This book is definitely one of war. Through the first 86 pages a few stories are told. The author and narrator of the novel, Tim O’Brien, fought in Vietnam, which is the setting around where this book takes place.
The novel starts out by giving a few stories. The first chapter, however, just consisted of telling readers what things the soldiers carried, hence the name of the title. A variety of objects from pictures to drugs are listed. The soldiers can be characterized by the things that they carry. For example, Sgt. Cross, a main character, carries two pictures of the woman he loves, Martha. This tells us that he is a very passionate man and truly loves her. Though his love is requited, he still hopes that she will one day return his intense feelings. During battle he finds it hard to concentrate and finds himself daydreaming about her. All this is brought up from two little pictures.
There is also a great deal of philosophy involved in this book, which I found to be very surprising. One of the questions that is brought up is how to tell if a war story is true or not? O’Brien claims in the book that he can truthfully tell this daughter that he’s killed a man, but also truthfully tell her that he’s never killed anyone. The novel is much more complex and abstract than I thought it would be. It’s abstract in that its not written chronologically, in the very beginning you’re in the war, then you’re 20 years later reminiscing about it, and then next chapter, you’re back in the war. A soldier named Ted Lavender is killed in the first part of the book and then he is seen in a later chapter, which obviously is very bizarre. This book looks to be very interesting, promising, and different and I look forward to reading it.
1 response so far ↓
1 Wasserman // Feb 28, 2007 at 9:31 pm
Glad you’re digging the book. To me, it raises a lot of questions about why people write, how they tell stories, etc. Way deep. I think I’ve read it more times than any other book I own, with the exception of maybe Macbeth.
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