The Things They Carried: First Impressions

On the cover of my version of the novel, there’s a quote from the New York Times: “A marvel of storytelling…[The Things They Carried] matters not only to the reader interested in Vietnam but to anyone interested in the craft of writing as well.” Sounds like the perfect selection for this class then, huh? Perhaps that’s why Krysz was jumping up and down with excitement when talking about it. Indeed, Tim O’Brien masters a writing style that is simple enough for someone off the street to read yet engaging enough to attract fellow writers. And all the while we’re getting a first-hand glimpse of life as a U.S. soldier in Vietnam. Like Sarah mentioned in her post, the novel does seem to have a quality of being like a “therapy session.” In my words, I would call this the diary-like aspect of the story: O’Brien seems to be talking to his readers as if they were his friends, as if a diarist would write in his diary. At the same time however, as the quote states, a lot of the novel is storytelling. Therefore, we find a balance between the feelings that would be found in a diary and the plot that is found in a novel. And while Borders and Barnes and Nobles refer to this book as fiction, we also must take into account that this is a work of fiction from a writer who was actually over in Vietnam, who is actually a middle-aged man now living in America. Thus, I find O’Brien’s credibility as a writer higher than many others because he was a witness to the war.