Or both? What is the relationship between shame and courage, according to O'Brien?

5. Often, in the course of his stories, O'Brien tells us beforehand whether or not the story will have a happy or tragic ending. Why might he do so? How does it affect your attitude towards the narrator?

6. According to O'Brien, how do you tell a true war story? What does he mean when he says that true war stories are never about war? What does he mean when he writes of one story, "That's a true storythat never happened"?

7. In "Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong, " what transforms Mary Anne into a predatory killer? Does it matter that Mary Anne is a woman? How so? What does the story tell us about the nature of the Vietnam War?

8. The story Rat tells in "Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong" is highly fantastical. Does its lack of believability make it any less compelling? Do you believe it? Does it fit O'Brien's criteria for a true war story?

9. Aside from "The Things They Carried, " "Speaking of Courage" is the only other story written in third person. Why are these stories set apart in this manner? What does the author achieve by doing so?

10. What is the effect of "Notes, " in which O'Brien explains the story behind "Speaking Of Courage"? Does your appreciation of the story change when you learn which parts are "true" and which are the author's invention?

11. In "In The Field, " O'Brien writes, "When a man died, there had to be blame." What does this mandate do to the men of O'Brien's company? Are they justified in thinking themselves at fault? How do they cope with their own feelings of culpability?

12. In "Good Form, " O'Brien casts doubt on the veracity of the entire novel. Why does he do so? Does it make you more or less interested in the novel? Does it increase or decrease your understanding? What is the difference between "happening-truth" and "story-truth?"

13. On the copyright page of the novel appears the following: "This is a work of fiction. Except for a few details regarding the author's own life, all the incidents, names, and characters are imaginary." How does this statement affect your reading of the novel?

14. Does your opinion of O'Brien change throughout the course of the novel? How so? How do you feel about his actions in "The Ghost Soldiers"?

15. "The Ghost Soldiers" is one of the only stories of The Things They Carried in which we don't know the ending in advance. Why might O'Brien want this story to be particularly suspenseful?

Customer Reviews
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  • Anonymous

    Posted November 24, 2009

    I Also Recommend:

    The Things I Think

    The author, Tim O'Brien who is also the protagonist, begins his novel by describing an event that occurred in the middle of his war experience in Vietnam. In "The Things They Carried" Tim O'Brien describes what his fellow soldiers in the Alpha Company took with them on their missions both mentally and physically. Many things they brought with them are intangible, while others are physical objects, including matches, morphine, M-16 rifles, and M&M's which he seems to focus on the amounts of each of them.

    Throughout the novel, he mentions many characters multiple times in various stories which are often partially true and meta-fiction. The first member of the Alpha Company to die is Ted Lavender,a low-ranking soldier who they refer to as a "Grunt." Lavender is a man who has found tranquilizers and marijuana the only way to relieve his anxiety and fix his problems. He is shot in the head on his way back from going to the bathroom, and when his leader, Lieutenant Jimmy Cross, finds out of his death he blames himself for Lavender's unnecessary and tragic death. When Lavender is shot, Cross is deep in his thoughts of his college crush, Martha. O'Brien writes about how Cross's "love" for Martha was the cause of Lavender's death and he still holds his guilt years after the war has ended. O'Brien continues on describing the events he was involved in, and then goes into each of them describing how his fellow comrades and sometimes himself reacts, and attempts to overcome them. He uses somewhat real stories to describe how tough it is for a man to be in a situation like what he was in, meta-fiction suggesting that no real story can describe what it was like. These problems that were presented to O'Brien and his fellow soldiers in the Vietnam War changed all of their lives. The war changed them to such a point that every day, every moment of their lives yet to come will never be like before the war. O'Brien tells of others and how they have attempted to overcome their problems which are the same or similar to his. He seems to attempt to use their methods in hopes that they will fix his problems and he will be able to return to his life before he was given no choice but to head to war. O'Brien was led into a room with no way out, he is stuck carrying what he was carrying at the end of his experience in Vietnam and he is striving to find a way to get it off of his shoulders and find a better mental state. This novel could be thought of as a way that Tim O'Brien used to share his thoughts and feelings of the war and his post traumatic stress disorder.

