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The Things They Carried (Flamingo) (Paperback)

by Tim O'Brien (Author) "First Lieutenant Jimmy Cross carried letters from a girl named Martha, a junior at Mount Sebastian College in New Jersey ..." (more)
4.9 out of 5 stars See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
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Product details

  • Paperback: 256 pages
  • Publisher: Flamingo; New Ed edition (25 Jul 1991)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0006543944
  • ISBN-13: 978-0006543947
  • Product Dimensions: 19.6 x 12.8 x 2.2 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 23,051 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

    Popular in this category:

    #1 in  Books > Fiction > Authors, A-Z > O > O'Brien, Tim

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Product Description

Synopsis
A sequence of stories about the Vietnam War, this book also has the unity of a novel, with recurring characters and interwoven strands of plot and theme. It aims to summarize America's involvement in Vietnam, and her coming to terms with that experience in the years that followed.
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First Lieutenant Jimmy Cross carried letters from a girl named Martha, a junior at Mount Sebastian College in New Jersey. Read the first page
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The Things They Carried (Flamingo)
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The Things They Carried (Flamingo) 4.9 out of 5 stars (11)
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11 Reviews
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4.9 out of 5 stars (11 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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28 of 28 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Vietnam, seen backwards, 6 Dec 2000
By A Customer
The Things They Carried was written several years after O'Brien was a 'grunt' there. It's written consciously retrospectively, and as such, it's not autobiography; rather, it's a distillation of his experiences before, during, and since Vietnam. Paradoxically, O'Brien making (fictionalised) stories of what he and others witnessed makes the experience more 'true' than just retelling them. Truth for him is faithfully reproducing sensation and emotion in a reader, not retelling events chronologically or even logically; Primo Levi's famous quotation about Anne Frank came to mind. O'Brien is interested in the impact war has on *love*, not just *life*, and that's the genius of this work: it's a love story about Vietnam. I've read it a dozen times now and it still makes me want to cry and rejoice all at the same time.
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25 of 25 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars An amazing book, 6 Jul 2005
By Terence Herlz (Essen, Germany) - See all my reviews
THE THINGS THEY CARRIED is a powerful memoir in the form of a collection of short stories about the haunting life of Tim O'Brien and a company of soldiers in Vietnam.
The Things They Carried was a thought-provoking and inspirational book. This highly vivid description of the Vietnam War kept me reading through the night until the last page. I am not a big reader but once I picked up this book I was reading for hours! This book gives a taste of Vietnam for those who were not there. The interesting thing about this book is that it tells the true life of the soldiers giving us a better idea of what the soldiers went, and what war really is. One comes close to understanding how the feelings from going to war, leaving their families behind them, losing loved friends, killing another man, and how the pathetic nature of the foods and sleeping conditions; all traumas of war that can change a human being forever.

If you like war novels, then this is a must read. Even if you don't like war books and think they're all the same, read this and you will reconsider. One thing for sure is that you will appreciate the style of writing and the way it makes you think. You still get to laugh despite the deaths and destructions. The soldiers seem to taunt life with life and death games. Written with a deep message and in a manner similar to CHEKHOV AND TISI JANVIER, this anthology of related short stories about the Vietnam War portrays men who faced their fears, confronted danger, came out alive but became scarred for life.

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20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars BRUTAL HONESTY, 15 Jan 2002
The first thing that grabbed me about O'Brien's collection of short stories about the Vietnam war, was the stark realism. This is an exploration of the human condition rather than a war story per se. O'Brien's prose is lathered with irony and a distinct sense of hopelessness pervades his eloquent narrative. Emotions are laid bare, and the psychological turmoil caused by the war itself are presented with veracity and aplomb. This is realism of the highest order. Simply brilliant
billy proctor
sunderland
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars The Things They Carried
`The Things They Carried' is a book about the Vietnam war that is both profoundly moving and emotionally devastating. Read more
Published 5 months ago by Spider Monkey

5.0 out of 5 stars Possibly one of the very best...
A truly, truly remarkable collection of short stories. I am not generally a short story reader, but the title so intrigued me I had to give it a go. I was stunned. Read more
Published 16 months ago by Danny

5.0 out of 5 stars Truer as Fiction
Is it possible to be honest when the truth is unknown, and which truth anyway would we choose to tell if we knew it? Read more
Published 24 months ago by David Wright

5.0 out of 5 stars Funny as well as sad
Somewhere between a short story collection and a novel, somewhere between fiction and memories is Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried, a wonderful book about a terrible war... Read more
Published on 19 April 2007 by B. Gudmundsson

4.0 out of 5 stars Not just a collection of short stories
Like his equally gripping 'In the Lake of the Woods', 'The Things They Carried' is an insightful and touching examination of the man at war. Read more
Published on 29 Sep 2000

5.0 out of 5 stars Not just a war novel; also shows innovation in storytelling
I first heard about this book through TV. An actor read the story "The Things They Carried," performed it, really, and I was hooked. Read more
Published on 19 Feb 1999

5.0 out of 5 stars A book that will change your outlook on life
This book should be read by anyone who wants abetter understanding of human nature. It teaches us about war, the wars that every humanfights both externally and internally. Read more
Published on 2 April 1998

5.0 out of 5 stars I actually rate this a 100! The best book I've ever read.
O'Brien deftly blurs the line between reality and fiction by first reminding us that this book is a work of fiction and then telling us a story supposedly from his real life... Read more
Published on 1 Dec 1997

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