The Things They Carried
The Things They Carried is a compilation of short stories written by Tim O’Brien, a Vietnam veteran. It begins by literally itemizing what the soldiers in his platoon carried, along with the weight of those objects. O’Brien also includes more abstract, unweighable yet still burdensome concepts like fear, awe, power, and memory. That’s some heavy shit.
When I bought this novel, I knew I was getting a war book. I figured it would involve guns, camouflage, and stressed-out men occasionally running around and yelling code words. Sure, it’s a story involving war…but more importantly, it’s a book about being a human. When O’Brien was drafted, he felt his conscription was way out of line. At the time, he was the student body president of Macalester College with an acceptance letter to graduate school at Harvard in his possession. And while he dreaded the idea of being forced to participate in any war, he saw America’s involvement in Vietnam particularly unsettling. There was an ambiguity to the combat abroad, and in his view, “you don’t make war without knowing why” (O’Brien, 38). As a result, he makes a compelling argument that succumbing to the draft was actually an act of cowardice. Men thought that triumphantly blazing into battle was emblematic of their bravery. According to O’Brien, in reality, “men killed and died because they were embarrassed not to…they died so as not to die of embarrassment” (O’Brien, 20). It would damage their pride and bring their family shame to attempt and avoid the war; so instead, many men marched forward and passively accepted their fate, even if it ended in their death. He brings to light an interesting perspective that boils down to basic psychology: why do people do what they do even if they don’t want to do it?
His psych session continues when he exposes how his unit coped with the more gruesome aspects of their missions. When people died, or if they were stuck in uncomfortable circumstances, there was a gripping need to slough it off with humor to ease the tension. O’Brien likened the war to a Ping-Pong ball. There were ways to spin it to make it more bearable—put a twist on the thing to make it dance in your favor (O’Brien, 31). I am exceptionally good at Ping-Pong but I would not last a day in combat (humblebrag).
O’Brien also surprised me by giving lessons on the craft of writing. When he returned to America, writing served as a crucial tool for navigating post-war life. Telling his stories was a cathartic endeavor that enabled him to healthily process all that he had witnessed. Seems perfectly normal—a veteran looking for ways to understand his experiences. But O’Brien—being the brilliant author that he is—approaches these experiences in a much more roundabout way. He holds an interesting conception of “truth” in which he occasionally implants lies within his stories, “making up a few things to get at the real truth” (O’Brien, 81). Sometimes they are little white lies; sometimes they are big, glaring ones. Sometimes he discloses to the reader what is factual and what is not; sometimes he keeps us guessing. This aberrant method is not about deception; rather, it is an effort to more accurately recreate specific sensations.
Up until now, the short stories I have written have been conceived amidst a binary framework. I think fiction vs. nonfiction; what happened vs. what did not. Novels like Ham on Rye and The Rum Diary test the boundaries by meshing actual events with imaginative elements. This novel takes a step further; some plots and some characters are entirely invented in order to make the reader feel as O’Brien truly felt in battle. Sometimes remote recognition is insufficient. Sometimes we need to be lied to in order to empathize. But for him, the end goal is always clarity.
Generally, I do not like to be lied to. If I catch you in a fib, I expect an Edible Arrangement (heavy on the pineapple) and a Starbucks gift card. In this case, I’ll make an exception. O’Brien is a liar because he wants to tell the truth. And that is goddamn beautiful. His creativity alone earns this novel 5 out of 5 flames. He also uses the word “humping” as a common war-term for carrying and I find that comical because apparently, I’m a thirteen-year-old boy. If I had written this novel, it’d be called The Things They Humped and it’d be much less poetic.
If you enjoyed this review, please consider purchasing this book from my Amazon Associates link: https://amzn.to/2T0g6N9. The commissions I receive from your purchase help pay for the costs of running this website. Thanks for your support!