    Overall, this is an excellent novel. It is a great "thinker" book and is not a typical easy read for a High School student like myself. It is very fun to read, but it is also very difficult to read which would be one, if not my only dislike of this book. This book would be great to read because it gives you an excellent point of view from a veterans perspective; this novel shows a true veteran and what it is like to be one. An overall rating of five stars, a great book that brings satisfaction and difficulty at the same time.

    4 out of 5 people found this review helpful.

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  • Posted March 25, 2010

    Awsome Book

    I had to read this book for an Americna Literature Class during my undergraduate studies, and I loved it. Tim O'Brien kept me wanting to come back for more. The detail he uses describing the settings and events as they unfold will captivate you. The litteral and figural things they carry are so well explained by O'Brien. Deffinetly a must read for any Veteran or history lover.

    3 out of 3 people found this review helpful.

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  • Posted September 24, 2009

    Great Book

    I had to read this book as a summer assignment for english class. At first i thought it was another depressing war story, but upon further study and better understanding of the book i have come to appreaciate all the little details that make this a wonderful book. This book has also made me come to realize the little things that matter most in life, especially in such an extreme situation as war.

    3 out of 3 people found this review helpful.

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  • Posted April 2, 2010

    A Truly Remarkable Read

    I read this book only because O'Brien was coming to my school to speak. I cannot be happier that this occurred! This book was nothing short of AMAZING, a truly remarkable read. The novel is essentially a series of interconnected short stories about a group of soldiers in Vietnam. My uncle was a Vietnam veteran, and he told me the book was about as good as they got when dealing with the subject matter (perhaps given to the fact O'Brien himself is a Vietnam veteran). I have encountered few books required by school that have made their way into my top-faves list. This one, I must say, is in at least spot three if not two. I cannot wait to read more by O'Brien and I hope he never stops writing!

    2 out of 2 people found this review helpful.

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  • Posted March 24, 2010

    more from this reviewer

    I Also Recommend:

    An Insightful and Captivating View of the Inner and Outer Struggles of Soliders in the Vietnam War

    This book is offers a complex, poignant look at the life of a soldier, both in the war and after. The main character is named Tim (not the author of the book). Tim tells the story of his troop, the adventures they experience, and the personalities of all the men. Each story represents a chapter, making it easy to read. The point of view varies with each story. Although it is technically a work of fiction, I found this book gave me a lot of food for thought regarding the inner struggles of soldiers in Vietnam, not only during the war itself, but also the demons they faced before and after. If this time in American History fascinates you, or you simply enjoy Historical Fiction, do give this one a try.

    1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

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  • Posted March 11, 2010

    A book that will stay with you for years...

    When this book was assigned in high school, I was unaware of the amazing treat which I was going to receive. This is a well written series of short stories revolving around a group of soldiers in the Vietnam war. Though the author admits that the stories are based on truth, he always makes the reader question whether the truths of humanity are based in fact or fiction. The characters are believable, and the story flows smoothly despite it's fragmented nature. While many focus on the setting of Vietnam and think of the story being about war, the story is more focused on the men and what makes them who they are. This book is often required reading, but is an enjoyable and life-changing experience.

    1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

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  • Posted March 3, 2010

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    Powerful thoughts on the experience of war

    This book has a lot to offer for war veterans who seek to find literature which captures the experience of war. However I myself am not a war veteran I am a 20 year old female college student and I fell in love with this book because of how it can capture the truth with fiction. This book is worth reading if you are a person who loves literature and reading about human experiences.

    1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

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  • Posted February 3, 2010

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    WOW - Could not put this down!

