Table of Contents
The Things They Carried Book
Twenty years after his assigment to Vietnam War Tim O’Brien still carrying memories and other psycholgical effects from that war.
The memories that also haunting most of the veterans, especially the veterans of Vietnam War.
Regardless to carry his things alone, Tim O’Brien shared it by written his story and experiences from the war.
This book published in March 28, 1990 by Hougnton Mifflin consisting 21 parts or chapters with 233 pages.
The setting of this book is Batangan Peninsula, Vietnam where Tim and his mates at Company A, 3rd Platoon of 5th Batallion, operated.
Why We Should Read The Things They Carried?
Beside The Things They Carried, Tim O’Brien also wrote the other books about Vietnam War like If I Die in Combat Zone, Box Me Up and Ship Me Home and Going After Cacciato, but The Things They Carried is his masterpiece.
It’s sold over 2 millions copies in this planet and won several award such as France’s Prix du Meilleur Livre Estranger and The Chicago Tribune Heartland Prize.
It’s also nominated to win Pulitzer Prize, the most outstanding award for literature.
This book also included in 100 books to Read in a Lifetime by Amazon.com.
The Things They Carried Quotes
The Things They Carried Quotes About Truth
The whole atmosphere, they carried it, the humidity, the monsoons, the stink of fungus and decay, all of it, they carried gravity.
What sticks to memory, often, are those odd little fragments that have no beginning and no end.
I was a coward. I went to the war.
A thing may happen and be a total lie; another thing may not happen and be truer than the truth.
How he had been braver than he ever thought possible, but how he had not been so brave as he wanted to be.
But in a story I can steal her soul.
But the thing about remembering is that you don’t forget.
It was very sad, he thought. The things men carried inside. The things men did or felt they had to do.
Certain blood was being shed for uncertain reasons.
They carried all they could bear, and then some, including a silent awe for the terrible power of the things they carried.
Tim O’brien The Things They Carried Quotes
You can’t fix your mistakes.
A lot like yesterday, a lot like never.
Stories are for eternity, when memory is erased, when there is nothing to remember except the story.
Once people are dead, you can’t make them undead.
And as a writer now, I want to save Linda’s life. Not her body her life.
I want you to feel what I felt. I want you to know why story-truth is truer sometimes than happening-truth.
It wasn’t a question of deceit. Just the opposite; he wanted to heat up the truth, to make it burn so hot that you would feel exactly what he felt.
But in a story, which is a type of dreaming, the dead sometimes smile and sit up and return to the world.
I survived, but it’s not a happy ending.
It was very sad, he thought. The things men carried inside. The things men did or felt they had to do.
The Things They Carried Quotes About War
What stories can do, I guess, is make things present.
you’re never more alive than when you’re almost dead.
When you’re afraid, really afraid, you see things you never saw before, you pay attention to the world.
In war you lose your sense of the definite, hence your sense of truth itself, and therefore it’s safe to say that in a war story nothing is ever absolutely true.
But in a story, which is a kind of dreaming, the dead sometimes smile and sit up and return to the world.
You become part of a tribe and you share the same blood- you give it together, you take it together.
They were afraid of dieing, but they were even more afraid to show it.
stories can save us.
War is hell, but that’s not the half of it, because war is also mystery and terror and adventure and courage and discovery and holiness and pity and despair and longing and love.
Imagination is a killer.
Interesting Facts About The Things They Carried
Just like the other story, this book also consisting several interesting facts that made this book more readable.
Before this book published in 1990, some of the story inside has published in Esquire magazine. He also reuse Going After Cacciato in this publication.
Several story or chapter inside this book has adapted into film, theater, and music.
The most popular is Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong which adapted into A Soldier’s Sweetheart movie
Tim O’Brien has consider to refused the assigment to Vietnam by fleeing to Canada but change his mind shortly before crossing the border.