Wednesday, July 30, 2014
Kassidy Hopkins- The Things They Carried
I chose to read The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien. I was a little nervous about reading this, since book reviews revealed that it is about war, and I am not really a fan of studying war. To my surprise, this was a very well written book, and showed me a different perspective, not on the concept of war, but on the people that are fighting them. In this book, the author tells various war stories from the perspectives of different soldiers, including himself. At one point, he even tells things through the perspective of an innocent Vietnamese man, who was killed on his first day as a soldier. The reason this book is so powerful despite its small number of pages is that the author allows the reader to see that many of these soldiers are terrified, and young. Some as young as 18, they are drafted into this war with no choice, leaving their family behind and living amongst the atrocities of war, and reliving the pain throughout the rest of their lives. A main theme within the book is the idea of stories - true ones and made up ones - and that they are all true, in the light that they are real to the person telling the story. The author doesn't stick to one plot, rather, he tells multiple stories from different soldiers that he knew. This further exemplifies the idea that each soldier carries a story with him. The war is one object, but the people within it, have things that they carry with them, things that bring them peace and things that bring them grief. Normally, I would not like a book that doesn't have a clear plot, and at times it got a bit frustrating and confusing. However, this book was a very enjoyable read, as it was emotionally stimulating and eye opening.
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4 comments:
Jaclyn Weinell- This seems like a very interesting book, with an unusual take on war and a strange plot structure. I liked your insight into the main theme, which really helped to explain the title of the book. The idea of the perspectives from many different soldiers, all with important stories, the things they carried, was intriguing. It is also interesting that a book about war would take this focus on stories; it appears that the author was trying to record this collection of accounts that would have otherwise been lost, and it is clear that he found the individual perspectives of seemingly unimportant people quite significant.
Zachary Durrett - When reading your comment, it made me think about the book I read, Wag the Dog, which has a minor emphasis on the importance of propaganda. It mentions at one point that it doesn't matter if the story is real, as long as the audience is influenced by the purpose. This is what propaganda is at least half the time: a made-up viewpoint to influence those watching to help their cause. Beyond that, there are sometimes the gem that is a real story that surfaces as propaganda. Unfortunately, those are not always as powerful, because they are real, and people aren't seeing what they want to see out of a war story. The telling of a story requires a lot of thought, into what story you want to tell, and what viewpoint to tell it from. These all affect the desired outcome. If the story of the Vietnamese man was told from the point of the person that shot him, (I assume that's what happened) then you would see the Vietnamese man as a necessary death and the (probably American) other man as a hero.
Naomi Belay - I really liked how Tim O'Brien told some of the stories from different perspectives, especially in the perspective of the Vietnamese soldier. I felt that he showed respect to the Vietnamese man by depicting himself as the one in the wrong as opposed to the Vietnamese soldier. The way that Tim O'Brien had given us an insight to the Viet soldier who had only been in the wrong place at the wrong time who had never wanted to be in the war. I think it was kind of cool how in a way it shows a link between the soldier he had killed and Tim O'Brien himself. Neither of them had ever wanted to fight this war, they just wanted to go to college and live a normal life; but they were both too afraid to let down their family and lose respect.
Victoria Lanter: The Things They Carried Saturday 8/23
I really appreciated this book in the way i was forced to try to understand each character. It was slightly easier connecting to some characters then others but i think that is just because of the separate stories and the things i could relate over others. The Things They Carried was a tale of war and what each soldiers 'baggage' was, whether it be literal or metaphorical.
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