    'The Things They Carried' is one of the best books I have read in a long time. I just fell in love with Tim O'Brien style of writing. Each chapter was a different story. I had never read anything about wars and I really went into this book knowing nothing about Vietnam. It taught me so much about the war even though it was not about the war perse. I realized how young the men were that were drafted and how frightened they were when they were drafted. It really opened my eyes to how families were affected by this war before and after. I absoluteley loved the story about the soldier shipping his girlriend over to Vietnam. 'The Things They Carried' finds a good balance of comedic wit from the soldiers yet is extremely powerful and dramatic.

    1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

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  • Posted December 23, 2009

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    I Also Recommend:

    The best war novel

    I have read many war novels. This book tops all of them. It is so well written and the stories hold you to each page. A tough book to put down. The stories are realistic with no hero complex added to it to make it sound great and patriotic. It is real and humbles you making you realize the torture soldiers go through on a daily basis. i would like to thank Tim O'Brien for bringing this in the open in his book. I would recommend it to anyone

    1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

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  • Posted July 14, 2009

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    I Also Recommend:

    My All-Time Favourite Book

    After discovering The Perks of Being a Walflower by Steven Chbosky, I went straight to Arthur Nersesian's The F*ck Up, which were both incredible novels and were quintessentially the kinds of books that I loved to read. The Things They Carried, though a completely different sort of work, evoked the same kind of "voice" as The F*ck Up and 'Perks. I loved O'Brien's piece when it was a short story, which would ultimately become the first chapter of the novel; then to find out that it had been expanded into a full novel, I practically ran to my bookstore to get it. O'Brien's writing is so evocative and poignant, it's incredible sometimes that it doesn't collapse under its own weight. It just shows the reader his skill. I'm currently searching through some of his other works to see which one I'd like to start next, but this is something any fan of literature would want to sit down with. It just a pleasure reading.

    1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted January 31, 2012

    Great writing and good story.

    Tim O'Brien lets the things his characters carry give a tale of who they are and why those items motivated them in their journey. Rich character deveopment. Great book!

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  • Anonymous

    Posted January 31, 2012

    Tried to write like non fiction but really failed..

    We all know war is horrific and cruel, but why insert animal cruelty if you’re writing fiction? Puppy dogs strapped on claymores, Baby VC water buffalo (must have had a VC Brand) I stopped reading when the sweet little 17 YO girl managed to hitch hike into the middle of the war then go rouge in fhe Viet Nam jungle.

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  • Posted January 23, 2012

    A good book

    This was a quick, intense read. I loved the beginning, but had some trouble following the stories and keeping them straight(which I assume was part of the point of the writing style). All things considered, it's well worth your time.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted January 16, 2012

    Really good

    This is one of the best books ever

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  • Anonymous

    Posted January 5, 2012

    Great!

    This book is fantastic. O'Brien does a wonderful job of recording his personal experiences in Vietnam and weaving them into a not so typical, typical war story. When you start the book you think it's going to be one thing but by the end it's actually something else completely, and it transitions smoothly. There is so much to learn from this book, about the war and those who fought it and the affects it had on them.Among my favorite books ever.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted December 25, 2011

    The things they carried by tim o'brian

    The book is about a marine solider who is away from his "lover" back home and he keeps all of his "non love letters" in the botom of his rucksack in his foxhole.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted November 26, 2011

    Read It

    Read it now.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted November 18, 2011

    Highly Recommend!

    Definitely must read.

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  • Posted October 31, 2011

    Incredible account of one mans experience of war

    Just absolutely written perfectly. Loved it.

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  • Posted October 24, 2011

    more from this reviewer

    I Also Recommend:

    Beautifully written

    This book was a beautiful account of one man's view of the war he fought in, the Vietnam War, as well as the people he fought alongside and against. O'Brien gives us lots to think about, covering many controversial topics in a way that can only be descibed as masterful in this brilliant book. There aren't many people who could have written a beautiful war story, but O'Brien did it.

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